Bang on a Can Archives

BAM, Bang on a Can, Brooklyn, Chamber Music, Classical Music, Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Events, Experimental Music, Minimalism, New York, Opera, Percussion

A Short Piece about Long Play 2024

Long Play …. Not long enough! This year’s Long Play schedule is particularly dizzying. The annual festival presented by Bang on a Can in Brooklyn, now in its third year, seems to have crammed more events than ever into its three day festival, running May 3, 4 and 5. For instance, on Saturday, May 4 at 2 pm, you’ll have to choose between a new opera by the Pulitzer Prize finalist Alex Weiser with libretto by Ben Kaplan, called The Great Dictionary of the Yiddish Language (at American Opera Projects) AND Ensemble Klang imported from the Netherlands playing works by the

May 3, 2024 by Gail Wein

Bang on a Can, Brooklyn, Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Festivals, Music Events, New York

Long Play Festival 2023

In a culture in which we are constantly reinventing ourselves, any event can be the first annual anything. And so it is with Bang on a Can’s Long Play Festival, whose inaugural edition was launched in Spring 2022. The organizers clearly found Long Play to be a success: The 2023 edition is May 5, 6 and 7 with events spread over ten venues in downtown Brooklyn: Pioneer Works, Roulette, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Public Records, Littlefield, BRIC, Mark Morris Dance Center, The Center for Fiction, and Fort Greene Park. Over 50 performances are scheduled; most are accessed via a one-day or

May 2, 2023May 2, 2023 by Gail Wein

Bang on a Can, Brooklyn, Chamber Music, Choral Music, Classical Music, Composers, Contemporary Classical, Experimental Music, Festivals, jazz, Music Events, Performers, Premieres

Bang on a Can Long Play Festival 2022: An Interview with David Lang

Two years ago, I was editing a 2020 interview with the composer David Lang about the new multi-day festival that Bang on a Can planned for that spring, Long Play, when I realized the significance of the festival title. The year 2020 would be Bang on a Can’s 33rd anniversary. Long Play = LP = 33 rpm. Very clever! Although the festival was delayed for two years, it retains its name. The inaugural Long Play festival takes place on April 29, April 30 and May 1, 2022 at a half-dozen venues in Brooklyn, including BAM, Roulette, Littlefield, the Center for Fiction, Mark Morris

April 24, 2022April 24, 2022 by Gail Wein

Bang on a Can, Chamber Music, Classical Music, Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Festivals, Music Events, New York

Live, in person and new: Contemporary music festivals in the Northeast in Summer 2021

LOUD Weekend, TIME:SPANS, Tanglewood and Bard are all back on stage this summer with in-person audiences Fans starved for live music over the past year and half can rejoice and indulge – many summer festivals are back in the game. In this roundup, we’re mainly covering indoor concerts. As charming as it is to experience a performance under the stars, helicopters overhead, unpredictable weather, distracted audiences and competing bands nearby detract from the artistic experience. When it comes to contemporary music programming, LOUD Weekend put on by Bang on a Can at MASS MoCA is the densest. There are more

July 22, 2021July 23, 2021 by Gail Wein

Bang on a Can, Composers, Concert review, Contemporary Classical, Orchestral, Orchestras, Review, Seattle

Seattle Symphony unveils David Lang’s symphony without a hero

David Lang’s symphony without a hero received its premiere on February 8/10 by its commissioner, Seattle Symphony and Music Director Ludovic Morlot. As usual, Lang spells his title in all lowercase letters, a gesture of acquiescence that particularly befits the resigned tone of this work’s namesake, Poem Without a Hero by the Soviet writer Anna Akhmatova. Lang, who is quite the Russophile, took his inspiration from Akhmatova’s wartime lament for her hometown Leningrad (St. Petersburg), besieged and abused at the hands of both Nazis and Stalinists. Lang’s reflections present as a single-movement essay that, regardless of one’s feelings toward postminimalism

February 20, 2018November 7, 2018 by Michael Schell

Bang on a Can, Concert review, Concerts, Contemporary Classical

Liveblogging the 2012 BOAC Marathon

Last year I decided to try my hand at liveblogging the Bang on a Can Marathon concert and had so much fun doing it, I figured I’d come back and do it again. Held in the World Financial Center, the marathon will begin at noon and last till midnight and is FREE, so y’all have plenty of time to get here, find a spot to sit, and enjoy the huge lineup of performers and composers the Marathon is bringing forth today (the day’s schedule can be found here). If you attend, I’ll be sitting in the front row corner in

June 17, 2012April 18, 2025 by Rob Deemer

Bang on a Can, Composers, Contemporary Classical, Experimental Music, Performers

Andy Akiho: An Interview

Andy Akiho may have started out as a performer only, but his heart has driven him to become not only a wonderful composer in his own right, but a composer/performer that creates some of the most wonderful and compelling sounding pieces combining steel pans with a variety of instruments from other great new classical musicians. Having studied composition with such greats as Julia Wolfe, David Lang, Ezra Laderman, and Martin Bresnick among others, Akiho had just recently won eighth blackbird’s inaugural Finale National Composition Contest. Andy talked to me about that and some of my favorite works of his.

January 15, 2012January 16, 2012 by Chris McGovern

Bang on a Can, CDs, Contemporary Classical, Downtown, File Under?

BoaC shares free DL of new recording

Bang on a Can is celebrating twenty-five years of music making in generous fashion. Between now and Jan. 25th, you can download their new album, Big Beautiful Dark and Scary, via bangonacan25.org. In exchange, they ask for an email address and a memory of a BoaC moment: the former is kept confidential, the latter is published in a scrapbook commemorating the album. Think this is marketing against one’s own self-interests? Probably not. The iTunes version is for sale from 1/31, and features a bonus track of the ensemble performing Philip Glass’s Closing, with Glass, live. When the physical streets on

January 3, 2012 by Christian Carey

Bang on a Can

David Lang is Writing a Piano Piece for Four Hands. Two of Them Could be Yours.

David Lang is one of my favorite composers and among a handful of brave souls who created the vibrant new music scene we enjoy today. He and his Bang on a Can co-founders Julia Wolfe and Michael Gordon were writing, producing and getting their music played and recorded long before the coming of the internet, inexpensive recording technology, and a hip club scene made DIY SOP. He reminds me a bit of the hero in the old country song “I Knew Jesus Before He Was a Superstar.” His latest recording on Cantaloupe, this was written by hand, was officially released yesterday.

November 16, 2011 by Jerry Bowles

Bang on a Can, Competitions, Composers, Contemporary Classical, File Under?, Video

You have til the end of the year

Here’s a contest for pianists with the music of David Lang. Read all about it here. David explains more in this video: http://youtu.be/BrmQqX_Qs5o Between November 15, 2011 and December 31, 2011, download the score to wed from David Lang’s memory pieces without charge from http://digital.schirmer.com/lang-contest Learn the music and make a video of yourself playing it. Post the video on YouTube.com by midnight (Eastern Standard Time) on December 31, 2011. **IMPORTANT** you must tag the video with the following phrase: David Lang Piano Competition 2011 I spoke with David when he was in South Texas just last year about composition:

November 11, 2011November 11, 2011 by John Clare