Bang on a Can

aleba gartner associates
135 charles street • suite 5-h • new york, ny 10014
tel: 212/206-1450 • fax: 212/206-3677 • e-mail: aleba@aol.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Press Contact: Aleba, 212/206-1450

"The Bang on a Can All-Stars is an elite band of omnivorous performers with the chops to handle the thorniest avant-garde screed... There are other places to hear contemporary music, but it is seldom offered with such a potent blend of intensity, authority, and abandon." - Vanity Fair

BANG ON A CAN ALL-STARS with IVA BITTOVÁ
make their CARNEGIE HALL DEBUT at ZANKEL HALL

The Bang on a Can All-Stars premiere a new collaboration
with the stunning virtuoso Czech composer/performer Iva Bittová

PLUS brand new works by New York's microtonal guitar legend GLENN BRANCA,
electronic music extraordinaire PAUL LANKSY,
and a Balinese-inspired music-theater score by gamelan master EVAN ZIPORYN

Friday, April 29, 2005, 7:30 pm
Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall, 881 7th Ave., NYC
Tickets: $20 - $32 (call 212/247-7800)

Also coming soon in 2005...

June 2005: Bang on a Can's record label Cantaloupe Music will release Elida, an all-Iva Bittová CD, featuring her compositions, singing, and violin playing with the Bang on a Can All-Stars

July 12-31: Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival at MASS MoCA (affectionately dubbed "Banglewood") Three-week immersion in adventurous music for composers, performers & conductors 2005 faculty will include composer Steve Reich

Friday, April 29, 2005, 7:30 pm at Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall, the unstoppable Bang on a Can enterprise presents its resident ensemble - the Bang on a Can All-Stars - in another innovative performance extravaganza. Celebrated around the world for their high-energy virtuosic music making, the All-Stars premiere a new collaboration with the Czech composer/performer Iva Bittová, plus brand new works by microtonal mastermind Glenn Branca, composer Paul Lansky, and Bang on a Can All-Star Evan Ziporyn.

IVA BITTOVá, whose distinct combination of dazzling virtuosity and disarmingly simple tunes have made her one today's most innovative performers, will present her new composition Elida. Conceived in nine parts and inspired by Czech folk music and performance art, the piece requires Bittová to play the violin and sing with the Bang on a Can All-Stars. In June 2005, Bang on a Can's record label Cantaloupe Music will release an all-Bittová CD entitled Elida, featuring the multi-talented Bittová performing her original from-the-soul compositions with the All-Stars.

The legendary GLENN BRANCA, whose work for microtonal instruments "Movement Within" appeared on Bang on a Can's award-winning CD Renegade Heaven, has been commissioned by Bang on a Can to write a piece for the All-Stars' specific instrumentation. The resulting work, Compositional Recreations One: Black 5 Vs. White 7 In 3 + 4 Time, will debut at this performance. It is the first in a series of chamber pieces and pays homage to Martin Gardner, a scholar and creator of the Mathematical Recreations column for Scientific American. Branca's electric guitar symphonies and self-made instruments have established him among the most adventurous musicians creating music today; his notorious Glenn Branca Ensemble has performed in clubs and at venues around the world. PAUL LANSKY'S A is for... is, in the composer's words, "a meditation on the swirl of letters and numbers that surround us daily." For the past thirty years, Lansky - a professor of music at Princeton University - has fearlessly pioneered the changing role of computers in creating music. "For me," Lansky has written, "success means creating new ways of listening and hearing."

Bang on a Can All-Star clarinetist EVAN ZIPORYN returns to Carnegie Hall for this concert, following the riotous November 2004 Zankel Hall debut of his MIT-based ensemble, the Gamelan Galak Tika. A gamelan performer and composer, Ziporyn has had a 23-year involvement with Balinese music. The Bang on a Can All-Stars perform a new concert music suite from his music theater piece ShadowBang, a Balinese folk narrative based on the ancient art form of shadow puppetry. Conceived with the expert Balinese puppeteer and singer I Wayan Wija in 2001 and released on Bang on a Can's record label Cantaloupe Music in 2003, the work is a fusion of the raucous American sound the All-Stars have coined and the magic realism of a Balinese folk narrative.

BANG ON A CAN ALL-STARS with IVA BITTOVá: ZANKEL HALL PROGRAM 4/29/05

Paul Lansky - A is for ... *

Evan Ziporyn - Dalem & Sangut (from ShadowBang)
- Angkat
- Ocean
- Meditasi
- Head

Glenn Branca - Compositional Recreations One: Black 5 Vs. White 7 In 3 + 4 Time*

Iva Bittová - Elida*

• Nejsi
• Malíři v Pařiži
• Bolís mĕ Lásko
• Ladná Čeladná
• Samota
• Hopáhop Tálitá
• Presto
• Zapískej

• Elida

• *New York Premieres

THE BANG ON A CAN ALL-STARS

Robert Black, bass • David Cossin, percussion • Lisa Moore, piano/keyboards Mark Stewart, electric guitar • Wendy Sutter, cello • Evan Ziporyn, clarinets

Named Musical America's Ensemble of the Year for 2005, the Bang on a Can All-Stars have gained an international reputation for extreme virtuosity and an utterly unique sound, powered by their unusual combination of clarinets, electric guitar, cello, bass, keyboards, and percussion. Each year fans and critics across the globe anticipate the All-Stars' ultra-dynamic live performances, not to mention their recordings of today's most innovative music. Freely crossing the boundaries between classical, jazz, rock, world and experimental music, the six-member ensemble plays music from uncharted territories, continually shattering the definition of what concert music is today.

The All-Stars' flexibility reflects the vision of the three Bang on a Can artistic directors (Michael Gordon, David Lang, and Julia Wolfe), who believe in the communicative power of a wide range of music from a new generation of composers and performers. Recent and upcoming Bang on a Can All-Stars projects include their re-recording of classics by Philip Glass and Terry Riley, as well as collaborations with top artists from across the globe, such as Burmese percussion master Kyaw Kyaw Naing. Live performances have included Glass, Riley, Meredith Monk, Don Byron, and many more. With these occasional homages to living masters, the heart of their repertoire remains the sound of the new generation.

The Bang on a Can All-Stars appear annually in New York at venues including Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, Miller Theatre, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and Merkin Hall. Other recent and upcoming appearances include BBC Proms, Singapore Arts Festival, Venice Biennale, Holland Festival, Davies Symphony Hall in SF, Hancher Auditorium, Iowa, UCLA Live, and many more. The All-Stars now record on Cantaloupe Music (www.cantaloupemusic.com) and have released past recordings on Sony, Universal, and Nonesuch.

a final bit about BANG ON A CAN

Composers Michael Gordon, David Lang, and Julia Wolfe started Bang on a Can in the eighties in New York City as a way to present concerts of music they loved; the enterprise has since grown into one of the most vital, enduring, and beloved forces in America's new music scene. Dedicated to the work of composers across a wide spectrum, Bang on a Can has carved a home for musical inventors, misfits and pioneers. The multi-faceted festival is now comprised of a resident ensemble The Bang on a Can All-Stars, who tour to major festivals and concert venues around the world; The People's Commissioning Fund, a commissioning program that creates unprecedented opportunities for emerging composers; an annual mammoth Marathon; touring productions such as the staged oratorio Lost Objects directed by François Girard with Concerto Köln, and its OBIE-award winning opera The Carbon Copy Building based on the work of comic book artist Ben Katchor; Cantaloupe Music, the record label formed by the founders of Bang on a Can in 2001 to record music from between the cracks (domestic distribution by harmonia mundi USA); the Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival at MASS MoCA; and more...

What they're saying about The Bang on a Can All-Stars: "The brightest light of New York's avant-garde music scene." THE NEW YORKER

"The six-piece group weds conservatory chops to vividly imaginative music. It's the kind of sound that reflects the influence of both 1960s minimalism and amplified rock, the improvisatory flair of jazz and the ambient whir of modern life." ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION

"They've defined what the world now thinks of as new music." THE VILLAGE VOICE

"It's not a rock band, not a jazz combo, not a chamber ensemble. It's all three, only different."
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER

"New York's Bang on a Can Festival has become the country's most important vehicle for contemporary music." SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

"If all contemporary-classical-music concerts were like this...there wouldn't be a problem with contemporary classical music." THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

"A fiercely aggressive group, combining the power and punch of a rock band with the precision and clarity of a chamber ensemble." THE NEW YORK TIMES

"One of the most visceral performing groups around." THE INDEPENDENT (London)

For further information, photos, CDs, and to arrange interviews, please contact Aleba Gartner Associates at 212/206-1450

or visit www.bangonacan.org and www.cantaloupemusic.com