Bang on a Can Announces Fourth Bang on a Can Marathon Live Online!

Bang on a Can Announces 

Fourth Bang on a Can Marathon Live Online!

Sunday, October 18, 2020 from 3-9pm ET

Six Hours of LIVE Music at marathon2020.bangonacan.org

Note: An embed code for the Bang on a Can Marathon livestream will be available to press upon request, to allow for hosting the livestream on your site.

Brooklyn, NY — Bang on a Can will present its fourth Bang on a Can Marathon – Live Online – on Sunday, October 18, 2020 from 3-9pm ET. On its first three live online Marathons (May 3, June 14, and August 16) Bang on a Can has presented over 70 performances including 23 new commissions and dozens of composers and performers. Bang on a Can plans to continue these Marathons, streaming online at marathon2020.bangonacan.org, until performances for live audiences can fully resume. The six-hour live Marathon will be hosted by Bang on a Can Co-Founders and Artistic Directors Michael Gordon, David Lang, and Julia Wolfe, who say:

On October 18, Bang on a Can re-ignites with six hours of nonconformist, noncommercial, boundary-smashing music. We kick off at 3pm with a special birthday tribute to master composer George Crumb (91 years young!), and close off with a solo sonic adventure featuring guitarist-composer Bill Frisell. Don't miss nine world premieres commissioned especially for the day, a rare solo appearance by David Longstreth (of Dirty Projectors) plus music and performances by Hauschka, Nathalie Joachim, Tania León, William Parker, Nels Cline and Yuka C. Honda, Du Yun, and many more greats.

This is a free concert! But please consider purchasing a ticket! Doing so will help us to do more performances, pay more players, commission more composers, and share more music worldwide.

An entire ecosystem of composers and performers still needs our attention, and our love, and our financial support! The Marathon will be free to stream and all Marathon performers and composers participating live are being compensated by Bang on a Can.

A core feature of the program will be nine world premieres of newly commissioned works:

Annie Gosfield New Work (world premiere) performed by Ken Thomson

Christina Wheeler New Work (world premiere) performed by herself

Daniel Bernard Roumain New Work (world premiere) performed by Arlen Hlusko

Gemma Peacocke New Work (world premiere) performed by Nathalie Joachim

Greg Saunier New Work (world premiere) performed by David Cossin

Jeffrey Brooks New Work (world premiere) performed by Mark Stewart

Krists Auznieks New Work (world premiere) performed by Robert Black

Valgeir Sigurðsson New Work (world premiere) performed by Vicky Chow

William Parker New Work (world premiere) performed by himself

Bang on a Can Marathon October 18, 2020 featuring: 

Annie Gosfield, Christina Wheeler, Daniel Bernard Roumain, Gemma Peacocke, Greg Saunier, Jeffrey Brooks, Krists Auznieks, Valgeir Sigurðsson, William Parker, Alvin Singleton, Anna Webber, Bill Frisell, Christopher Cerrone, David Longstreth, Du Yun, George Crumb, Hauschka, John Fitz Rogers, Leaha Maria Villarreal, Mazz Swift, Nels Cline and Yuka C. Honda, Tania León, Tyshawn Sorey, Andie Tanning, Arlen Hlusko, David Cossin, JIJI, Ken Thomson, Mark Stewart, Michael Harley, Nathalie Joachim, Robert Black, Seth Parker Woods, Susan Grace, Tim Munro, Vicky Chow

Marathon Program Info [Full Schedule to be announced soon]

Newly commissioned works:

Industrial strength! Annie Gosfield’s music transforms the sounds and functions and grit of American industrial production into music for live players. In this case, she reflects on the abstract noise and crackle of 2020’s remote communications, using radio ephemera and jammed signals in a new piece for the Bang on a Can All-Stars’ clarinetist Ken Thomson.

Composer / vocalist / multi-instrumentalist Christina Wheeler makes direct and emotional music by weaving together her own voice with high and low tech instruments, electronics, and very human physical gestures.

Daniel Bernard Roumain (aka DBR) is a composer, performer and activist. DBR is the living embodiment of a music that crosses cultural boundaries, using virtuosic violin skills to build bridges to other musicians and communities. Here he writes for a fellow string player, the Bang on a Can All-Stars’ cellist Arlen Hlusko

Gemma Peacocke is a composer and founder of Kinds of Kings originally from New Zealand but now fully Brooklynized. She brings her fluid, gestural sensibilities to a new work for flutist/composer Nathalie Joachim.

Composer Greg Saunier is the drummer of the acclaimed experimental band Deerhoof. He says, “as a drummer, everything I touch is broken a few weeks later.” Whatever gets broken in the new work he is writing for this Marathon, Bang on a Call All-Star drummer David Cossin will help him break it.

Jeffrey Brooks is no stranger to Bang on a Can, who commissioned and premiered his ecstatic and mesmerizing The Passion and recorded it just last year. As a fan of the electric guitar, his new piece is for double-neck electric guitar to be performed by Bang on a Can All-Star Mark Stewart. 

Latvian superstar composer Krists Auznieks channels his delicate ear and his flowing curiosity into a new piece for Bang on a Can All-Star bassist Robert Black.

All the way from Reykjavik! Composer, producer, and founder of Iceland’s legendary alt-label Bedroom Community Valgeir Sigurðsson brings his understated elegance to a new work for Bang on a Can All-Star pianist Vicky Chow. 

Composer, bassist, and poet William Parker has been making music with a who’s who of jazz legends for the past 40 years. A frequent collaborator with Cecil Taylor and Roscoe Mitchell, for this performance he will premiere a new work accompanied only by himself.

The Marathon also includes:

Happy birthday to George Crumb, 91 years young on October 24^th! George Crumb has spent a lifetime searching for the undiscovered sounds that live within the sounds we think we already know. Crumb’s pioneering exploration of new techniques for playing the piano resulted in his titanic, atmospheric Makrokosmos cycle. Pianist Susan Grace performs two excerpts: Golliwog Revisited and Blues in the Night from his most recent piano work, A Little Midnight Music.

Bill Frisell has long been hailed as one of the most innovative and original guitar players of our time through a career as a composer and improviser, bandleader and soloist, that has spanned more than 40 years and has touched the lives of musicians across every scene. Solo here, with a guitar and an amp, we’re in for a sonic adventure. 

Alvin Singleton calls his cello piece Argoru, which means ‘play’ in Twi, one of Ghana’s major languages. And ‘play’ this cellist must - Argoru is an explosive, unpredictable drama told through the use of traditional and non-traditional techniques of playing the instrument. For this performance, the powerful cellist Seth Parker Woods will perform Argoru II.

Anna Webber is a powerful and passionate flutist, saxophonist, and composer. Fiercely dedicated to avant-garde jazz and experimental classical music, her live and recording activities can be heard with an impossible-to-count number of ensembles she has formed, leads, and regularly contributes to. And she plays solo too - which she will do on this performance. 

Not a flute. Well, not just a flute. Christopher Cerrone’s wild, heightened use of electronics in his piece Liminal Highway transforms a virtuosic solo flute part into something much more architectural than that. It’s a technologically expanded hyper-flute, played by technologically expanded hyper-flutist Tim Munro, who will perform the first two movements.

David Longstreth is a composer, singer-songwriter and guitarist. He is also the founder of the indie powerhouse band Dirty Projectors, and his songs for them are rhythmically surprising, obliquely tuneful and endlessly inventive. His solo guitar and vocal songs are also intricate and astonishing and he’ll share some of that music on this performance. 

Du Yun has a secret life. Several secret lives, actually – she is not only a composer of socially activated opera but she is also a pop diva, an extreme improviser, a high energy new music storyteller. When she performs her own music on the Marathon, at least one of these personalities will be on display.

German composer and pianist Hauschka makes music that lives in the seam between live performance and the machine. His hip, moody beats are generated not on a laptop, but by placing household objects and scraps of rubber between the strings of a real piano, and then processing the resulting distorted sounds electronically. John Cage set the stage for prepared piano and now Hauschka takes it in new directions.

John Fitz Rogers’ bassoon piece Come Closer is so energized, so fast and so detailed that no one player can realize it alone. For this performance, bassoon virtuoso Mike Harley plays with three pre-recorded versions of his own virtuosic self.

Leaha Maria Villarreal is a composer and co-founder of Hotel Elefant. She writes sonically charged music and dramatically charged opera. For her piece The Warmth of Other Suns, violinist Andie Tanning creates clouds of violins that hover in the sky and then drop to earth. 

New Yorker Mazz Swift is the avant-violinist for this moment, informed equally by her Juilliard training, her free improvisatory spirit, and her commitment to building a better world. She is also a powerhouse singer, and all these aspects of her persona are woven together in this performance of her piece Give up the world.

Nels Cline (Wilco) and Yuka C. Honda (Cibo Matto) are married to each other, so they can play together without violating anyone’s quarantine. Their tuneful, witty, unpredictable music comes together in their new band CUP.

Composer, conductor, teacher, new music advocate, founding member of the Dance Theater of Harlem - Tania León has been one of America’s most valuable musical citizens for many years now. She was born in Havana, Cuba, and you can hear it in the beautiful short pieces Paisanos Semos and Bailarin, performed by guitarist JIJI.

Tyshawn Sorey is a whirlwind across the spectrum of music happening today. Composer, multi-instrumentalist, and one of the most active, wide-ranging collaborators in the business, working with everyone from jazz legend Anthony Braxton, to opera star Julia Bullock, to new music virtuoso Claire Chase. On this Marathon he performs his brainy, intricate music himself.

Through years championing new repertoire, violinist Andie Tanning has carved a niche as a sought after collaborator across multi-disciplinary landscapes from new opera to Broadway, indie classical to indie rock, and tons more. She’s also the cofounder and musical director of Wild Shore New Music, Alaska’s premiere new music festival. Here she performs Leaha Maria Villarreal’s other-worldly The Warmth of Other Suns. 

Arlen Hlusko is a brilliant cellist with a powerful sound and a deep commitment to community engagement through music. She’ll perform a new work by composer/violinist/activist Daniel Bernard Roumain.

Bang on a Can All-Star percussionist-drummer-producer David Cossin is a superstar specialist in new and experimental music. He’ll be premiering a new work by composer/drummer Greg Saunier of the acclaimed experimental band Deerhoof. 

Classical guitar virtuoso JIJI is a brilliant soloist with a repertoire increasingly rooted in commissions from a new generation of composers. Her ensemble accolades include recent tours with Cuarteteo Latinoamericano and Brasil Guitar Duo, some of the chops she’ll bring to her Marathon performance of Tania Leon’s demanding pieces Paisanos Semos and Bailarin.

Bang on a Can All-Star and reed guru Ken Thomson is a passionate performer and also a composer increasingly known for his harmonic and rhythmic complexity. He’ll play a new work by industrial and inventive composer Annie Gosfield.

Bang on a Can All-Star and musical wizard Mark Stewart is a virtuoso guitarist, singer, instrument inventor, who plucks, bows, beats, and breathes life into countless sound-making devices. Here he takes on a new commission for electric double-neck guitar by composer Jeffrey Brooks.

Michael Harley, a member of Alarm Will Sound and the Rushes Ensemble, is a tireless advocate for both the bassoon and ear-bending contemporary music. His Southern Exposure New Music Series based in Colombia, SC has been a launchpad in the American southeast for many of today’s most innovative contemporary ensembles. He’ll play John Fitz Rogers’ Come Closer written for four bassoons, in this case, performed solo with backing tracks. 

Nathalie Joachim is a composer, flutist, singer, educator, producer, and a pioneering force in music, comfortably navigating in classical music to indie-rock, and all while advocating for social change and cultural awareness. For this show she’ll perform the world premiere of a new work for flute by Gemma Peacocke. 

Founding and current Bang on a Can All-Star bassist Robert Black tours the world constantly unearthing unheard-of music for the solo double bass. For this Marathon he’ll be performing a new work by composer Latvian superstar composer Krists Auznieks.

Seth Parker Woods’ have-cello-will-travel versatility and virtuosity has taken him from Basel (Sinfonietta) to Belgium (Ictus Ensemble), from New York (Ballet) to Seattle (Symphony), and many stops in between. Known to take on challenging repertoire, he’ll be performing Alvin Singleton’s complex Argoru II. 

Pianist Susan Grace is one of the foremost interpreters of the music of George Crumb, having worked closely with the legendary composer on many renowned performances and acclaimed recordings. Here she’ll be playing Golliwog Revisited and Blues in the Night from Crumb’s A Little Midnight Music (Eine Kleine Mitternachtmusik)

Tim Munro is a fiery flutist, known for his passion and commitment to large-scale experiential music collaborations with composers across the contemporary world. Here he’ll be performing music from his new recording Liminal Highway, composed by Chris Cerrone. 

Vicky Chow, powerhouse pianist of the Bang on a Can All-Stars, premieres a new piece by Icelandic composer Valgeir Sigurðsson.

 

About Bang on a Can: Bang on a Can is dedicated to making music new. Since its first Marathon concert in 1987, Bang on a Can has been creating an international community dedicated to innovative music, wherever it is found. With adventurous programs, it commissions new composers, performs, presents, and records new work, develops new audiences, and educates the musicians of the future. Bang on a Can is building a world in which powerful new musical ideas flow freely across all genres and borders. Bang on a Can plays “a central role in fostering a new kind of audience that doesn’t concern itself with boundaries. If music is made with originality and integrity, these listeners will come.” (The New York Times)

Bang on a Can has grown from a one-day New York-based Marathon concert (on Mother’s Day in 1987 in a SoHo art gallery) to a multi-faceted performing arts organization with a broad range of year-round international activities. “When we started Bang on a Can, we never imagined that our 12-hour marathon festival of mostly unknown music would morph into a giant international organization dedicated to the support of experimental music, wherever we would find it,” write Bang on a Can Co-Founders Michael Gordon, David Lang and Julia Wolfe. “But it has, and we are so gratified to be still hard at work, all these years later. The reason is really clear to us – we started this organization because we believed that making new music is a utopian act – that people needed to hear this music and they needed to hear it presented in the most persuasive way, with the best players, with the best programs, for the best listeners, in the best context. Our commitment to changing the environment for this music has kept us busy and growing, and we are not done yet.”

In addition to its festivals LOUD Weekend at MASS MoCA and LONG PLAY, current projects include The People's Commissioning Fund, a membership program to commission emerging composers; the Bang on a Can All-Stars, who tour to major festivals and concert venues around the world every year; recording projects; the Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival at MASS MoCA, a professional development program for young composers and performers led by today’s pioneers of experimental music; Asphalt Orchestra, Bang on a Can’s extreme street band that offers mobile performances re-contextualizing unusual music; Found Sound Nation, a new technology-based musical outreach program now partnering with the State Department of the United States of America to create OneBeat, a revolutionary, post-political residency program that uses music to bridge the gulf between young American musicians and young musicians from developing countries; cross-disciplinary collaborations and projects with DJs, visual artists, choreographers, filmmakers and more. Each new program has evolved to answer specific challenges faced by today’s musicians, composers and audiences, in order to make innovative music widely accessible and wildly received. Bang on a Can’s inventive and aggressive approach to programming and presentation has created a large and vibrant international audience made up of people of all ages who are rediscovering the value of contemporary music. Bang on a Can has also recently launched its new digital archive, CANLAND, an extensive archive of its recordings, videos, posters, program books, and more. Thirty-three years of collected music and associated ephemera have been digitized and archived online and is publicly accessible in its entirety at www.canland.org. For more information about Bang on a Can, please visit www.bangonacan.org.

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