Bang on a Can All-Stars

Transcription

1 Bang on a Can All-Stars June 14, 2011 at 8pm Yale Law School Courtyard 127 Wall Street, New Haven Courtyard Concert Series sponsored by Yale-New Haven Hospital and Yale New Haven Health System Concert Sponsor: Connecticut Magazine ARTISTS Ashley Bathgate-Cello Robert Black-Contrabass & Electric Bass Vicky Chow-Piano & Keyboards David Cossin-Percussion Mark Stewart-Electric Guitar Evan Ziporyn-Clarinets Jody Elff-Sound Engineer PROGRAM Julia Wolfe Believing David Longstreth Instructional Video, Matt Damon, Breakfast at J&M * Bryce Dessner O Shut Your Eyes Against the Wind * Brian Eno Music for Airports 1/1 (arr. Michael Gordon) Lukas Ligeti Glamour Girl * Thurston Moore Stroking Piece #1 * Believing was commissioned by NPS Dutch Radio for the Bang on a Can All-Stars. * Commissioned by Bang on a Can s People s Commissioning Fund (PCF). The PCF is a unique program that aggregates gifts large and small by individual donors, then commissions three new pieces annually by exciting emerging composers. Additional support for the PCF and its world premiere concerts has come 25 from the Greenwall Foundation, the Jerome Foundation and the City of New York Department of Cultural Affairs. ABOUT THE PROGRAM Julia Wolfe Believing The title for Believing came to me after the music had been written. During the time I was working on the piece I had been listening to a song by John Lennon called Tomorrow never knows. It s a fantastic song - very psychedelic - written at a time when the Beatles were exploring spiritual questions. You can hear it in the music, and in the words. There s a line, It is believing that comes back again and again. Believing is such a powerful word - full of optimism and struggle. It s hard to believe and it s liberating to believe. The music is very much written for the Bang on a Can All-Stars. It is my second piece for the group and I feel that I have really gotten inside their sound. Believing was commissioned by NPS Dutch Radio. I am very grateful for their support for this work. David Longstreth Instructional Video, Matt Damon, Breakfast at J&M Some of the first scored music I

2 wrote was a song cycle in 2002 called Slaves Graves. All the arrangements were based on the Mahler songs and Stravinsky stuff from the teens that I was obsessed with at the time. I remember playing it for my brother after I recorded it, and he was like, Yea, this is cool -- I can totally imagine Matt Damon running down some cobblestone street in Europe during that one part. I was bummed at his association at the time, but a few years later, it came back as one of the main images that inspired this work. David Longstreth Bryce Dessner-O Shut your eyes against the wind This piece is written as a tribute to my friends and colleagues at Bang on a Can. For the better part of 15 years I have had so many incredible musical and personal experiences with the members of the All-Stars and the Bang on a Can community. Their generosity and the profound collective of musical inspiration and talent they represent has left an indelibly positive effect on my own life as a person and musician. O shut your eyes against the wind is written for them. The piece is based on a poem by the American poet Larry Eigner ( ), who was a member of the Black Mountain School. O Shut your eyes against the wind is the last line of his poem, The Wind like an Ocean which I used as creative inspiration for the music. I d like to thank my sister Jessica Dessner for sharing Larry Eigner s work with me. the wind like an ocean the wind like an ocean but sometimes the sun stills it and the surface is solid why shouldn t life pass as in a dream or a dream itself, there are different degrees or different dreams reality at one with a dream the naked sea stinking is fresh in time, o shut your eyes against the wind Larry Eigner Brian Eno-Music for Airports When we first heard Music for Airports in the late seventies/early eighties it was like a door cracking open. This record-long piece was mesmerizing, dreamy, intense and meant to be played in or thought of as fitting into a specific environment. It was a redefinition of how we relate to music in our everyday lives. Brian Eno was exploring the question of where music could go. Could its home lie somewhere outside of the muzak of elevators and dentists offices and outside of the concert hall as well? Could it exist somewhere in between? Eno was essentially defining Ambient music. Twenty years ago there were no Ambient departments in record stores. There were no New Age or techno sections, no chill rooms. Music for Airports kicked off a whole web of musics that hadn t existed previously. But the unique factor about Eno s work was that although it could and can exist in the background of everyday life it is music that carries potency and integrity that goes far beyond the incidental. It s music that is carefully, beautifully, brilliantly constructed and its compositional techniques rival the most intricate of symphonies. What Eno didn t imagine was that his piece would be realized with live musicians. In his analog studio, methodically stringing out bits of tape and looping them over themselves, he hadn t anticipated that a new generation of musicians would take his music out of the studio and 26

3 perform it on live instruments in a public forum. At Bang on a Can, we have always searched for the redefinition of music, exploring the boundaries outside of what is expected. This project represents a further step in this exploration. After 20 years, where does this landmark piece fit into our ever expanding definition? The effect has only begun. The Music for Airports revolution is just beginning to unfold. The live realization of Music for Airports stays close to the source. We have had the great pleasure of sharing the project plans with Brian Eno along the way. We are indebted to him for giving us the experience of getting inside and out of this monumental work. -Michael Gordon, David Lang, Julia Wolfe Lukas Ligeti-Glamour Girl One of the very special things about the Bang on a Can All Stars is that they are an extremely advanced contemporary chamber group and a rock band at the same time, and therefore a statement against the segregation of stylistic schools: just my cup of tea. In Glamour Girl, the drummer acts as a conductor of sorts, much like in a rock band. But the drumming is not in a standard rock style; it is based on a playing technique I initially developed for myself, featuring interlocking patterns that coalesce to form melodies of pitch and timbre, suggesting several different speeds at the same time. While it has been usual for Western music of the past 1000 years to employ several simultaneous melodies, leading to consonances, dissonances, and harmonies, most music has had only one tempo at a time. I try to create harmonies of tempo, consonances and dissonances of speed. Different parts interlock and hocket to complement each other, 27 and there is no set beat. Select an instrument to focus your attention on, or indeed any one component of the drum set, and feel the beat wherever you want. This concept derives in part from certain styles of African music. Over the years, I ve produced quite a bit of African music and these days have an electronica band in Burkina Faso, Burkina Electric; not only the rhythms, but also some of the melodies in Glamour Girl, especially for the guitar, are influenced by these experiences. 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. Lukas Ligeti Thurston Moore- Stroking Piece #1 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. -Thurston Moore BIOGRAPHIES A native of Saratoga Springs, NY, cellist Ashley Bathgate has performed worldwide as both a classical and contemporary musician. She has appeared in venues such as Carnegie s Zankel Hall, Merkin Hall, The Stone, BargeMusic, Boston s Symphony Hall, Forbidden City Concert Hall (Beijing), Shanghai Grand Theater, Teatro Palladium of Rome, and the Muziekgebouw in Amsterdam. Ashley has been a guest artist at several festivals including New York City s Look and Listen, River to River, Big Ears Festival in Knoxville, TN, Bard Summerscape, Athelas New Music,

4 and the Shanghai International Arts Festival. She has also appeared as a soloist with the American Symphony Orchestra, The Yale Philharmonia and the Greater Newburgh Symphony Orchestra. Ashley s awards include a grant from the New York Philharmonic Players Fund as well as top prizes at the 1999 and 2001 Lois Lyman Concerto Competition, and the 2006 Hugo Kauder Memorial Strings Competition. Ashley received her bachelor s degree from Bard College in 2005 as well as a Master s Degree and Artist Diploma from Yale University in 2008, where she studied with cellist Aldo Parisot. In 2008 she made her New York debut in Carnegie s Weill Hall and has been broadcast as a featured artist on WMHT FM, WQXR FM s Young Artist Showcase, NPR s Performance Today and WYNC s New Sounds Live. She recently recorded a collaborative disc featuring the music of Martin Bresnick which was released this spring on Albany Records. A champion of new music across the globe in many musical genres Ashley is currently embarking on a project with pianist Lisa Moore, commissioning new works to be presented in different venues throughout New York City. Growing up in suburban America during the 1960 s and 70 s, Robert Black s main musical experiences came from the radio, records, and the Music Program in the public school system. Today his interests range from traditional orchestral and chamber music to solo recitals, collaborations with actors, music with computers, movement-based improvisations with dancers, and live action-painting performances with artists. He has commissioned, collaborated, or performed with musicians from John Cage to D.J. Spooky, Elliott Carter to Meredith Monk, Cecil Taylor to Paquito d Rivera, as well as many young emerging composers. A founding member of the All-Stars, Robert s recital activities frequently take him to five continents and has appeared at major festivals (Takefu International Music Festival, Japan; Festival de Eleazar Carvalho, Fortalzea, Brazil; etc.), on radio and television broadcasts (Asia Live, Singapore, VPRO, Holland; NPR, United States; CBC, Canada; etc.) and as an artist-in-residence (American Center, Paris; the Banff Centre, Canada). He recently created and performed the music for Kathryn Walker and the Music Theater Group s production of The Odyssey, and with the Full Force Dance Company, Time On Our Hands. He annually appears at Monadnock Music Festival and the Moab Music Festival among others. He also performs with the Hartford Symphony and the Monadnock Festival Orchestra. Robert maintains a full teaching schedule at The Hartt School at the University of Hartford, the Festival Eleazar de Carvalho (Brazil), and is a member of the Manhattan School of Music s Contemporary Performance Program. His solo CDs are State of the Bass (O.O. Discs), The Complete Bass Music of Christian Wolff (Mode Records), The Complete Bass Music of Giacinto (Mode Records) and an up-coming 2 CD set of mid 20th Century American Bass Music. Canadian pianist Vicky Chow has performed extensively as a classical and contemporary soloist, chamber musician, and ensemble member, uniquely dedicated to the limitless possibilities of timbres one can create playing in, on, and around the piano. Joining the All-Stars in 2009, Vicky has also performed with other groups such as Wordless Music Orchestra, Opera Cabal, Wet Ink Ensemble, ai ensemble and AXIOM. Recent performances include a tour to Malaysia with the Perak Performing Arts Society, a recital tour across Canada, and a solo 28

5 appearance at Carnegie Hall and Merkin Hall. Vicky s upcoming album of solo piano music by Ryan Francis will soon be released i under tzadik. In addition to performing, she also produces and curates Contagious Sounds, a new music series focusing on adventurous contemporary artists and composers at the Gershwin Hotel in New York City. Originally from Vancouver Canada, Ms. Chow studied at The Juilliard School with Yoheved Kaplinsky and Julian Martin (B.M, M.M. Piano Performance ) before continuing studies at Manhattan School of Music (M.M., P.S. Contemporary Performance ) with Christopher Oldfather. She made her orchestral debut at the age of 10 with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra and made her last orchestral appearance at Alice Tully Hall with the Juilliard Symphony performing Bartok s Piano Concerto No. 1. Ms. Chow resides in New York City. David Cossin was born and raised in Queens, New York, and studied classical percussion at the Manhattan School of Music. His interest in classical percussion, drum set, non-western hand drumming, composition, and improvisation has led to performances across a broad spectrum of musical styles. He specializes in new and experimental music, and has recorded and performed internationally with musicians including Sting, Talujon Percussion Quartet, NewBand, New Music Consort, Yo-Yo Ma, Tan Dun, Bo Didley, and B-blush. Numerous theater projects include Peony Pavilion with Peter Sellars and Tan Dun, Blue Man Group, The Lion King, and Mabou Mines. David was the solo percussionist for the film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, directed by Ang Lee with music by Tan Dun, which won the Academy Award for best musical score. He has performed solo concerts throughout Europe and the US, incorporating video, electronic 29 processing, and homemade instruments. David has played as a soloist with orchestras in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Beijing, Hunan, Macao, Sweden, California, and London. Most recently, David appeared on the television shows, Good Morning America and CBS The Early Show with Yo-Yo Ma. He co-wrote, performed and recorded music for the documentary film Vertical Traveler and was invited to be artist in residence at the Loop Gallery in Italy. Through composition, inventing new instruments, and music production David has ventured into other art forms including sonic installations that have been presented in the US, Germany, and Italy. David is the curator for the Sound Res Festival, an experimental music festival in southern Italy and also teaches percussion at Queens College in New York City. Raised in America s Dairy Land of Wisconsin, Multi-instrumentalist, singer, composer and instrument designer Mark Stewart has been heard around the world performing old and new music. Going to conservatory to study both guitar and cello, he came to NYC to work as a performer on both instruments; however upon completing school he was most drawn to the electric guitar. Today Mark plays regularly with a wide range of musicians: since 1998 he has recorded, toured and been Musical Director with Paul Simon. A founding member of the Bang on a Can All-Stars, Mark is also a member of Steve Reich & Musicians and the comic duo Polygraph Lounge with keyboard & theremin wizard Rob Schwimmer and has performed with Anthony Braxton, Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder, Bruce Springsteen, Bobby McFerrin, Paul McCartney, the Everly Brothers, David Byrne, & James Taylor. Mark has collaborated extensively with composer Elliot Goldenthal on music for the feature films The

6 Tempest, Across the Universe, Titus, The Butcher Boy, The Good Thief, In Dreams, and Heat, often playing instruments of his own design and construction. He is on the faculty of the Manhattan School of Music & his New York Lower East Side lab is home to an instrument workshop and sonic salon where traditional and new instruments cohabit ate. Stewart can be heard on Warner Bros., Sony, Sony Classical, Point/Polygram, Nonesuch, Label Bleu, Resonance Magnetique, Cantaloupe and CRI recordings. He lives in New York City making his living playing and writing popular music, semi-popular music and unpopular music. Evan Ziporyn makes music at the crossroads between genres and cultures, east and west. He studied at Eastman, Yale & UC Berkeley. A chance hearing of gamelan led him to Bali in 1981; he returned there on a Fulbright in 1987, and has since sojourned there repeatedly to study, perform, and collaborate. Also in 1987, Evan performed a clarinet solo at the First Bang on a Can Marathon in New York. He co-founded the All-Stars in 1992, and his involvement with BOAC continues to this day. Ziporyn joined the MIT faculty in 1990 and is currently Kenan Sahin Distinguished Professor. There he founded Gamelan Galak Tika, beginning a series of groundbreaking compositions for gamelan & western instruments. These include three evening-length works, 2001 s ShadowBang, the American Repertory Theater s 2004 s Oedipus Rex, and 2009 s A House in Bali, an opera which joins western singers with Balinese traditional performers, and the All-stars with a full gamelan. As a clarinetist, Ziporyn recorded the definitive version of Steve Reich s multi-clarinet NY Counterpoint in 1996, and shared in the Reich Ensemble s Best Chamber Music Performance Grammy in In 2001 his solo clarinet CD, This is Not A Clarinet, made Top Ten lists across the country. He has also recorded with Paul Simon, Matthew Shipp, Bob Moses and Ethel. As a composer, he has been commissioned by Yo-Yo Ma s Silk Road & Carnegie Hall, Kronos Quartet, American Composers Orchestra, Maya Beiser, So Percussion, Wu Man, Orkest de Volharding, and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project. He received the 2007 USA Artists Walker Award and the 2004 American Academy of Arts and Letters Lieberson Fellowship. Recordings of his works have also been released on Cantaloupe, CRI, Koch, Innova, Naxos, New Albion, New World, and Sony Classical. Jody Elff is an audio engineer, sound artist, musician, and composer. Elff has had the pleasure of working in some of the most unusual musical and sonic environments imaginable. He has worked with Laurie Anderson, Yo-Yo Ma s Silk Road Ensemble, Paul Winter, Hall & Oates, Paul Simon, and many others. In addition, Elff has mixed countless televised concert events. He scored the feature-length film All the Wrong Places, and is the resident sound designer for the National Theater of the United States of America. His work with sonic environments has led him to develop a series of sound art works which have been presented at museums and galleries internationally. In 2002, he was commissioned to create a permanent sound art installation for a public parking garage in Lyon, France, which opened in October HEAR THEM AGAIN! Bang on a Can CDs are on sale in the lobby, and online at org/store. You can also join the Cantaloupe Club and receive new Bang on a Can CDs before they are released to the public as well as other exclusive offers. 30

7 ABOUT THE COMPANY Formed in 1987 by composers Michael Gordon, David Lang and Julia Wolfe, Bang on a Can is dedicated to commissioning, performing, creating, presenting and recording contemporary music. With an ear for the new, the unknown and the unconventional, Bang on a Can strives to make exciting and innovative music accessible to new audiences worldwide. 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 been building audiences for twenty-four years, growing from a one-day festival into a renowned and multi-faceted new music powerhouse. Current projects include the annual Bang on a Can Marathon; The People s Commissioning Fund, a program to commission emerging composers; the Bang on a Can All-Stars, who tour to major festivals and concert venues around the world; the Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival at MASS MoCA, a professional development program for young composers and performers; Asphalt Orchestra, Bang on a Can s new high energy street band that offers mobile performances of unusual music, taking it to neighborhoods across New York City and beyond to the world at large; the Young Producers Project, a promising new technology-based musical outreach program into NYC schools; and cross-disciplinary collaborations with DJs, visual artists, choreographers, and filmmakers. For up-to-date information regarding Bang on a Can programs, events, and CD releases, please visit our website 31 at call us at or us at info@bangonacan.org. Artistic Directors Michael Gordon, David Lang, Julia Wolfe Executive Director Kenny Savelson Development Director Tim Thomas Project Manager Philippa Thompson Communications Manager Jessica Schmitz Production Associate Yisroel Lazaros Admin Assistant Kathleen Coughlin Education Project Coordinators Chris Marianetti, Jeremy Thal Cantaloupe Label Manager Jillian Barr Red Poppy Publishing Director Mike McCurdy Online Store Brian Petuch Board of Directors Adam Wolfensohn, President Daniel Baldini Jeffrey Bishop Patrick Callery Barry Goldberg Michael Gordon Lynette Jaffe Michael Kushner David Lang Elizabeth Murrell Robert A. Skirnick Jane Stewart Julia Wolfe Bang on a Can is dedicated to commissioning, performing, creating, presenting and recording contemporary music. With an ear for the bold and unconventional, Bang on a Can believes in exposing exciting new music as broadly and accessibly as possible. And through its Summer Festival, Bang on a Can hopes to bring this energy and

8 passion for innovation to a younger generation of composers and players. Bang on a Can s 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 Foundation, 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. 32