The electric Bang on a Can All-Stars play an intimate concert of music by Bang on a Can co-founder Julia Wolfe – a set of new, recent, and ‘classic’ works featuring Wolfe’s signature combination of driving rock energy and minimalist serenity. Join Bang on a Can and National Sawdust for this end-of-year holiday hang as the All-Stars offer a sneak-preview of Wolfe’s Flower Power and more. Limited seating!

In the New York premiere of David Lang’s poor hymnal, a concert-length work written for the GRAMMY Award-winning chamber choir The Crossing, conducted by Donald Nally, Lang wonders “if the hymns of a community that did not want to forget our responsibilities to each other, and that wanted to make our responsibilities to each other the central tenet of our coming together, might be different from the hymns that we are singing now.” Like his Pulitzer-winning work, the little match girl passion, poor hymnal tries to get to the core of what a religious experience can be.

Bang on a Can All-Stars and Nashville Symphony perform Julia Wolfe’s Flower Power! Conducted by Giancarlo Guerrero.
3 performances: January 24-26

Julia Wolfe describes Flower Power, inspired by the 1960s counterculture movement, as “about optimism, idealism, psychedelia, breaking with convention, and a little bit of love and peace.”

Program also includes Beethoven’s Seventh.

When David Lang (a Stanford alum) set out to write a new composition for the Bang on a Can All-Stars, he looked to his alma mater for inspiration.  Commissioned by Stanford Live specifically to bring Lang and the  All-Stars back to campus, before and after nature is a meditation on the natural world, both before human existence and after humans are gone.

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, which has been recorded by everyone from Johnny Cash to Bruce Springsteen.

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, which has been recorded by everyone from Johnny Cash to Bruce Springsteen. A runner-up for the 2010 Pulitzer Prize, Steel Hammer features the alternately haunting and whimsical vocalizations of Norway’s renowned Trio Mediaeval, and stretches the standard instrumentation of the Bang on a Can All-Stars with wooden bones, mountain dulcimer, banjo, clapping, clogging and more.

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, which has been recorded by everyone from Johnny Cash to Bruce Springsteen. A runner-up for the 2010 Pulitzer Prize, Steel Hammer features the alternately haunting and whimsical vocalizations of Norway’s renowned Trio Mediaeval, and stretches the standard instrumentation of the Bang on a Can All-Stars with wooden bones, mountain dulcimer, banjo, clapping, clogging and more.

Written for Lorelei Ensemble, Her Story invokes the words of historical figures and the spirit of pivotal moments to pay tribute to the centuries of ongoing struggle for equal rights, representation, and access to democracy for women in America.

Stanford alumnus David Lang set out to write a new composition for the Bang on a Can (BOAC) All-Stars, the electrifying music ensemble he co-founded, he looked to his alma mater for inspiration.

Featuring 50+ concerts , Long Play also showcases a dense network of inventive music venues in Brooklyn – with performances at BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music), Roulette, Public Records, BRIC, and The Space at Irondale.

Festival Website

Ryuichi Sakamoto “was arguably the best-known and most successful Japanese musician in the world.” (Peter Tasker, Nikkei Asia)  Now Bang on a Can All-Stars offer their realization of the album 1996 (arranged by the All-Stars’ multi-talented clarinetist-composer Ken Thomson) — which includes an incredible selection of many of Sakamoto’s greatest hits.

Ryuichi Sakamoto “was arguably the best-known and most successful Japanese musician in the world.” (Peter Tasker, Nikkei Asia)  Now Bang on a Can All-Stars offer their realization of the album 1996 (arranged by the All-Stars’ multi-talented clarinetist-composer Ken Thomson) — which includes an incredible selection of many of Sakamoto’s greatest hits.

In 1964, Terry Riley kicked off a revolution with his landmark piece, “In C,” inspiring such young composers as Philip Glass and Steve Reich. Now, Bang on a Can reinterprets this minimalist classic with an explosive combination of instruments from around the globe, propelling this transcendental ’60’s masterpiece into the future.

LOUD Weekend at MASS MoCA is a fully loaded, three-day, eclectic super-mix of creative, experimental and unusual music taking place throughout the museum’s vast galleries and its stunning collection of indoor and outdoor performing arts venues.