Bang on a Can

By Richard Houdek

North Adams, MA. -- The sounds of music drifting out of certain Mass MoCA galleries these days are neither imagined, nor do they involve sound sculptures. Those strains, sometimes dissonant, occasionally ethereal, often startling in their unpredictability, are the joyous expressions of creativity earnestly at work, mindful of tradition, but unshackled from its limitations.

It is widely known that Mass MoCA is devoted to the exhibition of the most unusual art that humans can make. And since commencement on July 13 of the Bang on a Can Festival and Institute, it has been a haven for music to match that art. Bang on a Can is the now-fabled New York-based organization founded in 1987 by the composers Michael Gordon, David Lang and Julia Wolfe.

Their goal simply was to have fun with new music. Since then, under the three, who are now the co-artistic directors, the group has expanded its horizons to creating a forum for the most innovative and adventurous music of our time. The aim is to discover emerging composers and ensembles that are exploring new musical territories and reaching beyond the status quo.

This is the fourth year of residency for the Institute, and the longest --three weeks, which, with 35 students, Lang believes is an ideal situation. "We go from early morning until late at night," he explained. "At the end of three weeks everyone is exhausted; the day after the marathon everyone is wiped out and can't give another ounce. If it were four weeks everyone would be cranky."

The festival reaches one of its plateaus this weekend when the Bang on a Can All-Stars offer a concert of a seminal work, Brian Eno's "Music for Airports," in its complete form. The grand finale, the annual Bang on a Can Marathon, from 4 to 10 p.m. on July 30, will focus on the music of Steve Reich, this year's composer-in-residence, along with work by other icons of our era.

An integral part of Bang on a Can's Festival is the participation of students from around the world who, like those at Tanglewood's Festival of Contemporary Music, are called "Fellows." This year, 35 Fellows are in residence, along with 11 faculty members, including the founders and co-artistic directors of Bang on a Can and the All-Stars, John Benthal and Mark Stewart, guitars; David Cossin, percussion; Wendy Sutter, cello, and Evan Ziporyn clarinets. The Institute's other faculty members are the bassist Gregg August, pianist Stephen Drury, flutist Paul Monson, and violinist Todd Reynolds. Twelve composers and 23 musicians comprise the student body.

The most exciting aspect of the festival, according to Lang, is the series of student-produced programs. "We arrange daily concerts at 4:30," he said, "but students can sign up for 1:30 concerts and play whatever they want, wherever they want -- something from home, a collaboration with a couple of other students -- it's totally up to them. "I went to one of those on Friday, and it was amazing to see what students had done, totally on their own. They showed up, and one of them did a recital in one room and it overlapped with a concert in another room, like a call and response. Then everyone left the first gallery and went to the second room. It was so beautiful, so well planned and organized. We as administrators didn't have to do anything."

In another student recital, flutist Christine Tavolacci delighted her colleagues by performing in the big bird cage that is part of Mark Dion's exhibition piece in the Mass MoCA show, "Becoming Animal." Lang said he believes the festival is useful especially for those who may be the only music students in their schools interested in experimental music. "Say, you've known about Steve Reich, John Cage or Meredith Monk," he explained, "you could go through life with this as hidden knowledge, thinking, 'I'm a freak. I should be studying standard repertory.' "

With the festival, Lang suggests, people do not have to wait to meet those with similar tastes in music by accident. "We make it possible for students from around the world, already identified as strange music lovers, to come together with like minded people, as they did at that recital last Friday." The festival has become very competitive, Lang said. Several hundred applied for the performers' spots, and about 80 for the 12 composer openings. "People are getting the message that something fun is happening here.

"The only applicants that I had any relationships with were for composition," said Lang, explaining that he was seeking composers at high levels in their development, with fresh, new ideas that they can work out, "Plenty of good music is being written now, music that's good, and normal, and nice. But what we're trying to find are the composers who are asking questions about what it is they've inherited, and making what they've inherited, new."

Lang also stressed the need to attract a range of styles, attitudes and backgrounds in participating composers for cross-fertilization. "The important conversations are not those in the composition classes," he said. "They're the ones taking place in the bar."

The festival, this year, for the first time, has welcomed three fellows from Uzbekistan: Sharofiddin Ahrorov, a 29-year-old percussionist, plays both European and traditional central Asian instruments; Shavkat Matyakubov, 27, a specialist in the Uzbek flutes, performs on sunray and kornay and the stringed instruments, the dutar and tambur and now is learning the regional modal system, the maqam; and Jakhongir Shukurov, a native of Bukhara.

Only 24, Shukurov's compositions have been performed in Austria, Italy and Britain. "Although they have studied English, they are speaking it for the first time," said Lang. "We've designed the program so that they will become part of the ensemble. But their attempt to figure out how to create a musical meeting with these western musicians is going to be something that goes on for the entire three weeks of this festival."

The three fellows came as a result of an appearance by the Bang on a Can All Stars at Uzbekistan's only contemporary music festival. As part of the Central Asia Exchange Program that brought the fellows to North Adams, the Bang on a Can All-Stars will travel to Bishkek, Kyrgystan, and Almaty, Kazakhstan, for workshop and performance residencies in October.

Mass MoCA is unique in hosting an annual Bang on a Can Festival, and Lang believes it a comfortable fit. "People who go to a museum to see contemporary art are used to seeing things that are challenging," he said. "That's the right kind of audience for this culture, and that's the kind of audience that is going to decide the way music is going to be in the future."

Lang said he was very impressed with the Mass MoCA officials from the beginning. "They were very clear," he said. "It was not a music project renting a space. They wanted to go out into the community. Saturday's performance of Eno's "Music for Airports" will include all four of the work's movements. According to Lang, only the first movement, arranged by Gordon, was presented by the All-Stars in 2001 at Mass MoCA, as part of the show, "Shadow/Bang." Earlier in the day, Saturday at 11 a.m., Bang on a Can invites children into the museum's Club B-10 for a hands-on demonstration of musicmaking.

Reich, regarded by the Village Voice and others as America's greatest living composer, will be on hand several days next week to work with composer and performance fellows, according to Lang. And Reich will be well represented with his work at the July 30 marathon.

"We try to give every student a chance to play a piece by the guest composers," Lang said. "I remember going to Tanglewood and Aspen. The great thing about Tanglewood was that so much was happening everywhere at the same time. Here we try to throw everyone together, try to design our program so that composers and performers are playing programs together."