Bang on a Can

Ken Thomson, Brooklyn-based clarinetist, saxophonist, and composer, plays saxophone and writes for the NY-based punk/jazz band Gutbucket, with whom he has toured internationally to 19 countries and 32 states over seven years, and released 3 CDs for Knitting Factory, Enja, and Cantaloupe Records. He is a founding board member of Anti-Social Music, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the work of emerging composers with a punk aesthetic. He is a frequent collaborator with chamber orchestra Alarm Will Sound (Benedict Mason, Michael Gordon, Nancarrow, etc.), the Bang on a Can All-Stars (Europe 2007), percussion wizards So Percussion (Reich, Lang, Andriessen), and more. As a composer, he has been commissioned to write a work for the American Composers Orchestra+Gutbucket that will debut at Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall in October 2007. His through-composed rescoring of the 22-minute 1936 British film "Night Mail" was called "a masterful re-imagining of an old classic" by Indiewire.com upon its debut in March 2007 at the True/False Film Festival. His arrangement of Aphex Twin's "Gwely Mernans" for Alarm Will Sound was recorded on their acclaimed CD Acoustica (Cantaloupe Music), premiered at Lincoln Center Festival 2005, and later choreographed by Chicago's Hubbard Street Dance Company. He has had two works released on CD by Anti-Social Music, including "Song" (ASM Sings the Great American Songbook/Peacock Recordings), and an arrangement of Bob Massey's "The Mountain" (The Nitrate Hymnal/Lujo Records). In the July/August 2006 issue of the German-Dutch Sonic magazine, he was the "Top Interview," garnering a four-page feature in which critic Ulrich Steinmetzger remarked about his "intense performances" which "left behind astounded audiences... [who] witnessed him blow raw energy from the stage like few others can." The Boston Globe has called his improvisation "dazzling;" and Time Out New York has called him a "manic sax dervish." He has also performed in a variety of jazz, rock, chamber music and other settings; he is a member of the internationally-touring punk/cabaret band World/Inferno Friendship Society, klezmer duo Bop Kaballah, and the kids-rock band Dirty Sock Funtime Band (with 4 videos out now on Nickelodeon).