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Home , Bang on a Can, Julia Wolfe, Mark Stewart (guitarist)

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- New York Department of Cultural -Contrabass Affairs. & Electric Bass Vicky Chow- & Keyboards David Cossin-Percussion ABOUT THE -Electric Guitar - PROGRAM Jody Elff-Sound Engineer 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 O Shut Your Eyes - very psychedelic - written at a time Against the Wind * when the Beatles were exploring Music for Airports 1/1 spiritual questions. You can hear it in (arr. Michael Gordon) the music, and in the words. There’s a Glamour Girl * line, “It is believing” that comes back 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 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, , 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 ’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. Ashley received her Paris; the Banff Centre, Canada). He bachelor’s degree from Bard College recently created and performed the in 2005 as well as a Master’s Degree music for Kathryn Walker and the and Artist Diploma from Yale Music Theater Group’s production of University in 2008, where she studied The Odyssey, and with the Full Force with cellist Aldo Parisot. In 2008 Dance Company, Time On Our Hands. she made her New York debut in He annually appears at Monadnock Carnegie’s Weill Hall and has been Music Festival and the Moab Music broadcast as a featured artist on Festival among others. He also WMHT FM, WQXR FM’s ‘Young Artist performs with the Hartford Symphony Showcase’, NPR’s ‘Performance Today’ and the Monadnock Festival and WYNC’s New Sounds Live. She Orchestra. Robert maintains a full recently recorded a collaborative disc teaching schedule at The Hartt School featuring the music of Martin at the University of Hartford, the Bresnick which was released this Festival Eleazar de Carvalho (Brazil), spring on Albany Records. A and is a member of the Manhattan champion of new music across the School of Music’s Contemporary globe in many musical genres Ashley Performance Program. His solo CDs is currently embarking on a project are State of the Bass (O.O. Discs), with pianist Lisa Moore, The Complete Bass Music of Christian commissioning new works to be Wolff (Mode Records), The presented in different venues Complete Bass Music of Giacinto throughout New York City. (Mode Records) and an up-coming 2 CD set of mid 20th Century American Growing up in suburban America Bass Music. during the 1960’s and 70’s, Robert Black’s main musical experiences Canadian pianist Vicky Chow has came from the radio, records, and the performed extensively as a classical Music Program in the public school and contemporary soloist, chamber system. Today his interests range musician, and ensemble member, from traditional orchestral and uniquely dedicated to the limitless chamber music to solo recitals, possibilities of timbres one can create collaborations with actors, music with playing in, on, and around the piano. computers, movement-based Joining the All-Stars in 2009, Vicky improvisations with dancers, and live has also performed with other groups action-painting performances with such as Wordless Music Orchestra, artists. He has commissioned, Opera Cabal, Wet Ink Ensemble, ai collaborated, or performed with ensemble and AXIOM. Recent musicians from to D.J. performances include a tour to Spooky, to Meredith Malaysia with the Perak Monk, Cecil Taylor to Paquito d’Rivera, Performing Arts Society, a recital tour as well as many young emerging across Canada, and a solo 28 International Festival of Arts & Ideas appearance at and processing, and homemade Merkin Hall. Vicky’s upcoming album instruments. David has played as a of solo piano music by Ryan Francis soloist with orchestras in Taiwan, will soon be released i under ‘tzadik’. Hong Kong, Beijing, Hunan, Macao, In addition to performing, she also Sweden, California, and London. Most produces and curates “Contagious recently, David appeared on the Sounds”, a new music series focusing television shows, Good Morning on adventurous contemporary artists America and CBS’ The Early Show and composers at the Gershwin Hotel with Yo-Yo Ma. He co-wrote, in New York City. Originally from performed and recorded music for the Vancouver Canada, Ms. Chow studied documentary film Vertical Traveler and at The Juilliard School with Yoheved was invited to be artist in residence Kaplinsky and Julian Martin (B.M, M.M. at the Loop Gallery in Italy. Through ‘Piano Performance’) before composition, inventing new continuing studies at Manhattan instruments, and music production School of Music (M.M., P.S. David has ventured into other art ‘Contemporary Performance’) with forms including sonic installations that Christopher Oldfather. She made her have been presented in the US, orchestral debut at the age of 10 with Germany, and Italy. David is the the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra curator for the Sound Res Festival, an and made her last orchestral festival in appearance at Alice Tully Hall with southern Italy and also teaches the Juilliard Symphony performing percussion at Queens College in New Bartok’s Piano Concerto No. 1. Ms. York City. Chow resides in New York City. Raised in America’s Dairy Land of David Cossin was born and raised Wisconsin, Multi-instrumentalist, in Queens, New York, and studied singer, composer and instrument classical percussion at the Manhattan designer Mark Stewart has been heard School of Music. His interest in around the world performing old and classical percussion, drum set, new music. Going to conservatory non-western hand drumming, to study both guitar and cello, he composition, and improvisation has came to NYC to work as a performer led to performances across a broad on both instruments; however upon spectrum of musical styles. He completing school he was most drawn specializes in new and experimental to the electric guitar. Today Mark music, and has recorded and plays regularly with a wide range of performed internationally with musicians: since 1998 he has recorded, musicians including Sting, Talujon toured and been Musical Director with Percussion Quartet, NewBand, New . A founding member of Music Consort, Yo-Yo Ma, Tan Dun, Bo the Bang on a Can All-Stars, Mark is Didley, and B-blush. Numerous theater also a member of & projects include Peony Pavilion with Musicians and the comic duo Peter Sellars and Tan Dun, Blue Man Polygraph Lounge with keyboard & Group, The Lion King, and Mabou theremin wizard Rob Schwimmer and Mines. David was the solo has performed with Anthony percussionist for the film Crouching Braxton, , Stevie Wonder, Tiger, Hidden Dragon, directed by Ang , Bobby McFerrin, Lee with music by Tan Dun, which Paul McCartney, the Everly won the Academy Award for best Brothers, David Byrne, & James Taylor. musical score. He has performed solo Mark has collaborated extensively concerts throughout Europe and the with composer US, incorporating video, electronic on music for the feature films The 29 International Festival of Arts & Ideas

Tempest, Across the Universe, Titus, A , made Top Ten lists across The Butcher Boy, The Good Thief, the country. He has also recorded In Dreams, and Heat, often playing with Paul Simon, Matthew Shipp, Bob instruments of his own design and Moses and . As a composer, he construction. He is on the faculty of has been commissioned by Yo-Yo Ma’s the Manhattan School of Music & his Silk Road & Carnegie Hall, New York Lower East Side “lab” is , American Composers home to an instrument workshop and Orchestra, , , sonic salon where traditional and new , Orkest de Volharding, and instruments cohabit ate. Stewart can the Boston Modern Orchestra Project. be heard on Warner Bros., Sony, Sony He received the 2007 USA Artists Classical, Point/Polygram, Nonesuch, Walker Award and the 2004 Label Bleu, Resonance Magnetique, American Academy of Arts and Cantaloupe and CRI recordings. He Letters Lieberson Fellowship. lives in New York City making his Recordings of his works have also living playing and writing popular been released on Cantaloupe, CRI, music, semi-popular music and Koch, Innova, Naxos, New Albion, New unpopular music. World, and Sony Classical.

Evan Ziporyn makes music at the Jody Elff is an audio engineer, sound crossroads between genres and artist, musician, and composer. Elff cultures, east and west. He studied has had the pleasure of working in at Eastman, Yale & UC Berkeley. A some of the most unusual musical and chance hearing of gamelan led him sonic environments imaginable. He to Bali in 1981; he returned there on has worked with Laurie a Fulbright in 1987, and has since Anderson, Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road sojourned there repeatedly to study, Ensemble, Paul Winter, Hall & Oates, perform, and collaborate. Also in 1987, Paul Simon, and many others. In Evan performed a clarinet solo at the addition, Elff has mixed countless First Bang on a Can Marathon in New televised concert events. He scored York. He co-founded the All-Stars in the feature-length film All the Wrong 1992, and his involvement with BOAC Places, and is the resident sound continues to this day. Ziporyn joined designer for the National Theater the MIT faculty in 1990 and is of the of America. His currently Kenan Sahin Distinguished work with sonic environments has led Professor. There he founded Gamelan him to develop a series of sound art Galak Tika, beginning a series of works which have been presented at groundbreaking compositions for museums and galleries internationally. gamelan & western instruments. In 2002, he was commissioned to cre- These include three evening-length ate a permanent sound art installation works, 2001’s ShadowBang, the for a public parking garage in Lyon, American Repertory Theater’s 2004’s France, which opened in October Oedipus Rex, and 2009’s A House 2004. in Bali, an opera which joins western singers with Balinese traditional per- HEAR THEM AGAIN! formers, and the All-stars with a full Bang on a Can CDs are on sale in the gamelan. As a clarinetist, lobby, and online at www.bangonacan. Ziporyn recorded the definitive ver- org/store. You can also join the sion of Steve Reich’s multi-clarinet NY “Cantaloupe Club” and receive new Counterpoint in 1996, and shared in Bang on a Can CDs before they are the Reich Ensemble’s Best Chamber released to the public as well as other Music Performance Grammy in 1998. exclusive offers. In 2001 his solo clarinet CD, This is Not 30 International Festival of Arts & Ideas

ABOUT THE at www.bangonacan.org, call us at 718-852-7755 or email us at COMPANY [email protected].

Formed in 1987 by composers Michael Artistic Directors Gordon, David Lang and Julia Wolfe, Michael Gordon, David Lang, Bang on a Can is dedicated to Julia Wolfe commissioning, performing, creating, Executive Director presenting and recording Kenny Savelson contemporary music. With an ear for Development Director the new, the unknown and the Tim Thomas unconventional, Bang on a Can strives Project Manager to make exciting and innovative music Philippa Thompson accessible to new audiences Communications Manager worldwide. Bang on a Can plays “a Jessica Schmitz central role in fostering a new kind of Production Associate audience that doesn’t concern itself Yisroel Lazaros with boundaries... If music is made Admin Assistant with originality and integrity, these Kathleen Coughlin listeners will come.” (The New York Education Project Coordinators Times) Chris Marianetti, Jeremy Thal Cantaloupe Label Manager Bang on a Can has been building Jillian Barr audiences for twenty-four years, Red Poppy Publishing Director growing from a one-day festival into Mike McCurdy a renowned and multi-faceted new Online Store music powerhouse. Current projects Brian Petuch include the annual Bang on a Can Marathon; The People’s Board of Directors Commissioning Fund, a program to Adam Wolfensohn, President commission emerging composers; the Daniel Baldini Bang on a Can All-Stars, who tour to Jeffrey Bishop major festivals and concert venues Patrick Callery around the world; the Bang on a Barry Goldberg Can Summer Music Festival at MASS Michael Gordon MoCA, a professional development Lynette Jaffe program for young composers and Michael Kushner performers; Asphalt Orchestra, Bang David Lang on a Can’s new high energy street Elizabeth Murrell band that offers mobile performances Robert A. Skirnick of unusual music, taking it to neigh- Jane Stewart borhoods across New York City and Julia Wolfe beyond to the world at large; the Young Producers Project, a promising Bang on a Can is dedicated to new technology-based musical commissioning, performing, creating, outreach program into NYC schools; presenting and recording and cross-disciplinary collaborations contemporary music. With an ear for with DJs, visual artists, the bold and unconventional, choreographers, and filmmakers. Bang on a Can believes in exposing exciting new music as broadly and For up-to-date information regarding accessibly as possible. And through Bang on a Can programs, events, and its Summer Festival, Bang on a Can CD releases, please visit our website hopes to bring this energy and 31 International Festival of Arts & Ideas passion for innovation to a younger generation of composers and players.

Bang on a Can’s 2010-11 programs are made possible with generous lead support from the Amphion Foundation, ASCAP Foundation, Daniel Baldini, Bishop Fund, CEC Artslink, City of New York Department of Cultural Affairs, Aaron Copland Fund for Music, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Fund for the City of New York, Barry Goldberg, Jaffe Family Foundation, Alan Kifferstein & Joan Finkelstein, Michael Kushner & Carol Dauman, MAP Fund, Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, Henry S. McNeil, Jeremy Mindich & Amy Smith, Morrison Family Foundation, Elizabeth Murrell & Gary Haney, National Endowment for the Arts, New Spectrum Foundation, New York State Council on the Arts, NIB Founda- tion, Open Society Foundation, Craig Pepples, Alex Rigopulos & Sachi Sato, Rockefeller Foundation, Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, Paul Simon, Matthew Sirovich, Maria & Robert A. Skirnick, Williamson Foundation, Adam Wolfensohn & Jennifer Small, and Wolfensohn Family Foundation.

This project has been made possible by the National Endowment for the Arts as part of “American Masterpieces: Three Centuries of Artistic Genius.”

With the support of The Aaron Copland Fund for Music, Inc.

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