Long Play 2023

LONG PLAY FESTIVAL
Friday, May 5 – Sunday, May 7, 2023
Long Play is Bang on a Can’s Supercharged Musical Ride through Right Now
 50+ concerts throughout Brooklyn, New York

SAVE THE DATE FOR THE NEXT LONG PLAY: MAY 2-5, 2024!

Shows

Meredith Monk's MEMORY GAME

Fri, May 5 8:00pm
Pioneer Works
159 Pioneer St, Brooklyn, NY 11231

Pioneer Works website

Bang on a Can All-Stars with Meredith Monk & Vocal Ensemble
(co-presented with The Town Hall at Pioneer Works)

Meredith Monk’s work crosses so many boundaries she has had to invent her own way of making it, her own way of teaching it, and her own way of training a generation of singers and performers in how to perform it with her.  The Bang on a Can All-Stars have been working with Meredith for decades now and they designed (and recorded) MEMORY GAME together.

Alarm Will Sound performs Tyshawn Sorey's For George Lewis

Sat, May 6 12:30pm
Mark Morris Dance Center
3 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11217

Mark Morris

In waves of exquisite delicacy and breathtaking stasis, music super group Alarm Will Sound performs Tyshawn Sorey’s lush tribute to his mentor George Lewis.

Sō Percussion & Vân-Ánh Võ, Nathalie Joachim

Sat, May 6 1:00pm
BRIC Ballroom
647 Fulton Street Brooklyn, NY 11217

BRIC Arts Media

Sō Percussion performs with Vân-Ánh Võ; and Nathalie Joachim‘s Note to Self 

A fearless musical explorer, Vân-Ánh Võ is an award-winning performer of the 16-string đàn tranh (zither)  In addition to her mastery of the đàn tranh, she also uses the monochord (đàn bầu), bamboo xylophone (đàn t’rung), traditional drums (trống) and many other instruments to create music that blends the wonderfully unique sounds of Vietnamese instruments with other genres, and fuses deeply rooted Vietnamese musical traditions with fresh new structures and compositions.

Nathalie Joachim burst onto the music scene a few years back with her heartfelt tribute to her Haitian ancestors, Fanm d’Ayiti.  Her newer work for Sō Percussion, Note to Self sets to music the mantras she repeats to herself, in order to be the best person she can be.

greyfade showcase: JACK Quartet play Christopher Otto, Catherine Lamb, and Iannis Xenakis

Sat, May 6 1:30pm
Public Records
233 Butler Street, Brooklyn, NY 11217

Public Records

The JACK Quartet brings their trademark rigor and musical commitment to three intense new works – one by their own violinist Christopher Otto, a world premiere by Catherine Lamb, and, in honor of the hundredth anniversary of his birth, Iannis Xenakis’s scratchy masterpiece Tetras. This show is part of the greyfade label showcase at Long Play.

George Lewis in conversation: There are Black composers in the future

Sat, May 6 2:00pm
The Center for Fiction
15 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11217

Center for Fiction

There are Black composers in the future. A wide-ranging discussion of the past, present and future of contemporary music with composers George Lewis, Hannah Kendall, Jessie Cox, and music journalist Donna Lee Davidson.

This is a free event!

Philip Glass Ensemble performs Glassworks

Sat, May 6 2:30pm
Roulette Intermedium
503 Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11217

Roulette

The Philip Glass Ensemble (PGE) performs Glass’ legendary album Glassworks in its entirety for the first time! In order to create his own revolutionary music, Philip Glass first needed to create his own revolutionary ensemble.  Philip himself assembled this collection of furiously arpeggiating virtuosi, in order to embody his music, perfectly.  And they do.

In addition to Glassworks, PGE will also perform Part 8 (from Music in 12 Parts).

 

 

Jessica Moss

Sat, May 6 3:00pm
Mark Morris Dance Center
3 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11217

Mark Morris

Jessica Moss, known for her long tenure in cult agit-prop post-punk band Thee Silver Mt. Zion, is a Montréal-based violinist, composer and artist whose expanding body of unique solo works for amplified and processed violin, voice, and electronics transmit an emotive, expressive sensibility shaped by post-classical, avant-folk, noise, improv, electroacoustic, artpunk and ambient metal.

Take Off Collective

Sat, May 6 3:00pm
Littlefield
635 Sackett, Brooklyn, NY 11217

Littlefield

Ole Mathisen, Matt Garrison and Marko Djordjevic, a.k.a  Take Off Collective, are ready to win you over by placing you in the eye of a sonic hurricane! Their brand of genre unifying virtuosic storytelling through improvised music, engages the listener’s imagination.   Shifting between open-ended cinematic passages; steamroller, head-banging funk-core; faster than fast swing; and points in between, each Take Off Collective performance is a case study of what happens when music becomes a playground for new possibilities.

Ganavya & Shabaka Hutchings

Sat, May 6 3:30pm
BRIC Ballroom
647 Fulton Street Brooklyn, NY 11217

BRIC Arts Media

“Ganavya creates a lush twine out of American and South Asian traditions, and on “Aikyam: Onnu,” this vocalist and scholar’s majestic debut album, the upshot feels more like an expansive invitation than any definable hybrid. Ganavya has populated jazz standards with lyrics from Tamil poetry and songs of anticolonial resistance . . . No matter the language or the content, Ganavya’s voice is a thick ephemera, like smoke as dark as ink, just coming off the fire.” (NY Times)

Shabaka Hutchings has established himself as a central figure in the London jazz scene. Hutchings has a restlessly creative and refreshingly open-minded spirit, playing in a variety of groups—most notably, Sons of Kemet, The Comet Is Coming, and Shabaka & the Ancestors—and embracing influences from the sounds of London’s diverse club culture, including house, grime, jungle, and dub.

greyfade showcase: Greg Davis

Sat, May 6 3:30pm
Public Records
233 Butler Street, Brooklyn, NY 11217

Public Records

Greg Davis is an internationally recognized electronic musician / composer who has been making records and playing shows since 2001. He lives in Burlington VT and owns and operates Autumn Records in Winooski VT. His latest album, New Primes, was released on LP / digital by greyfade in Sept. 2022. (This show is part of the greyfade label showcase at Long Play)

Iva Bittová

Sat, May 6 4:30pm
BRIC Lobby
647 Fulton Street Brooklyn, NY 11217

BRIC Arts Media

You can feel Iva Bittová’s folk roots in everything she does – in her composing, her violin playing, her singing, her improvising.  And yet, everything she does sounds new – the traditional is the foundation that supports her relentless, swirling, joyful innovation.

This is a FREE performance!

Michael Gordon’s Field of Vision

Michael Gordon's House Music performed by Ashley Bathgate
Sat, May 6 4:30pm
Fort Greene Park
85 S Oxford St, Brooklyn, NY 11217

Fort Greene Park

Michael Gordon is a master of the elemental, building massive structures out of simple materials.  Field of Vision, his new outdoor installation for 36 percussionists from the University of Michigan, led by Doug Perkins combines movement and the intense punctuations of metals and drums into an emotionally shattering ritual of dramatic precision and grace.

This is a FREE performance! It will take place near the monument in the center of  Ft Greene Park.

Brandon López & Fred Moten

Sat, May 6 5:00pm
Mark Morris Dance Center
3 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11217

Mark Morris

Brandon López is a double bass player and composer whose work ranges across genres and styles and who has been steadily gaining recognition as one of the most vital voices in contemporary experimental improvised music. For this concert at Long Play, López will be joined by Fred Moten, the inimitable poet, theorist, critic, and 2020 MacArthur Fellow, for a performance of spoken word-jazz invoking the tradition of Gil Scott Heron and Amiri Baraka.

Dave Liebman & Kenny Werner

Sat, May 6 5:00pm
Littlefield
635 Sackett, Brooklyn, NY 11217

Littlefield

David Liebman is considered a renaissance man in contemporary music with a career stretching over fifty years. He has played with masters including Miles Davis, Elvin Jones, Chick Corea, John McLaughlin, McCoy Tyner and others. Kenny Werner has been a world-class pianist and composer for over forty years. His prolific output of compositions, recordings and publications continue to impact audiences around the world.

75 Dollar Bill Little Big Band

Sat, May 6 5:30pm
BRIC Ballroom
647 Fulton Street Brooklyn, NY 11217

BRIC Arts Media

75 Dollar Bill was formed in 2012 in New York City by percussionist Rick Brown and guitarist Che Chen. Played on a deeply resonant plywood crate, Brown’s earthy, elemental rhythms are both the foundation and foil for Chen’s ecstatic, modal guitar style. The group’s electric, richly patterned music can shape shift from joyful dance tunes to slowly changing trance minimalism, an uncategorizable hybrid which draws on the modal traditions of Africa, Asia and the Middle East, Sun Ra’s space chords and the minimalist and No Wave histories of their hometown. While Brown and Chen are always at the band’s core, the band frequently expands into different configurations live and on record. Their Little Big Band is a multigenerational, multicultural orchestra that includes old friends and collaborators Sue Garner (bass), Cheryl Kingan (saxophones), Talice Lee (violin/keyboard), Steve Maing (guitar), Jim Pugliese (percussion), Karen Waltuch (viola), Barry Weisblat (percussion/electronics) and others.

greyfade showcase: Joseph Branciforte & Taylor Deupree

Sat, May 6 5:30pm
Public Records
233 Butler Street, Brooklyn, NY 11217

Public Records

Greyfade label head Joseph Branciforte performs an intimate duo set with sound artist Taylor Deupree. Branciforte and Deupree share a fascination with process-based sound sculpting, both acoustic & electronically mediated. The two have recently collaborated on a re-imagining of Deupree’s 2002 electronic album Stil., using source transcription to create elaborate acoustic arrangements. For their LongPlay performance, they perform an improvised set on Fender Rhodes, vibraphone, tape processing, and electronics.

David Sanford Big Band feat. Hugh Ragin

Sat, May 6 6:00pm
Roulette Intermedium
503 Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11217

Roulette

“To call the (David Sanford’s) Pittsburgh Collective a big band is a bit like calling the New York Philharmonic an opera outfit…A new kind of fusion is going on in [their] music. Along with presenting original works written expressly for the ensemble, the group performs big band literature that draws heavily on classical idioms (Stravinsky), classical works (Tomkins, Mahler) and popular music (Nick Cave, Sia), as well as jazz standards (Gillespie, Mingus, Elvin Jones).

Alto saxophones: Ted Levine, Kelley Hart Jenkins // Tenor saxophones: Kenny Pexton, Lee Odom // Baritone saxophone: Brad Hubbard //
Trumpets: Hugh Ragin, Tony Kadleck, Tim Leopold, John Carlson, Jon Nelson, // Trombones: Chris Washburne, Jim Messbauer, Ben Herrington // Bass trombone: Steve Gehring // Tuba: Joe Exley // Piano: Geoff Burleson // Guitar: Dave Fabris // Bass: Dave Phillips // Drums: Mark Raynes // Percussion: Theo Moore

Harriet Tubman

Sat, May 6 7:00pm
Littlefield
635 Sackett, Brooklyn, NY 11217

Littlefield

Harriet Tubman is a musical collective formed in 1998 by guitarist and vocalist Brandon Ross, bassist Melvin Gibbs, and drummer JT Lewis. The group is named after the iconic abolitionist and Underground Railroad conductor, as the ideals of freedom deeply inspire their music. The trio’s music—a synthesis of soul, rock, jazz, blues, and avant-garde—investigates the core of these genres and counts Jimi Hendrix, Ornette Coleman, and Parliament-Funkadelic as influences. Harriet Tubman uses all of their musical experiences and influences to communicate a vision of musical freedom and invention for those who choose to take the journey. Their last album, The Terror End Of Beauty, was listed on the 2018 New York Times Best Jazz Albums Of The Year list.

Momenta Quartet plays Alvin Singleton

Sat, May 6 7:00pm
BRIC Lobby
647 Fulton Street Brooklyn, NY 11217

BRIC Arts Media

Momenta Quartet is the ensemble of choice for the distinguished American composer Alvin Singleton – they made the premiere recordings of three of the four pieces on this program, including his legendary Quartet #2 – Secret Desire to be Black. The pieces come from all different periods in his long, illustrious career, but they all show his sense of drama, his theatricality, and his supreme composerly craft.

This is a FREE performance!

David Lang's love fail performed by Quince Ensemble

Sat, May 6 7:30pm
BRIC Ballroom
647 Fulton Street Brooklyn, NY 11217

BRIC Arts Media

David Lang’s introspective meditation on love and loss is a juxtaposition of the ancient and the modern, setting to music rewritings of different mediaeval versions of the Tristan and Isolde story next to tart microfiction by Lydia Davis. Quince Vocal Ensemble sings.

 

James Brandon Lewis & Chad Taylor

Sat, May 6 7:30pm
Public Records
233 Butler Street, Brooklyn, NY 11217

Public Records

Bossart writes: “The two musicians let us hear the great breath of an essential jazz tradition, its clarity, raw beauty and urgency shining through, even in the melting pot of contemporary jazz debates. The musicians are not stuck in a version of the past. At every second they are part of the musical process, which shapes itself and pulses with their experiences of the here and now. This is about a continuum, occurring yesterday, today and tomorrow. Why else would jazz have retained till today its transformative power?”

Nu Jazz

Sat, May 6 7:30pm
Mark Morris Dance Center
3 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11217

Mark Morris

Nu Jazz synthesizes a decade plus of six unique, yet naturally interconnected musical journeys. Some members have spent years in New York City’s experimental electronic scene, while others have dedicated the bulk of their musical lives pursuing what we call “Jazz”. Despite disparate influences, all are bound by a profound appreciation for musical frontiers that have yet to be explored, creating that which defies the limitations of genre. The artists constituting the collective “Nu Jazz” have performed all over New York City, the United States and the world with their respective groups such as Deli Girls, Murderpact, CGI Jesus, Beshken, WRENS, The Trap Music Orchestra, and The Beak Trio.  Their debut record, Nu Jazz – Vol. I, incorporates vast electronic soundscapes, extraterrestrial vocal textures and open improvisation submerged in raw punk swagger, setting Nu Jazz apart from the rest.

Mount Eerie and LEYA

Sat, May 6 8:00pm
Pioneer Works
159 Pioneer St, Brooklyn, NY 11231

Pioneer Works website

Phil Elverum is an artist and human being from the Pacific Northwest town of Anacortes. His recordings, released variously as The Microphones and Mount Eerie, represent just a portion of his artistic output, which has ranged from running a label and co-organizing festivals to self-publishing books, photography, and painting. But it is for his stunningly original music that he is known best, from the earliest tape experiments of the ’90s to the immersive sound-diary of Microphones in 2020. Elverum has never shied from exploring the high mountain passes, finding new ways to sculpt with sound, and trying to communicate the momentary experience of being human as clearly as the water from freshly melted snow.

LEYA  – Harpist Marilu Donovan and violinist/vocalist Adam Markiewicz are NYC-based duo LEYA. The group works with and against the grain of tradition, mining intensity through alternate tunings, strange harmonies, and dream-state operatic-like vocals. Beauty underlies their sound but mixes with a sense of unease.

Gyan Riley

Sat, May 6 8:30pm
BRIC Lobby
647 Fulton Street Brooklyn, NY 11217

BRIC Arts Media

Gyan Riley is a guitarist and composer living in New York City and extensively touring internationally both as a soloist and with artists such as Julian Lage, Bill Frisell, Terry Riley, and Grammy-winning singer Arooj Aftab. Recently he was featured as a performer and composer for two acclaimed PBS documentary series by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick: Hemingway, and The U.S. and the Holocaust.

This is a FREE performance!

Žibuoklė Martinaitytė’s Hadal Zone performed by Synaesthesis

Sat, May 6 8:30pm
Roulette Intermedium
503 Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11217

Roulette

All the way from Vilnius, Lithuania, Synaesthesis Ensemble presents the American premiere of Žibuoklė Martinaitytė’s dark and hypnotic Hadal Zone.  Named after the oceanic layer so deep that light cannot reach it, the piece is for an ensemble of very low instruments, playing at the very bottoms of their registers.  Žibuoklė has written that, in creating this calm, ritualistic music, she can “make the darkness visible.”

Thumbscrew

Sat, May 6 9:00pm
Public Records
233 Butler Street, Brooklyn, NY 11217

Public Records

The trio Thumbscrew came about by accident, after bassist Michael Formanek subbed in a band including guitarist Mary Halvorson and drummer Tomas Fujiwara. Something special happened among them right away, so they formed a trio, a co-operative in the truest sense. They play originals by all hands, compositions whose rhythms may surge or lag or veer sideways according to their own internal logic. Bass and drums solo within the ensemble, not in quarantine. No one needs to be loudest. The blend is tight: one string (or metal) sound may bleed into another. It’s something to hear—something twisty and turny and always on the move.

EXO-TECH

Sat, May 6 10:00pm
Mark Morris Dance Center
3 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11217

Mark Morris

EXO-TECH is large ensemble collective formed in New York by vocalist and director Sophia Brous and New Zealand pop innovator Kimbra in 2016. Exploring the intersections of improvisation and pop song composition, EXO-TECH traverse musical worlds from Talking Heads to Can, to Arthur Lyman, Gang Gang Dance, Brigitte Fontaine and the Art Ensemble of Chicago, as much influenced by modern pop and rnb as by by free jazz, avant garde improvisation, tropicalia and film music.

SOPHIA BROUS, voice // KIMBRA – voice, electronics // TAJA CHEEK – vocals // NELS CLINE -guitar// DARIAN DONOVAN THOMAS – violin, electronics // WILL GRAEFE – guitar //  JEREMY GUSTIN – drums //  YUKA HONDA – synths //  BEN CHAPATEAU-KATZ (keyboards, sax) //  DANNY MEYER – saxophone, electronics //  MAURO REFOSCO – percussion // CLEEK SCHREY – hardinger fiddle, daxophone // DOUG WIESELMAN – bass clarinet // SPENCER ZAHN – bass // ALEX TOTH – trumpet, synth

Morton Subotnick's As I Live and Breathe, Live with Projections by Lillevan

Sat, May 6 10:00pm
BRIC Ballroom
647 Fulton Street Brooklyn, NY 11217

BRIC Arts Media

Electronic music pioneer Morton Subotnick celebrates his 90th birthday year with us, with his brand new piece As I Live and Breathe, a duet of image and sound he performs himself alongside live visual animation by his long-term collaborator Lillevan.

Scarcity

Sat, May 6 10:00pm
Littlefield
635 Sackett, Brooklyn, NY 11217

Littlefield

Multi-instrumentalist Brendon Randall-Myers (conductor of the Glenn Branca Ensemble since Branca’s passing) wrote “Aveilut” while processing the sudden deaths of two people close to him, tracked it while caught in Beijing’s first lockdown of 2020, and finished it while surrounded by the overwhelming plague visuals of New York’s early COVID peak. Back in Brooklyn, vocalist Doug Moore (of Pyrrhon, Weeping Sores, Glorious Depravity, and Seputus) soon found himself in the midst of an equally bleak lockdown experience — living next to a funeral home when New York City was America’s COVID epicenter. From conception through development, tangible death surrounded Aveilut.

Liturgy

Sat, May 6 11:00pm
Littlefield
635 Sackett, Brooklyn, NY 11217

Littlefield

Liturgy is the project of Haela Ravenna Hunt-Hendrix, whose yearning, energetic “transcendental black metal” exists in the space between metal, experimental, classical music and sacred ritual. The band is simultaneously a platform for fine art and theology.

Tyondai Braxton/Ben Vida

Sat, May 6 11:00pm
Roulette Intermedium
503 Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11217

Roulette

Composer Tyondai Braxton can’t be pinned down into any one musical genre.  Co-founder of the exalted math rock band Battles, he burst onto the written music scene with his psychedelic 2009 orchestra work Central Market.  Braxton’s music a wild blur, in which all genres of music overlap and coexist. Ben Vida is a composer and artist. In the mid-1990s Vida co-founded the minimalist quartet Town & Country and released solo records under the moniker Bird Show. Expect lush, dense and varied soundscapes when the three artists join forces on the Long Play stage.

Julia Wolfe’s my lips from speaking performed by Vicky Chow and David Friend

Sun, May 7 12:30pm
BRIC Lobby
647 Fulton Street Brooklyn, NY 11217

BRIC Arts Media

Julia Wolfe‘s my lips from speaking is inspired by the opening few chords played on piano by Aretha Franklin in her hit tune “Think”. It is a fantastic musical moment. my lips from speaking takes this bit of music – fragments it, spreads it out, and wildly spins it into a kind of ecstatic frenzy. The title is taken from the biblical line, “Guard my tongue from evil and my lips from speaking deceit.” – a nod to the deeply spiritual musical background from which the great Aretha Franklin emerged. my lips from speaking, in its original form, was written for 6 live pianos. This arrangement for two live pianists at Long Play will be performed by longtime Bang on a Can pianists David Friend and Vicky Chow.

This is a FREE performance!

Adam O’Farrill’s Stranger Days

Sun, May 7 1:00pm
BAMcafé
30 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11217

BAMcafé

Brooklyn-bred artist Adam O’Farrill has been heralded as “among the the leading trumpeters in jazz- and perhaps the music’s next major improviser.” (The New York Times). In 2021, Adam released his third album, Visions of Your Other (Biophilia Records), with his quartet, Stranger Days. The album was listed as one of the best albums of 2021 by The New York Times, won the Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik, and received raving reviews from the Wall Street Journal.

Adam O’Farrill- trumpet; Xavier Del Castillo- tenor sax; Walter Stinson- bass; Zack O’Farrill- drums.

This is a FREE performance!

ANIMAL by Ash Fure

Sun, May 7 1:00pm
Mark Morris Dance Center
3 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11217

Mark Morris

ANIMAL is a new solo venture by sonic artist Ash Fure. Pushing Fure’s visceral soundworlds to new physical heights, the project features custom synesthetic instruments that situate the body in athletic connection to sound, matter, light and site. Intrinsically live and architecturally responsive, ANIMAL seeks out a sonic sentience that stands in defiance to an age of A.I.

Stage Design: stock-a-studio
Sound Engineering: Daniel Neumann

Note – This performance features strobe lights.

Cantaloupe Music - Meet and Greet

Sun, May 7 1:00pm
The Center for Fiction
15 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11217

Center for Fiction

Cantaloupe Music (the record label brought to you by Bang on a Can), hosts a meet and greet with Bang on a Can’s co-founders Michael Gordon, David Lang, and Julia Wolfe.

This is a free event!

Gyan Riley & Krishna Bhatt

Sun, May 7 1:00pm
BRIC Ballroom
647 Fulton Street Brooklyn, NY 11217

BRIC Arts Media

Gyan Riley is a guitarist and composer living in New York City and extensively touring internationally both as a soloist and with artists such as Julian Lage, Bill Frisell, Terry Riley, and Grammy-winning singer Arooj Aftab. Recently he was featured as a performer and composer for two acclaimed PBS documentary series by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick: Hemingway, and The U.S. and the Holocaust. Krishna Bhatt’s performances of Hindustani ragas have won the admiration of audiences in India, Asia, Europe and North America. His innovative style of music combines a rich blend of Gayaki (vocal) and Tantrakari (instrumental) techniques and musical compositions. His music is noted for its virtuosity, originality and depth of feeling that is conveyed to the listeners.

Kalbells

Sun, May 7 1:00pm
Public Records
233 Butler Street, Brooklyn, NY 11217

Public Records

Kalbells sprouted as the solo writing & recording project of multiglot Kalmia Traver (Rubblebucket). Over the course of 2 albums and countless performances  the act has become an all-star groove collective comprised of Kalmia, Angelica Bess (Body Language) and Sarah Pedinotti (Liptalk). Cheeky lyrics, warm & dreamy bedroom pop moods, deeply funky bass lines and powerfully tight vocal harmonies are the trademarks of the Kalbells sound.

Lori Goldston

Sun, May 7 2:00pm
Littlefield
635 Sackett, Brooklyn, NY 11217

Littlefield

Lori Goldston’s work as a cellist, composer and improviser drifts far and wide between genres and circumstances, and includes work with Earth, Nirvana, the BBC Scottish Symphony, Mirah, Maya Dunietz, Jherek Bischoff, Jessika Kenney, Eyvind Kang, Ilan Volkov, David Byrne, Lonnie Holley, Stuart Dempster, Shelley Hirsch, Ghedalia Tezartes, Ellen Fullman, and many, many others. Her voice as a cellist draws connections between far-flung idioms, and explores timbral thresholds of her instrument. She performs in the US and abroad, and has released recordings on on Sub Rosa, Woodland Fauna, Marginal Frequency, Yo Yo, K Records, Second Editions, Sub Pop, Mississippi Records, Eiderdown, Substrata, Ed Banger, PIAPTK, SofaBurn, Broken Clover, and No Sun.

Patricia Brennan's More Touch

Sun, May 7 2:30pm
BAMcafé
30 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11217

BAMcafé

Patricia Brennan’s More Touch is a quartet with a quite unusual instrumentation: mallet percussion plus effects, percussion, drums, and bass. Essentially, a small percussion ensemble with bass, carving a space where rhythm, color and texture flourish. More Touch features Kim Cass on bass, Marcus Gilmore on drums, Mauricio Herrera on percussion and Patricia Brennan on mallet percussion and effects. The music reflects a process of inner search, backwards to Brennan’s roots in Veracruz, Mexico and forwards into the future. A music of fluidity, flexibility, precision, and density. And above all, a music rich in imagined imagery.

This is a FREE performance!

Yarn/Wire plays Annea Lockwood

Sun, May 7 2:30pm
BRIC Lobby
647 Fulton Street Brooklyn, NY 11217

BRIC Arts Media

New Zealand-born composer Annea Lockwood has always lived at the forefront of musical experimentation.  From her early pieces crafting instruments out of glass to lighting pianos on fire to taking a tape recorder down the length of the Hudson River, she has relentlessly searched for music in places where we don’t usually expect to find it.  She finds it here with the electrifying ensemble Yarn / Wire.

This is a FREE performance!

Henry Threadgill and Brent Hayes Edwards in conversation

Sun, May 7 3:00pm
The Center for Fiction
15 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11217

Center for Fiction

In advance of the reunion concert of Very Very Circus, his renowned ensemble from the early 1990s, the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Henry Threadgill sits down for a conversation with the writer and scholar Brent Hayes Edwards. They will read selections from Threadgill’s autobiography, Easily Slip into Another World (published this month by Knopf), and discuss the genesis of Threadgill’s infectious music for Very Very Circus as well as his long career as an acclaimed contemporary composer and bandleader.

This is a free event!

Ian Chang

Sun, May 7 3:00pm
Public Records
233 Butler Street, Brooklyn, NY 11217

Public Records

Ian Chang is a drummer.  But Chang’s drums are also midi triggers, connected to samples and synths and even the stage lights – you never know which of his stick patterns will result in a simple drum beat and which will completely transform your environment.

Nailah Hunter

Sun, May 7 3:00pm
Mark Morris Dance Center
3 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11217

Mark Morris

Nailah Hunter is a multi-instrumentalist and composer based in Los Angeles. Her music for harp, electronics and voice shimmers with spiritual radiance, full of magic, wonder, and healing energies.

Conrad Tao & Tyshawn Sorey perform Morton Feldman’s Triadic Memories

Sun, May 7 3:30pm
Roulette Intermedium
503 Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11217

Roulette

The quietest, dreamiest, most demanding of Morton Feldman’s solo piano pieces, Triadic Memories, performed by the powerhouse duo of Conrad Tao and Tyshawn Sorey. Pianist and composer Conrad Tao is a leader of the new generation of classical music. Newark-born composer and multi-instrumentalist Tyshawn Sorey is celebrated for his incomparable virtuosity, effortless mastery and memorization of highly complex scores, and an extraordinary ability to blend composition and improvisation in his work.

Caroline Shaw & Sō Percussion

Sun, May 7 3:30pm
BRIC Ballroom
647 Fulton Street Brooklyn, NY 11217

BRIC Arts Media

Composer, violinist and singer Caroline Shaw is a kind of phenomenon. Welcomed equally in every musical community, her collaborations with percussion gurus So Percussion have won Grammy Awards and have been toured around the world.  Here’s your chance to see them live, up close, at once, in Brooklyn.

 

big dog little dog

Sun, May 7 4:00pm
Littlefield
635 Sackett, Brooklyn, NY 11217

Littlefield

big dog little dog is violinist Jessie Montgomery and bassist Eleonore Oppenheim.  Both Jessie and Eleanor have wide ranging musical interests, which take them all over the larger musical map.  big dog little dog is the place where all their interests meet, with a groove put under it.

Eliana Glass

Sun, May 7 4:00pm
BAMcafé
30 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11217

BAMcafé

Eliana Colachis Glass is a singer, pianist, and visual artist born in Australia and raised in Seattle. She is a graduate of the jazz program at The New School where she studied with such mentors as Andrew Cyrille, Ben Street, Kris Davis, and Jay Clayton. She also holds a degree in Visual Studies and Writing and works freely across multiple mediums. In recent years she has been recording her first solo album and developing a visual art project about the human voice, exploring the conception of voice as a material object and site of artistic meaning. In addition to her own creative projects, Eliana has lent her support to such musicians as Adam O’Farrill, June McDoom, Francis Harris and Chantal Michelle amongst others. Joining her on May 7th at BAM Café will be Walter Stinson and Michael Gebhart for a performance of free and open ballads.

This is a FREE performance!

Annea Lockwood and Sam Green in conversation

Sun, May 7 5:00pm
The Center for Fiction
15 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11217

Center for Fiction

A conversation with composer Annea Lockwood and filmmaker Sam Green, discussing Lockwood’s belief in the importance of listening with the environment rather than to it (a subject which is showcased in Green’s film 32 SOUNDS, now screening at the Film Forum).

This is a free event!

Susie Ibarra & Alex Peh

Sun, May 7 5:00pm
BRIC Lobby
647 Fulton Street Brooklyn, NY 11217

BRIC Arts Media

Susie Ibarra is a Filipinx composer, percussionist, and sound artist. Many of Ibarra’s projects are based in cultural and environmental preservation: she has worked to support Indigenous and traditional music cultures, such musika katatubo from the North and South Philippine islands; her sound research advocates for the stewardship of glaciers and freshwaters; and she collaborates with The Joudour Sahara Music Program in Morocco on initiatives that preserve sound-based heritage with sustainable music practices and support the participation of women and girls in traditional music communities. Alex Peh is a pianist, improviser and scholar who explores the piano in global classical, contemporary, and improvised practices. Peh explores contemporary piano repertoire, finding new approaches to tuning, pedagogy, notation and musical transmission.

This is a FREE performance!

Time Wharp

Sun, May 7 5:00pm
Public Records
233 Butler Street, Brooklyn, NY 11217

Public Records

Time Wharp, the eponymous debut full-length of Atlanta-born, Brooklyn-based producer Kaye Loggins, is an uplifting treatise on minimal synth wave and house music.

Very Very Circus: The Music of Henry Threadgill

Sun, May 7 5:00pm
Mark Morris Dance Center
3 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11217

Mark Morris

Presented in conjunction with a special conversation with the composer and saxophonist around the release of his forthcoming autobiography Easily Slip Into Another World (Knopf), Long Play presents a reunion concert of Henry Threadgill’s Very Very Circus, his renowned ensemble from the early 1990s. This concert features an all star lineup of Threadgill collaborators, including Yosvany Terry: alto sax // Jose Davila: trombone // Brandon Ross: guitar // Miles Okazaki: guitar // Ron Caswell: tuba // Marcus Rojas: tuba // Gene Lake: drums.  The conversation and concert are co-presented by our friends at Pi Recordings.

June McDoom

Sun, May 7 5:30pm
BAMcafé
30 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11217

BAMcafé

June McDoom is an emerging singer-songwriter based in New York City. Her unique approach to folk music incorporates influences of early soul, reggae, and vintage analog experimentation into a new world all its own.

This is a FREE performance!

Dawn Richard & Spencer Zahn: Pigments

Sun, May 7 6:00pm
BRIC Ballroom
647 Fulton Street Brooklyn, NY 11217

BRIC Arts Media

The critically-acclaimed debut collaborative album from New Orleans electro-revival dynamo Dawn Richard and multi-instrumentalist, producer, and composer Spencer Zahn, Pigments tells the story of finding oneself through dance, self-expression, and community through the lens of New Orleans’ contemporary arts scene. Not strictly neoclassical, jazz, or ambient electronic, the project is one long composition that flows through several “movements” guided by five lead instruments: clarinet, saxophone, guitar, strings, and Richard’s stripped-down vocals. Marking Richard’s first step into the contemporary classical world, Pigments reveals a new facet of her limitless talents and provides a fresh introduction to Zahn, whose intimate, sprawling soundscapes play with principles of open space and motion.

The Hands Free

Sun, May 7 6:00pm
Littlefield
635 Sackett, Brooklyn, NY 11217

Littlefield

The Hands Free is James Moore (guitar / banjo), Caroline Shaw (violin), Nathan Koci (accordion) and Eleonore Oppenheim (bass). You may think it’s folk music from some old American past that you just can’t put your finger on, but it isn’t.  The Hands Free freely pick and choose a few sounds and gestures we might recognize from bluegrass or jazz and then they twist them into something new, and tuneful, and strange.  And very joyful.

Marta Sánchez Trio

Sun, May 7 6:00pm
Roulette Intermedium
503 Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11217

Roulette

Born and raised in Madrid, Spain, pianist and composer Marta Sánchez charts a significant path through her innovative and original music, gaining significant global recognition. The  Marta Sánchez Trio incorporates a variety of influences, including electronic music, rock, avant-garde, and classical music. The project’s unique sound is achieved through intricate rhythms and complex forms, with a focus on counterpoint, polyrhythms, and open improvisation.

With Chris Tordini on bass and Tim Angulo on drums.

David Murray (originally scheduled) will not be performing.

The Art Ensemble of Chicago

Sun, May 7 8:00pm
Pioneer Works
159 Pioneer St, Brooklyn, NY 11231

Pioneer Works website

The Art Ensemble of Chicago presents A Tribute to Lester Bowie, Joseph Jarman, Malachi Favors Maghostut and their lasting contributions to “Great Black Music – Ancient to the Future.” The Art Ensemble of Chicago is renowned for it’s integration of musical styles that span the history of jazz and multi instrumental group improvisations. Their musical universe is enhanced by the creative use of unique sounds and percussions-aka little instruments, traditional hand and stick drums, whistles, horns, bells, chimes, vibes, marimba, gongs of all sizes and an array of home made and found sound objects that serve each individual musician as an extension of their personality on their principal instruments of saxophones, flutes, trumpet and flugelhorn, double bass and drum set. Their live performances of original compositions written by all the members have also included elaborate costumes, face paint, props, theater, poetry, dance and more to create a visual, auditory and sensual spectacle.

Roscoe Mitchell – soprano saxophone, flute* // Famoudou Don Moye – drums, djembe, percussion // Moor Mother – spoken word // Simon Sieger – trombone, piano // Junius Paul – bass; eddy kwon – violin

*For this performance, Shabaka Hutchings performed on saxophone and flute

About

Featuring 50+ concerts, Long Play also showcases a dense network of innovative music venues in Brooklyn – with performances at Pioneer Works, Roulette, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Public Records, Littlefield, BRIC, Mark Morris Dance Center, The Center for Fiction, plus outdoor events and more. A limited number of 3-day festival passes – including MEMORY GAME, a special opening-night concert featuring Meredith Monk and Vocal Ensemble with the electric Bang on a Can All-Stars, doubling as an 80th Birthday Bash (co-presented with The Town Hall at Pioneer Works) – are on sale now:

Bang on a Can’s Co-Founders and Artistic Directors Michael Gordon, David Lang, and Julia Wolfe, say of the new festival:

Music, right now!  What is it, you might ask?  You know, we can’t tell you!  And that is a good thing.  There is so much music happening that no one can pin it all down.  Loud music, soft music. Delicate music, rugged music. Written down music, improvised music.  Music for speeding up and music for slowing down. All around the world, musicians are innovating wildly, creating revolutionary sounds and experiences that no one could have imagined without them. And where is all this happening, you might ask?  That we can answer!  In Brooklyn, crossroads of the world, where musicians and audiences and peoples and sounds from everywhere come together. You can see and hear them all, on LONG PLAY.

It’s important to us that cost is not an ultimate barrier to new musical experiences. If you feel you are in need of a discount, please drop us a line at:
[email protected].

Tickets

Artists

Supporters

LONG PLAY is particularly grateful for the generous lead support from the Howard Gilman Foundation, Kettering Family Foundation,  ASCAP, and Robert D. Bielecki Foundation. This program is also supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. Pianos supplied by Yamaha.

         

 

For information on sponsorship opportunities for the 2023 Long Play Festival, please contact Bang on a Can’s Development Director, Laura Patterson, [email protected]. Sponsors support artist fees, production costs, and promotions for over fifty concerts at eight venues throughout Brooklyn. Bang on a Can is a 501-C3 charitable organization, all donations are tax deductible.  All sponsors will be properly credited for their support.

Donate to Long Play

Bang on a Can’s 2023 programs are made possible with generous lead support from: Aaron Copland Fund for Music, Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University, Amphion Foundation, ASCAP and ASCAP Foundation, Atlantic Records, Daniel Baldini, Stephen A. Block, Bishop Fund, Robert D. Bielecki Foundation, Charina Endowment Fund, City of New York Department of Cultural Affairs, Cornelia T. Bailey Foundation, Valerie Dillon and Daniel Lewis, Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, Jaffe Family Foundation, Alan Kifferstein & Joan Finkelstein, Michael Kushner, Leslie Lassiter, Herb Leventer, MAP Fund, Raulee Marcus, MASS MoCA, Henry S. McNeil, Jr., Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, Jeremy Mindich & Amy Smith, Elizabeth Murrell & Gary Haney, National Endowment for the Arts, New York Community Trust, New York State Council on the Arts, O’Donnell-Green Music and Dance Foundation, Justus & Elizabeth Schlichting, Scopia Capital Management, Matthew Sirovich & Meredith Elson, Maria & Robert A. Skirnick, Jane & Dick Stewart, Sandra Tait and Hal Foster, David Tochen & Mary Beth Schiffman, Williamson Foundation for Music, Adam Wolfensohn & Jennifer Small, and Wolfensohn Family Foundation.

Long Play logo by Greg Simpson at Ephemera Design.

More info about Bang on a Can

Fest Info & FAQ

Long Play Festival information

Ticket buyers will be issued wristbands, allowing for quicker entry into all festival venues.

Wristband pick up:

3-day passes
3-day passes/wristbands will be available Friday May 5 upon entry at Pioneer Works (159 Pioneer St.) for the MEMORY GAME performance. Doors open at 7pm.

2-day and 1-day passes
You can pick up your 2-day or single day pass/wristband at the BRIC Lobby (647 Fulton Street, entrance on Rockwell Pl.), so please stop in there before going to the shows. Long Play t-shirts will be for sale there too!
Saturday pick up hours: 11:30am-10pm
Sunday pick up hours: 12-6pm

Festival Map and schedule
You will be issued a hard copy festival map and by-day/by-venue schedule when you get your wristband. Please note that the schedule is subject to change, and the website will always have the most current information.

Long Play 2023 Festival Map and Schedule (PDF version)
(designed by Greg Simpson at Ephemera Design).

Here is a digital program for the May 5 Meredith Monk MEMORY GAME performance:
Meredith Monk_Playbill

Entry and Seating
Entry and seating is first-come first-served for all venues.  Supporter pass holders will have reserved seating for select performances.

If you have a disability or need special accommodations, please write to [email protected]

Covid
None of the Long Play venues currently require masking or proof of vaccination. However, masks are always recommended.

Sunday – shuttle to Pioneer Works
On May 7, we are happy to be offering a free shuttle to Pioneer Works for the Art Ensemble of Chicago performance.  Bus will depart from outside BAM Opera House at 30 Lafayette St at 6:30p and 7:15p. Space is limited, first come first served. There is no return service.

FAQs

What if I am running late on Saturday or Sunday, and don’t have time to stop by BRIC to get my wristband?

If you can’t make it to BRIC, we will be able to issue a 2-day or single day wristband by request at:

  • Public Records
  • Littlefield

We will NOT be able to issue a 2-day or single day wristband at:

  • Roulette Intermedium
  • Mark Morris Dance Center
  • Center for Fiction

(but luckily, they are close to BRIC!)

What shows are FREE?

Can I buy single tickets to any shows?

Most of our performances are available only with a festival pass or day pass. However there are some exceptions! (Notably, the free shows listed above). The following shows can be purchased as separate tickets via the venue website directly:

  • All 3  performances at Pioneer Works (Meredith Monk/Bang on a Can All-Stars, Mount Eerie/LEYA, the Art Ensemble of Chicago). Purchase via the Pioneer Works website.
  • The Liturgy and Scarcity performing on Saturday night at Littlefield 
  • All performances at Public Records.

If you need any additional information, or have more questions, please write to [email protected]

See you at Long Play!