News

This September, the Bang on a Can All-Stars kick off the 2014/15 season returning for the fourth consecutive year to Krakow’s Sacrum Profanum Festival! 

The September 17 concert features the All-Stars with Sonic Youth stalwart Lee Ranaldo (performing his work How Deep Are Rivers written for the band via the People’s Commissioning Fund); the All-Stars with Polish new jazz DJ Skalpel (playing Philip Glass‘ early work Two Pages), and PCF-commissioned Field Recordings works by Richard Reed Parry, Alvin Lucier, Daniel Wohl, and Dan Deacon. 

Cantaloupe Music has teamed up with the Seattle Symphony to release the official recording of John Luther Adams‘ Pulitzer Prize-winning Become Ocean on September 30. Mixed and mastered in pristine stereo and 5.1 surround sound, the piece has been described by the New Yorker’s Alex Ross as “…the loveliest apocalypse in musical history.”

Hear an exclusive excerpt from the latest stereo mix when you join the PledgeMusic campaign!

On July 18 our avant marching band Asphalt Orchestra hits the grass at Brooklyn’s Fort Greene Park, performing at the Kickstarter Film Fest! The band will play selections from their Kickstarter funded project Asphalt Plays the Pixies and more shortly before 8pm, alongside fellow musical guest Kaki King. The full Asphalt Surfer Rosa album will be released on Cantaloupe Music in the 2014/15 season.

This summer, Bang on a Can and The Jewish Museum launch a new partnership series from June 2014 to May 2015 inspired by the Museum’s diverse slate of exhibitions.

The series kicked off on June 10 with the Asphalt Orchestra and continues on July 10 with Other Primary Structures featuring performances by Bang on a Can All-Stars Vicky Chow and David Cossin with Dither Quartet’s Taylor Levine and James Moore. This concert of music by Louis Andriessen, Philip Glass, Michael Gordon, David Lang, and John Zorn is presented in conjunction with the exhibition Other Primary Structures.

From July 14-August 2, we return to the Berkshires for the annual blockbuster Summer Festival @ MASS MoCA!

The first two festival weeks offer daily faculty and fellow gallery recitals, and from July 26 through August 2, Bang on a Can collaborates with MASS MoCA to present BANG ON A CAN PLAYS ART, a jam-packed, week-long music extravaganza featuring 14 concerts in 8 days.

Bang on a Can Plays Art draws inspiration from the extraordinary visual art on exhibit in the galleries at MASS MoCA. Each concert will showcase music that interacts with the art on various levels – stylistically, thematically, and whimsically – performed by the Bang on a Can All-Stars, Festival Artists and Fellows, and special guests Steve Reich, Glenn Kotche (Wilco), and Shara Worden (My Brightest Diamond).

This summer, Bang on a Can and The Jewish Museum launch a new partnership series from June 2014 to May 2015 inspired by the Museum’s diverse slate of exhibitions.

The collaboration kicks off with Bang on a Can’s extreme street band Asphalt Orchestra performing during the Museum Mile Festival on June 10 from 6:00 pm to 9:00 pm.

Now celebrating its 36th year, the annual Museum Mile Festival takes place on Fifth Avenue between 82nd Street and 105th Street. Festival attendees can visit nine of New York City’s finest cultural institutions, which are open free to the public throughout the evening.  

This summer for the fourth year, Bang on a Can and the The Noguchi Museum partner once again for Music in the Garden, an innovative performance series held in the Museum’s celebrated sculpture garden.

Electric guitarist Grey Mcmurray and composer/ multi-instrumentalist Caleb Burhans partner for the last concert of the 2014 Music in the Garden series on September 14, with McMurray performing Burhans’s works:

Caprice #2, Caprice #1, Caprice #8, Caprice #5, Caprice #6, Caprice #3

Hear more from Caleb Burhans with Evensong, his debut album as a lead composer and recording artist released by Cantaloupe Music.

Free with museum admission.

Bang on a Can returns to the Winter Garden at Brookfield Place (220 Vesey Street) with its annual incomparable super-mix of boundary-busting music from around the corner and around the world! The 2014 Bang on a Can Marathon will feature 8 hours of rare performances by some of the most innovative musicians of our time side-by-side with some of today’s most pioneering young artists.

PLUS Bang on a Can’s social engagement wing Found Sound Nation hosts its Street Studio – a mobile recording studio equipped for passersby and Marathon musicians alike to spontaneously create and record original music!

What do the Bang on a Can All-Stars look like as animated aardvarks? Find out this Wednesday when the band visits the PBS KIDS’s popular cartoon ARTHUR, in an episode called Binky’s Music Madness airing nationwide on May 14, as part of ARTHUR Arts Week!

For the occasion, we’re offering ARTHUR fans (and the public in general) a FREE DOWNLOAD of the music featured on the episode, from the All-Stars 2012 album Big Beautiful Dark and Scary. Two years in the making, the animated All-Stars lineup includes founding Bang on a Can All-Star clarinetist Evan Ziporyn, percussionist David Cossin, guitarist Mark Stewart, bassist Robert Black, cellist Ashley Bathgate, and pianist Vicky Chow. Bang on a Can co-founder composer Julia Wolfe is also portrayed and recorded her own speaking role for the episode.
 

Julia Wolfe‘s long awaited Steel Hammer featuring the Bang on a Can All-Stars and Trio Mediaeval is now available on Cantaloupe Music! 

Inspired by her love for the music and lore of Appalachia, Julia Wolfe based her text for Steel Hammer (called a “wild hybrid” by The New York Times) on over 200 versions of the John Henry ballad, exploring the subject of human vs. machine in the quintessential American legend. Featuring the haunting vocalizations of Norway’s Trio Mediaeval, Steel Hammer also stretches the standard instrumentation of the Bang on a Can All-Stars with wooden bones, mountain dulcimer, banjo and more.