Bang On A Can Premieres Works By George Lewis & Angelica Negron

On Thursday, February 15, 2018 at 7:30pm, Bang on a Can will present the 2018 Bang on a Can People's Commissioning Fund concert, one of the most anticipated and reliable launching pads for composers in New York and beyond, as part of Kaufman Music Center's Ecstatic Music Festival at Merkin Concert Hall (Kaufman Music Center, 129 W. 67th St.). This year the Bang on a Can All-Stars will give world premieres by PCF-commissioned composers George Lewis and Angélica Negrón. Additionally, the program will raid the archive of PCF commissions and feature The Schmetterling by Pamela Z (with Pamela performing), all the way back from the first annual PCF concert in 1998, plus Vortex (2003) by Annea Lockwood, Glamour Girl (2007) by Lukas Ligeti, and Stroking Piece #1 (2003) by Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore. This concert will be a New Sounds Live co-presentation with host John Schaefer and streamed live at www.newsounds.org.

Angélica Negrón's Turistas is a new piece for the Bang on a Can All-Stars inspired by the zine of the same name by Puerto Rican illustrator Mariela Pabón. This zine is a compilation of real commentaries, doubts and inquiries made by customers while she worked at a small hotel in Old San Juan, Puerto Rico. Turistas seeks to mirror Mariela's quotidian vignettes rendering through sound the dark humor, transparency and charming nonconformity of these fragmentary interactions. Moreover, Negrón is interested in exploring humor as a form of resistance and survival during these difficult times in the island.

About his new work, Columbia professor and MacArthur "genius" George Lewis says that "composing music for 'acoustic instruments' is a matter of engaging with the musical behavior of human bodies and minds situated in historical time and cultural space." His piece for the Bang on a Can All-Stars draws on his work with interactive computer music to create new musical forms.

Pamela Z composes primarily for her own solo voice with live digital processors, and sampled sounds. While composing The Schmetterling for the Bang on a Can All-Stars, Pamela notes, "I felt compelled, for the first time, to acquire some good instrument samples. I had to scrounge because my many banks of samples included traffic noises, text, machinery, water, but very few standard instruments... I was able to get some idea of what the piece would sound like in the end, although I'm sure that my realization is only a mere shadow of what the actual players will do with it." The Schmetterling was inspired by a harrowing encounter that Pamela had with an exotic, German Lepidopteran.

When she composed Vortex, Annea Lockwood had been listening to the All-Stars for fifteen years, "turned on by their crisp ensemble, virtuosity and great energy." The piece builds on sounds and licks which embody each player, starting with slow strokes on the uboingee (a guitar-shaped frame with both strings and stretched springs), and gongs. Lines emerge and accumulate, converging, accelerating, pulled into a dark core on a single pitch - a vortex. Finally, there is release, back into pure sound.

Lukas Ligeti's Glamour Girl highlights one of the All-Stars' unique traits - that "they are an extremely advanced contemporary chamber group and a rock band at the same time" with the drummer acting as a conductor of sorts. Furthermore, Ligeti says, "Glamour Girl looks in the mirror, as any glamour girl does - and every time she looks at herself, or every time you look at her, you see her in a new light. Maybe she has new makeup, the melodies are wearing a new dress of a different color, or she walks down the catwalk in a different rhythm. It is all in the eyes of the beholder."

Thurston Moore's Stroking Piece #1 was written as a fairly typical example of a mid-period Sonic Youth-centric guitar instrumental: an episode of dynamic build with resultant tone-shards culminating in a noise improvisation/meditation released into repetition as thought-stroke release.

About the People's Commissioning Fund (PCF): Created in 1997, PCF is a radical partnership between artists and audiences to commission works from adventurous composers and is one of the first pre-social media, crowd-sourcing art-creating platforms. The fund began when Bang on a Can co-founders Michael Gordon, David Lang and Julia Wolfe recognized a need to go beyond the usual sources of support to create new, groundbreaking music. Each year, Bang on a Can pools together the contributions of hundreds of individuals to fund the commissions. Donations range from $5 to $5,000. To date, over 50 new pieces have been created through PCF, and over $300,000 has been raised. The pieces often become part the Bang on a Can All-Stars' permanent repertoire, and these works go on to make debuts across the U.S. and throughout Europe and Asia.
Past commissions have gone to composers including Nik Bärtsch, Eve Beglarian, Oscar Bettison, Nick Brooke, Jeffrey Brooks, Jace Clayton, Anna Clyne, Dan Deacon, Bryce Dessner, Sussan Deyhim, James Fei, Ben Frost, Yoav Gal, Annie Gosfield, Erdem Helvacioglu, John Hollenbeck, Cynthia Hopkins, Jóhann Jóhannsson, Karsh Kale, Carla Kihlstedt, John King, Glenn Kotche, Lukas Ligeti, Annea Lockwood, David Longstreth, Alvin Lucier, Rene Lussier, Keeril Makan, Ingram Marshall, Miya Masaoka, Paula Matthusen, Marc Mellits, Kate Moore, Thurston Moore, Virgil Moorefield, Richard Reed Parry, Joshua Penman, Tristan Perich, Dan Plonsey, Ed Ruchalski, Caroline Shaw, Matthew Shipp, Gabriella Smith, Christine Southworth, Lok Yin Tang, Jim Thirwell, Ken Thomson, Toby Twining, Stefan Weisman, Daniel Wohl, Zhang Shouwang, and Pamela Z.

About the Bang on a Can All-Stars: The Bang on a Can All-Stars are Ashley Bathgate, cello; Robert Black, bass; Vicky Chow, piano; David Cossin, percussion; Mark Stewart, guitars; and Ken Thomson, clarinets. Formed in 1992, the Bang on a Can All-Stars are recognized worldwide for their ultra-dynamic live performances and recordings of today's most innovative music. Freely crossing the boundaries between classical, jazz, rock, world and experimental music, this six-member amplified ensemble has consistently forged a distinct category-defying identity, taking music into uncharted territories. Performing each year throughout the U.S. and internationally, the All-Stars have shattered the definition of what concert music is today.

Together, the All-Stars have worked in unprecedented close collaboration with some of the most important and inspiring musicians of our time, including Steve Reich, Ornette Coleman, Burmese circle drum master Kyaw Kyaw Naing, Tan Dun, DJ Spooky, and many more. The group's celebrated projects include their landmark recordings of Brian Eno's ambient classic Music for Airports and Terry Riley's In C, as well as live performances with Philip Glass, Meredith Monk, Don Byron, Iva Bittova, Thurston Moore, Owen Pallett and others. The All-Stars were awarded Musical America's Ensemble of the Year and have been heralded as "the country's most important vehicle for contemporary music" by the San Francisco Chronicle.

Current and recent project highlights include the touring performances and recording of Julia Wolfe's Pulitzer Prize winning Anthracite Fields for the All-Stars and guest choir, the record release of Wolfe's acclaimed Steel Hammer, featuring Trio Mediaeval, plus a moving theatrically staged collaboration with Siti Company and director Anne Bogart; Field Recordings, a major multi-media project and CD/DVD now featuring 30 commissioned works by Tyondai Braxton, Mira Calix, Anna Clyne, Bryce Dessner, Florent Ghys, Michael Gordon, Jóhann Jóhannsson, David Lang, Christian Marclay, Steve Reich, Todd Reynolds, Julia Wolfe, and more; the Lincoln Center Festival 2017 world premiere of Cloud River Mountain, a new collaboration featuring Chinese superstar singer Gong Linna; the world premiere performance and recording of Steve Reich's 2x5 including a sold-out performance at Carnegie Hall, and much more. With a massive repertoire of works written specifically for the group's distinctive instrumentation and style of performance, the All-Stars have become a genre in their own right. The All-Stars record on Cantaloupe Music and have released past recordings on Sony, Universal and Nonesuch.

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."

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 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.

About the Ecstatic Music Festival: Hailed as "the alt-classical world's main showcase" (The New York Times) and "a kind of heaven for show-goers in search of the ever-elusive, one-of-a-kind live music experience" (The Village Voice), Kaufman Music Center's Ecstatic Music Festival returns for its eighth year, bringing together composers and performers from different musical genres or scenes for collaborations leading to performances that are adventurous and utterly unique. www.ecstaticmusicfestival.com.

About Kaufman Music Center: Kaufman Music Center is New York's go-to place for music education and performance. It's where music lovers, from curious fans to renowned performers, come together to explore their musical passions. Founded in 1952 as a community school for pre-conservatory music training, today's Kaufman Music Center is home to Merkin Concert Hall; Lucy Moses School, New York's largest community arts school; Special Music School, a K-12 public school for musically gifted children; and the acclaimed youth new music ensemble Face the Music. www.kaufmanmusiccenter.org.