Bang on a Can All-Stars Come to Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall, 11/5

The Bang on a Can All-Stars, New York's renowned electric chamber music ensemble, take the stage at Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall on Saturday, November 5, 2011 at 9pm to perform the New York premieres of Louis Andriessen's Life with film by Marijke Van Warmerdam (postponed from a previous season due to the unpronounceable volcano in Iceland) and David Lang's sunray, plus Michael Gordon's for Madeline, Kate Moore's Ridgeway, three pieces commissioned by Bang on a Can from David Longstreth of the Dirty Projectors (Instructional Video, Matt Damon, Breakfast at J&M), and Lukas Ligeti's Glamour Girl. Recordings of these works and more appear on the All-Stars' first studio album in five years: a two-CD set titled Big Beautiful Dark and Scary, to be released on Cantaloupe Music in January 2012.

The Bang on a Can All-Stars (Ashley Bathgate, cello; Robert Black, bass; Vicky Chow, piano; David Cossin, percussion; Derek Johnson, electric guitar; and Evan Ziporyn, clarinets) were formed in 1992 by new music collective Bang on a Can and are now recognized worldwide for their dynamic live performances and recordings of today's most innovative music. This season's tour schedule takes them to Boston, Los Angeles, Chicago, Amsterdam, Bordeaux, London, Moscow, Glasgow, and many other places throughout the U.S. and internationally.

A highlight of the All-Stars' Carnegie Hall program is the New York premiere of Andriessen's Life, with film by Dutch filmmaker Marijke Van Warmerdam. The All-Stars have worked closely with Andriessen over their history, bringing their intense dedication and musicality to performances of his music all over the world and are proud to have finally commissioned a new work for themselves from their longtime friend and mentor. Written for the All-Stars in 2009 and premiered by the group in Milan in 2010, Life is, according to the composer, "a kind of contemporary Pictures at an Exhibition." He explains, "Life [is] four short compositions which come from late romantic ‘European' music with hip ‘American' repetitive music. This combination is stretched by the use of cross-references, parallel with what happens in the four films: every film is completely independent, but contains allusions to the others."

Bang on a Can co-founder David Lang's sunray is dedicated to his father, and was written in 2006 while Lang was in residence at the sunny Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival at MASS MoCA (affectionately nicknamed Banglewood). Fellow co-founder Michael Gordon's for Madeline was written while he was mourning the loss of his mother in 2009, as he was "going in and out of synagogues to say Kaddish for Madeline." Kate Moore took her inspiration for her 2010 piece Ridgeway from the historical landmarks of the ancient track called The Ridgeway which runs through southern England. David Longstreth's Instructional Video, Matt Damon, and Breakfast at J&M captures the lively tunefulness he has come to be known for as the mastermind of indie sensations Dirty Projectors. The melodies and rhythms of Glamour Girl by Lukas Ligeti are influenced by the composer's experience with a range of styles of West African music. The works by Moore, Longstreth, and Ligeti were all commissioned by Bang on a Can's People's Commissioning Fund (PCF), which annually combines gifts large and small by individual donors, then commissions new pieces annually by exciting emerging composers.

This season, Bang on a Can is celebrating its 25th anniversary with performances around the world featuring a broad selection of brand new musical adventures alongside a recommitment to acclaimed projects from past years. Projects for 2011-2012 include the All-Stars in a dizzying array of collaborations with friends old and new - joining forces with Norwegian superstars Trio Mediaeval (in Julia Wolfe's Steel Hammer); with percussion legend Steven Schick (in an evening of music by Steve Reich in Los Angeles's Disney Hall, featuring 2x5 and Music for 18 Musicians); with an all-new expanded live tour of Brian Eno's ambient classic Music for Airports; and with a host of composers, visual and sound artists (in the premiere of a new evening-length touring project, Field Recordings - a collaborative program created from found sounds, images, and voices). The season also includes the premiere of a newly staged show featuring the exceptional marching band Asphalt Orchestra, new CD releases on Bang on a Can's sister-label Cantaloupe Music, and more. See concert schedule at the end of this press release.

Since its creation by composers Michael Gordon, David Lang, and Julia Wolfe, 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. In addition to the 25th anniversary of its founding, Bang on a Can is also celebrating the 20th anniversary of its electric chamber ensemble, the Bang on a Can All-Stars; the 15th anniversary of its membership-based commissioning arm, the Peoples' Commissioning Fund; and the 10th anniversary of the Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival at MASS MoCA, a professional development program for young composers and performers which connects the pioneers of experimental music to the next generation. Each new program evolved to further expose innovative music as broadly and accessibly as possible to new audiences worldwide.

"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."