Bang on a Can All-Stars June 14, 2011 at 8pm Courtyard Concert Series sponsored by Yale Law School Courtyard Yale-New Haven Hospital and 127 Wall Street, New Haven Yale New Haven Health System Concert Sponsor: Connecticut Magazine ARTISTS from the Greenwall Foundation, the Jerome Foundation and the City of Ashley Bathgate-Cello New York Department of Cultural Robert Black-Contrabass Affairs. & Electric Bass Vicky Chow-Piano & Keyboards David Cossin-Percussion ABOUT THE Mark Stewart-Electric Guitar Evan Ziporyn-Clarinets PROGRAM Jody Elff-Sound Engineer Julia Wolfe Believing The title for Believing came to me PROGRAM after the music had been written. During the time I was working on the Julia Wolfe Believing piece I had been listening to a song David Longstreth Instructional Video, by John Lennon called Tomorrow Matt Damon, Breakfast at J&M * never knows. It’s a fantastic song Bryce Dessner O Shut Your Eyes - very psychedelic - written at a time Against the Wind * when the Beatles were exploring Brian Eno Music for Airports 1/1 spiritual questions. You can hear it in (arr. Michael Gordon) the music, and in the words. There’s a Lukas Ligeti Glamour Girl * line, “It is believing” that comes back Thurston Moore Stroking Piece #1 * again and again. Believing is such a powerful word - full of optimism and Believing was commissioned by NPS struggle. It’s hard to believe and it’s Dutch Radio for the Bang on a Can liberating to believe. The music is very All-Stars. much written for the Bang on a Can All-Stars. It is my second piece for the * Commissioned by Bang on a Can’s group and I feel that I have really People’s Commissioning Fund (PCF). gotten inside their sound. Believing The PCF is a unique program that was commissioned by NPS Dutch aggregates gifts large and small by Radio. I am very grateful for their individual donors, then commissions support for this work. three new pieces annually by exciting emerging composers. David Longstreth Instructional Video, Additional support for the PCF and Matt Damon, Breakfast at J&M its world premiere concerts has come Some of the first scored music I 25 Bang on a Can All-Stars International Festival of Arts & Ideas wrote was a song cycle in 2002 called at one with a dream Slaves’ Graves. All the arrangements were based on the Mahler songs and the naked sea Stravinsky stuff from the ‘teens that stinking I was obsessed with at the time. I is fresh remember playing it for my brother in time, after I recorded it, and he was like, “Yea, this is cool -- I can totally o shut your eyes against the wind imagine Matt Damon running down Larry Eigner some cobblestone street in Europe during that one part.” I was bummed Brian Eno-Music for Airports at his association at the time, but a When we first heard Music for few years later, it came back as one Airports in the late seventies/early of the main images that inspired this eighties it was like a door cracking work. – David Longstreth open. This record-long piece was mesmerizing, dreamy, intense and Bryce Dessner-O Shut your eyes meant to be played in or thought of against the wind as fitting into a specific environment. This piece is written as a tribute to my It was a redefinition of how we relate friends and colleagues at Bang on a to music in our everyday lives. Brian Can. For the better part of 15 years I Eno was exploring the question of have had so many incredible where music could go. Could its home musical and personal experiences with lie somewhere outside of the muzak the members of the All-Stars and the of elevators and dentists’ offices and Bang on a Can community. Their outside of the concert hall as well? generosity and the profound Could it exist somewhere in between? collective of musical inspiration and talent they represent has left an Eno was essentially defining Ambient indelibly positive effect on my own music. Twenty years ago there were life as a person and musician. O shut no Ambient departments in record your eyes against the wind is stores. There were no New Age or written for them. The piece is based techno sections, no chill rooms. Music on a poem by the American poet for Airports kicked off a whole web of Larry Eigner (1927-1996), who was musics that hadn’t existed previously. a member of the Black Mountain But the unique factor about Eno’s School. O Shut your eyes against the work was that although it could and wind is the last line of his poem, The can exist in the background of Wind like an Ocean which I used as everyday life it is music that creative inspiration for the music. I’d carries potency and integrity that like to thank my sister Jessica Dessner goes far beyond the incidental. It’s for sharing Larry Eigner’s work with music that is carefully, beautifully, me. brilliantly constructed and its com- positional techniques rival the most the wind like an ocean intricate of symphonies. the wind like an ocean What Eno didn’t imagine was that but sometimes the sun stills it his piece would be realized with live and the surface is solid musicians. In his analog studio, methodically stringing out bits of tape why shouldn’t life pass as in a dream and looping them over themselves, he or a dream itself, there are different hadn’t anticipated that a new degrees generation of musicians would take or different dreams reality his music out of the studio and 26 International Festival of Arts & Ideas perform it on live instruments in a and there is no set beat. Select an public forum. At Bang on a Can, we instrument to focus your attention on, have always searched for the or indeed any one component of the redefinition of music, exploring the drum set, and feel the beat wherever boundaries outside of what is you want. This concept derives in part expected. This project represents a from certain styles of African music. further step in this exploration. After Over the years, I’ve produced quite a 20 years, where does this landmark bit of African music and these days piece fit into our ever expanding have an electronica band in Burkina definition? The effect has only begun. Faso, Burkina Electric; not only the The Music for Airports revolution is rhythms, but also some of the just beginning to unfold. melodies in Glamour Girl, especially for the guitar, are influenced by these The live realization of Music for experiences. Glamour Girl looks in Airports stays close to the source. We the mirror, as any glamour girl does have had the great pleasure of sharing - and every time she looks at herself, the project plans with Brian Eno along or every time you look at her, you see the way. We are indebted to him for her in a new light. Maybe she has new giving us the experience of getting makeup, the melodies are wearing a inside and out of this monumental new dress of a different color, or she work. walks down the catwalk in a different rhythm. It is all in the eyes of -Michael Gordon, David Lang, Julia the beholder. – Lukas Ligeti Wolfe Thurston Moore- Stroking Piece #1 Lukas Ligeti-Glamour Girl Stroking Piece #1 was written as a One of the very special things about fairly typical example of a mid-period the Bang on a Can All Stars is that Sonic Youth-centric guitar they are an extremely advanced instrumental: an episode of dynamic contemporary chamber group and build with resultant tone-shards a rock band at the same time, and culminating in a noise improvisation/ therefore a statement against the meditation released into repetition segregation of stylistic schools: just as thought-stroke release. -Thurston my cup of tea. In Glamour Girl, the Moore drummer acts as a conductor of sorts, much like in a rock band. But the BIOGRAPHIES drumming is not in a standard rock style; it is based on a playing tech- A native of Saratoga Springs, NY, nique I initially developed for myself, cellist Ashley Bathgate has performed featuring interlocking patterns that worldwide as both a classical and coalesce to form melodies of pitch contemporary musician. She has and timbre, suggesting several appeared in venues such as Carnegie’s different speeds at the same time. Zankel Hall, Merkin Hall, The Stone, While it has been usual for Western BargeMusic, Boston’s Symphony Hall, music of the past 1000 years to Forbidden City Concert Hall employ several simultaneous (Beijing), Shanghai Grand Theater, melodies, leading to consonances, Teatro Palladium of Rome, and the dissonances, and harmonies, most Muziekgebouw in Amsterdam. Ashley music has had only one tempo at has been a guest artist at several a time. I try to create harmonies of festivals including New York City’s tempo, consonances and dissonances Look and Listen, River to River, Big of speed. Different parts interlock and Ears Festival in Knoxville, TN, Bard hocket to complement each other, Summerscape, Athelas New Music, 27 International Festival of Arts & Ideas and the Shanghai International Arts composers. A founding member of Festival. She has also appeared as a the All-Stars, Robert’s recital activities soloist with the American Symphony frequently take him to five continents Orchestra, The Yale Philharmonia and and has appeared at major festivals the Greater Newburgh Symphony (Takefu International Music Festival, Orchestra. Ashley’s awards include a Japan; Festival de Eleazar Carvalho, grant from the New York Fortalzea, Brazil; etc.), on radio and Philharmonic Players Fund as well as television broadcasts (Asia Live, Sin- top prizes at the 1999 and 2001 Lois gapore, VPRO, Holland; NPR, United Lyman Concerto Competition, and the States; CBC, Canada; etc.) and as an 2006 Hugo Kauder Memorial Strings artist-in-residence (American Center, Competition.