Bang on a Can Announces 2012-13 Global Touring Season

By: Sep. 05, 2012
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Bang on a Can's 2012-2013 season takes the new music collective throughout the United States and around the world featuring an extensive selection of brand new musical adventures alongside a recommitment to acclaimed projects from past years. Bang on a Can performs regularly this season in its hometown of New York, and travels worldwide to cities including Los Angeles, Sydney, Melbourne, London, Krakow, Toronto, and in many other places throughout the U.S. and internationally.

Highlights for this season include the Bang on a Can All-Stars joining forces with Norwegian superstars Trio Mediaeval for a European tour of Julia Wolfe's Steel Hammer as well as for the world premiere recording of the work, to be released on Bang on a Can's sister-label Cantaloupe Music; the All-Stars with New York's jazz giant Vijay Iyer and Japanese icon Somei Satoh in a night of world premieres at the Japan Society; performances at the Sydney Opera House in celebration of luminary John Cage's 100th birthday during the All-Stars' tour of Australia; plus collaborations with an increasing and eclectic range of composers, visual, and sound artists in the continued creation of Bang on a Can's newest multi-disciplinary evening-length project, Field Recordings.

On September 13 and 14, 2012 Asphalt Orchestra, Bang on a Can's polymorphic avant-marching band, will make its West Coast debut, bringing both its inventive indoor show and its guerilla outdoor performances to the stages and streets of the Los Angeles area. Asphalt Orchestra presents Unpack the Elephant onstage at California State University Northridge on September 13, bringing its iconoclastic spirit to the stage with a show featuring music by Frank Zappa, David Byrne and Annie Clark, Björk, and new music by members of the band. On September 14, Asphalt Orchestra morphs into an outdoor flash force, springing jazz, prog-rock, and world music on the transient masses of downtown Los Angeles featuring music written for the band by luminaries including David Byrne and Annie Clark, Goran Bregovic, Tatsuya Yoshida and more.

From November 2 through 7, 2012 the All-Stars tour to Australia performing for a weekend at the Sydney Opera House and making their first-ever visit to Melbourne with concerts at the Melbourne Recital Centre. In Sydney, the Bang on a Can All-Stars celebrate John Cage's 100th birthday with four incredible concerts. As "descendants" of Cage, the All-Stars bring their unique visceral and sonic approach to the seminal works of this master composer, alongside and their own core repertoire of music by Louis Andriessen, David Lang, Michael Gordon, Kate Moore, Terry Riley, and Julia Wolfe, bringing the ghost of John Cage on a ride from past to present. The All-Stars performances in Melbourne feature the Australian premiere of Field Recordings paired with Brian Eno's ambient classic, Music for Airports.

On December 8, 2012 the Bang on a Can All-Stars return to the Japan Society in New York for Rimpa Re-imagined, where they unveil recently commissioned world premieres by jazz giant Vijay Iyer and Japan's post-minimal innovator Mamoru Fujieda. In addition, the All-Stars revive Japanese titan Somei Satoh's Shu ("Spells") for the first time since its world premiere at the Society in 2004. This time, the piece will be performed to a Rimpa-art-inspired visual landscape created for this concert by cutting-edge motionographer Nobuyuki Hanabusa. Rimpa is a school of Japanese painting that spanned the 17th-19th centuries the this concert is presented in conjunction with the Society's exhibition Silver Wind: The Arts of Sakai H?itsu (1761-1828), showcasing one of the master painters of the Rimpa School.

On March 14, 2013 Bang on a Can's radical partnership between artists and audiences to commission new works from adventurous composers – the People's Commissioning Fund (PCF) – returns to New York City's Merkin Hall with a program of ear-bending world premieres commissioned by the people. The performance will include new works by Anna Clyne, Dan Deacon, Paula Matthusen, Johann Johannsson, and more. (Details will be announced in the fall.)

From May 8 through 13, 2013 the Bang on a Can All-Stars and the mesmerizing Norwegian vocal ensemble Trio Mediaeval reunite to bring Julia Wolfe's Steel Hammer to Europe for premiere performances in Belgium, England, Sweden and more. Premiered in the U.S. to critical acclaim, Steel Hammer is Wolfe's evening length art ballad based on the John Henry legend. Culling from over 200 versions of the legend, Wolfe weaves the contradictory facts to tell the story of the story. The work was runner-up for the 2010 Pulitzer Prize and stretches the standard instrumentation of Bang on a Can All-Stars with wooden bones, mountain dulcimer, banjo, and more, to evoke the rich instrumental colors of Appalachia. The world premiere recording of Steel Hammer will be released by Cantaloupe Music in spring 2013.

Summer 2013 brings Bang on a Can's signature Bang on a Can Marathon to downtown New York City in partnership with the River to River Festival in June, and its three-week Summer Music Festival at MASS MoCA in North Adams in July. (Details will be announced in the spring.)

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 celebrated 25 years during the 2011-2012 season, having 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 in 1987, in an art gallery in SoHo, we never imagined that our one-day, 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 for the last 25 years, and we are not done yet."

Current projects include the annual Bang on a Can Marathon; 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 - 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 2012-2013 Season Schedule
(subject to change, updates at www.bangonacan.org/events/upcoming)

September 10, 2012
Asphalt Orchestra | Unpack the Elephant
The Clair Performance Hall, Millersville University | Millersville, PA
Information: http://www.millersville.edu/calendar/eventdetails.php?id=38c0f8427f0000010189b90466281ca5

September 11, 2012
Bang on a Can All-Stars | Music by Marcin Sta?czyk
Sacrum Profanum Festival | ?a?nia Nowa Theatre | Krakow, Poland
Information: http://www.sacrumprofanum.com/en

September 13, 2012
Asphalt Orchestra | Unpack the Elephant
Valley Performing Arts Center, California State University | Northridge, CA
Information: http://www.valleyperformingartscenter.org/calendar/asphalt-orchestra/

September 14, 2012
Asphalt Orchestra | Flash show
Arts Brookfield, South Hope Street and South Figueroa Street | Los Angeles California
Information: http://artsbrookfield.com/Los_Angeles/bank_of_america_plaza/event_366.htm

September 19, 2012
Asphalt Orchestra | Unpack the Elephant
Collins Center for the Arts | Orono, ME
Information: http://www.collinscenterforthearts.com/index.php

October 19, 2012
Bang on a Can All-Stars | Music from Big Beautiful Dark and Scary
Vilnius, Lithuania
Information: http://www.vilniusfestivals.lt/index.php?page=gd_apie_en

October 20, 2012
Bang on a Can All-Stars | Music from Big Beautiful Dark and Scary
Riga, Latvia
Information: http://www.arenafest.lv/

November 2 & 3, 2012
Bang on a Can All-Stars | Music by Louis Andriessen, John Cage, Brian Eno, Florent Ghys, Michael Gordon, David Lang, Kate Moore, Terry Riley, Julia Wolfe
Sydney Opera House | Sydney Australia
Information: http://www.sydneyoperahouse.com/homepage.aspx

November 5 & 7, 2012
Bang on a Can All-Stars | Australian premiere of Field Recordings plus music by Brian Eno, David Lang, Julia Wolfe
Melbourne Recital Hall | Melbourne, Australia
Information: http://www.melbournerecital.com.au/

December 8, 2012
Bang on a Can All-Stars | World Premieres by Somei Satoh, Vijay Iyer, Mamoru Fujieda
Japan Soceity | New York, NY
Information: http://www.japansociety.org/

January 26, 2013
Bang on a Can All-Stars | Field Recordings
Quick Center for the Arts | Fairfield, CT
Information: http://fairfield.edu/arts/qc_music_bangonacan.html

March 14, 2013
Bang on a Can All-Stars | People's Commissioning Fund
Merkin Concert Hall | New York, NY
Information: http://kaufman-center.org/mch/series/ecstatic-music-festival

April 5, 2013
Asphalt Orchestra | Unpack the Elephant
The American Theater | Hampton, VA
Information: http://www.hamptonarts.net/artist-info/?products_id=5232

April 6, 2013
Asphalt Orchestra | Unpack the Elephant
The Alden | McLean, VA
Information: http://www.hamptonarts.net/artist-info/?products_id=5232

April 12, 2013
Asphalt Orchestra | Unpack the Elephant
Northwestern University | Evanston, IL
Information: http://www.asphaltorchestra.com

May 8 & 9, 2013
Bang on a Can All-Stars and Trio Mediaeval | Steel Hammer by Julia Wolfe plus music from Big Beautiful Dark and Scary and Louis Andriessen, Brian Eno, Steve Reich
Concertgebouw | Brugge, Belgium
Information: http://www.concertgebouw.be/Index.php?newlang=en

May 11, 2013
Bang on a Can All-Stars and Trio Mediaeval | Steel Hammer by Julia Wolfe
Barbican Centre | London, UK
Information: http://www.barbican.org.uk/

May 13, 2013
Bang on a Can All-Stars and Trio Mediaeval | Steel Hammer by Julia Wolfe
Uppsala Konsert & Kongress | Uppsala, Sweden
Information: http://www.ukk.se/In-English/

June TBA, 2013
Bang on a Can Marathon
World Financial Center Winter Garden | New York, NY
Details to be announced.

July 15 – August 4, 2013
Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival
MASS MoCA | North Adams, MA
Information: www.massmoca.org



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