Published by: Season Sponsor: 2017 BAM Next Wave Festival #BAMNextWave Brooklyn Academy of Music Adam E. Max, Katy Clark, Chairman of the Board President William I. Campbell, Joseph V. Melillo, Vice Chairman of the Board Executive Producer Road Trip Bang on a Can All-Stars Music by Michael Gordon, David Lang, Julia Wolfe Directed by Michael Counts BAM Howard Gilman Opera House Oct 27 & 28 at 7:30pm Running time: approx. one hour & 20 minutes, no intermission Scenic and projection design by Deborah Johnson aka CandyStations Lighting design by Ben Stanton Season Sponsor: Support for the Signature Artist Series provided by the Howard Gilman Foundation. Additional support provided by the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation. Road Trip PROGRAM Violin/Brooklyn Triple A Wind in my hair Interstate Plains We are driving Under the stars Moose Unseen Arrival PERFORMED BY Bang on a Can All-Stars Ashley Bathgate cello Robert Black bass Vicky Chow piano and keyboard David Cossin percussion Mark Stewart guitar Ken Thomson clarinet and bass clarinet Andrew Cotton sound engineer Ashley Tata associate director John Erickson video programmer Matt McAdon technical director, scenic Max Silverman video sound design Travis Blackwell stage manager Sruly Lazaros production manager Produced by Bang on a Can Commissioned by BAM for the 2017 Next Wave Festival and by Stephen A. Block, Robert Braun & Joan Friedman, Leslie Lassiter, Raulee Marcus, Maria & Robert A. Skirnick, Jane and Richard Stewart, New Music USA, with additional support from Jerry Eberhardt and Phil Hettema, plus the many individual donors to the Bang on a Can 30th Anniversary “Road Trip” Fund. Road Trip MICHAEL GORDON DAVID LANG JULIA WOLFE ASHLEY BATHGATE ROBERT BLACK VICKY CHOW DAVID COSSIN MARK STEWART KEN THOMSON Road Trip PROGRAM NOTE 30 years ago, three young composers—Michael Gordon, David Lang, and Julia Wolfe—started a journey together, and they called that journey “Bang on a Can.” After hundreds of thousands of miles and hundreds of new pieces, records, productions, marathons, and summer festivals, they’re still best of friends—on the road together, sharing the journey. The electric Bang on a Can All-Stars power it up. Director Michael Counts and scenic designer Deborah Johnson (aka CandyStations) create an immersive landscape. Road Trip takes us on a cross- country trek—celebrating the freedom and mystery of the open road. Dirt road, country road, two lane blacktop, superhighway. Destination unknown. Maybe even unknowable. Photo: Yannick Grandmont Photo: Yannick Photo: Bethanie Hines Bang on a Can All-Stars. Photo: Peter Serling Bang on a Can All-Stars. Photo: Peter Who’s Who MICHAEL GORDON honors in 2016, including Academy Award, Over the past 30 years, Michael Gordon has Golden Globe, and Critics Choice nominations, produced a strikingly diverse body of work, among others. Lang’s the little match girl passion ranging from large-scale pieces for high-energy won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Music. Commis- ensembles and major orchestral commissions sioned by Carnegie Hall and based on a fable to works conceived specifically for the recording by Hans Christian Andersen and Lang’s own studio. Transcending categorization, his music rewriting of the libretto to Bach’s St. Matthew represents the collision of mysterious introspec- Passion, the recording of the piece was awarded tion and brutal directness. This season, in a 2010 Grammy Award for Best Small Ensemble addition to Road Trip, Gordon receives premieres Performance. Recent premieres include his opera of his music worldwide: a new arrangement of the loser, which opened the 2016 Next Wave his opera Acquanetta, commissioned by the Festival at BAM, and for which Lang served as Prototype Festival; a new orchestral work for composer, librettist, and stage director; the public Miami City Ballet; and the German premiere domain for 1000 singers at Lincoln Center’s of his piano concerto The Unchanging Sea, Mostly Mozart Festival; his chamber opera performed by the MDR Symphony. Gordon’s anatomy theater at Los Angeles Opera and at the recent works have included Big Space, commis- Prototype Festival in New York; and the concerto sioned by the BBC Proms and premiered by the man made for the ensemble So¯ Percussion and Bang on a Can All-Stars; a concert-length work a consortium of orchestras; including the BBC for choir, Anonymous Man, commissioned and Symphony and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. premiered by The Crossing; and three new works In addition to his work as a composer, Lang is for orchestra: Natural History, written for the Artist in Residence at the Institute for Advanced 100th Anniversary of the US National Parks and Study in Princeton, NJ, and is a professor of premiered at Crater Lake in Oregon; Observations composition at the Yale School of Music. Lang is on Air, a concerto for bassoon, commissioned co-founder and co-artistic director of New York’s by the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment legendary music collective Bang on a Can. His for soloist Peter Whelan; and The Unchanging music is published by Red Poppy Music (ASCAP) Sea, a piano concerto for Tomoko Mukaiyama, and is distributed worldwide by G. Schirmer, Inc. commissioned by the Seattle Symphony and the Rotterdam Philharmonic. Gordon has been JULIA WOLFE commissioned by Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, Julia Wolfe’s music is distinguished by an the BBC Proms, the Seattle Symphony, the Rot- intense physicality and a relentless power that terdam Philharmonic, the Orchestra of the Age pushes performers to extremes and demands at- of Enlightenment, Ensemble Modern, and BAM, tention from the audience. She draws inspiration among many others. His recordings include from folk, classical, and rock genres, bringing a Timber Remixed, Dystopia, Rushes, Timber, modern sensibility to each while simultaneously Weather, Light Is Calling, Decasia, (purgatorio) tearing down the walls between them. She is POPOPERA, Van Gogh, Trance, and Big Noise a 2016 MacArthur Fellow. Anthracite Fields, from Nicaragua. Gordon is co-founder and co- her Pulitzer-winning concert-length oratorio for artistic director of New York’s legendary music chorus and instruments, draws on oral histories, collective Bang on a Can. His music is published interviews, speeches, and more to honor the by Red Poppy Music (ASCAP) and is distributed people who persevered and endured in the Penn- worldwide by G. Schirmer, Inc. sylvania Anthracite Coal Region. The New York Philharmonic will premiere her new work for DAVID LANG orchestra and women’s chorus in the 2018—19 David Lang is one of the most highly esteemed season, continuing her interest in American and performed American composers writing labor history with the subject of women in New today. In 2016 he was awarded the Richard B. York’s garment industry at the turn of the cen- Fisher Next Wave Award from BAM. His works tury. Upcoming projects include new works for have been performed around the world in most cellist Maya Beiser, So¯ Percussion, New World of the great concert halls. Lang’s simple song Symphony, and the LA Philharmonic. Wolfe has #3, written as part of his score for Paolo Sor- collaborated with theater artist Anna Deavere rentino’s acclaimed film Youth, received many Smith, director Anne Bogart, projection designer Who’s Who Jeff Sugg, filmmaker Bill Morrison, and director (New York magazine). Her “impish ferocity,” “rich François Girard, among others. Her music is tone,” and “imaginative phrasing” (New York heard at venues and festivals throughout the Times) have made her one of the most sought af- world and has been recorded on the Cantaloupe ter performers of her time. The desire to create a Music, Teldec, Point/Universal, Sony Classical, dynamic energy exchange with her audience and and Argo/Decca labels. In 2009, Wolfe joined build upon the ensuing chemistry is a pillar of the NYU Steinhardt School’s faculty where she Bathgate’s philosophy as a performer. Her affinity is artistic director of music composition. She is to dynamism drives Bathgate to venture into co-founder and co-artistic director of New York’s previously uncharted areas of ground-breaking legendary music collective Bang on a Can. Her sounds and techniques, breaking the mold of a music is published by Red Poppy Music (ASCAP) cello’s traditionally perceived voice. Collaborators and is distributed worldwide by G. Schirmer, Inc. and fans alike describe her vitality as nothing short of remarkable and magical for all who are PERFORMERS involved. She is a member of the award-winning, internationally acclaimed sextet, Bang on a Can BANG ON A CAN ALL-STARS All-Stars, the chamber music group HOWL, as Formed in 1992, the Bang on a Can All-Stars well as two chamber groups of which she is are recognized worldwide for their ultra-dynamic a founding member: TwoSense and Bonjour. live performances and recordings of today’s most ashleybathgate.com innovative music. Freely crossing the boundar- ies between classical, jazz, rock, world, and ROBERT BLACK (bass) experimental music, this six-member amplified Robert Black tours the world creating unheard of ensemble has consistently forged a category-de- music for the solo double bass. He collaborates fying identity. With a massive repertoire of works with the most adventurous composers, musi- written specifically for the group’s distinctive cians, dancers, artists, actors, and technophiles instrumentation and style of performance, the from all walks of life. He is a founding and All-Stars have become a genre in their own right. current member of the Bang on a Can All-Stars. Performing each year throughout the US and In 2015, Black commissioned Philip Glass to internationally, the group’s celebrated projects compose a seven-movement solo partita that include their landmark recording of Brian Eno’s includes recited poetry by seven of downtown ambient classic Music for Airports, as well as New York’s most illustrious musician/poets.