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Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival Returns to MASS MoCA for 7th Year

NORTH ADAMS, MA: MASS MoCA and Bang on a Can will present their seventh consecutive year of musical collaboration with intensive musical training and a rich daily schedule of exciting performances. Music will ricochet through the galleries every day beginning July 10 as the Festival once again teems with talented faculty and fellows from around the world who offer daily recitals at 1:30 and 4:30. The always-vibrant, always-unpredictable Bang on a Can All-Stars perform on Saturday, July 19, at 8 PM with Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth (preceded in the morning by the perennially popular Kids Can Too event). The closing extravaganza, the Bang on a Can Marathon, will feature special guest Terry Riley and live performances of music by Frank Zappa. The Marathon will take place on Saturday, July 26, from 4 - 10 PM. Music will spill out of the MASS MoCA campus and into the community in the form of a free concert at Windsor Lake on Wednesday, July 23, plus selected musicians will perform at Pittsfield's Third Thursday on July 17 and at Gallery 51 in downtown North Adams on July 18.

"The performers and composers from Bang on a Can are wonderful friends and world caliber musicians. They have truly become part of this institution, and define summers at MASS MoCA. Each year brings returning faculty who we are so delighted to welcome back, plus a fresh crop of talented fellows to introduce MASS MoCA visitors to more new sounds, new compositions, new ways of thinking about music, and new ways of making it," said Joseph Thompson, MASS MoCA director. "Every nook and cranny of this campus is endowed with music during their residency - they use our conference rooms, our dressing rooms, our corridors and more for rehearsals. Anyone wishing to absorb it should consider the Festival Pass. At $50 it is good for gallery admission for the recitals every day of the Festival, plus it includes tickets to both the July 19th concert and the Marathon on the 26th."

Festival Events
A music extravaganza in New York City since 1987 and in North Adams since 2001, the Bang on a Can Marathon is known for its unparalleled programming of today's most innovative new music. The Marathon on Saturday, July 26, at MASS MoCA will close out the Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival. This year's featured guest, legendary minimalist composer Terry Riley, will be on hand to discuss his work, including The Woelfli Portraits and Olson 111. The program will also include rarely heard live performances of music by Frank Zappa and the mixed media oratorio Shelter, a visually stunning collaboration from Michael Gordon, David Lang, Julia Wolfe and Ridge Theater. The series of performances runs from 4 to 10 P.M. Patrons are free to come and go throughout the performances, stroll through the galleries between sets, or grab a bite to eat or a cool drink. The galleries will be open until 8 P.M.

A perennial highlight of the Festival is the Bang on a Can All-Stars Concert. The high-energy electric chamber ensemble take the stage this year with a new collaboration with alternative music giant Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth. Music by some of today's most innovative artists, all of it commissioned by Bang on a Can -- including works by jazz giant Ornette Coleman, Lukas Ligeti, Todd Reynolds, Julia Wolfe, and Evan Ziporyn -- will round out the evening on Saturday, July 19, at 8 P.M. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer described the All-Stars as "not a rock band, not a jazz combo, not a chamber ensemble. It's all three, only different."

The 1:30pm recitals offer an opportunity for the performance and composition fellows to interact with the artwork in the galleries, often playing new works created especially for the museum. The 4:30 recitals feature performances by the Bang on a Can faculty and Festival ensembles. A partial schedule includes clarinetist Evan Ziporyn on July 10, pianist Vicki Ray on July 11, violinist Todd Reynolds on July 12, composer and conductor Brad Lubman on July 14, clarinetist Ken Thomson on July 15, and bassist Gregg August on July 16. July 19's recital will feature a Balinese Gamelan led by Christine Southworth. July 22 will feature Festival improvisation ensembles while July 24 will include a festival ensemble performing works by Phil Kline and Lou Harrison, among others. There will be two world premieres by the Festival composers on July 18 and 21. Further details are available at massmoca.org.

Kids Can Too, a Saturday morning program for kids that introduces them to new music and new ways of making music, sells out every year. This year's performance in Club B-10 will take place on Saturday, July 19, at 11 AM.

California Composer Terry Riley launched what is now known as the Minimalist movement with his revolutionary classic IN C in 1964. This seminal work provided a new concept in musical form based on interlocking repetitive patterns. Its impact was to change the course of 20th century music, and its influence has been heard in the works of prominent composers such as Steve Reich, Philip Glass and John Adams and in the music of rock groups such as The Who, The Soft Machine, Tangerine Dream, Curved Air and many others. Terry's hypnotic, multi-layered, polymetric, brightly orchestrated Eastern-flavored improvisations and compositions set the stage for the prevailing interest in a new tonality. Alan Rich of LA Weekly describes Riley's compositions as "many kinds of gorgeous-the enchanting tripping of his folk-dance stuff and a melodic manner rich, lyrical and breath-stopping I haven't heard before."

Lee Ranaldo, co-founder of avant-garde rock group Sonic Youth, has been extremely active in the New York music scene for the past 20 years, recording and collaborating with numerous acts, producing discs, and publishing several books of poetry and journal entries. Ranaldo's role in the ever-experimental Sonic Youth has been an important one, acting as a textural axis for Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore. Though he typically only contributed a handful of songs to each Sonic Youth recording, Ranaldo quickly developed his own songwriting style -- throbbing beats topped with beat-influenced, half-spoken/half-sung poetry delivered in Ranaldo's reassuring, gently confident voice, such as Eric's Trip on Daydream Nation and the title track from 1999's NYC Ghosts & Flowers.

Composers and co-artistic directors Michael Gordon, David Lang and Julia Wolfe founded Bang on a Can in 1987. Their original idea was simple: to have fun with new music. Their bold programming concept incorporates performing visionary classics written two to three decades ago and pieces by composers just born at that time -- exciting music by our best known living composers and by those only starting to gain recognition. Bang on a Can has grown from a one-day festival to a multifaceted organization. Bang on a Can's aim is to discover emerging composers and ensembles exploring new musical territories while reaching for musical expression beyond the status quo.

The Bang on a Can All-Stars are Gregg August on bass, David Cossin on percussion, Felix Fan on cello, Derek Johnson on guitar, Ning Yu on piano, and Evan Ziporyn on clarinet.

Bassist Gregg August has played with Ray Barretto, Paquito D'Rivera, Frank Wess, Branford Marsalis, James Moody, Ray Vega, and the Chico O'Farril Big Band. He has also performed with the orchestra of St. Luke's, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the Brooklyn Philharmonic and the American Symphony Orchestra, among others. He is the former principal bass of La Orquestra Ciutat de Barcelona. August received degrees from the Eastman and Julliard schools.

David Cossin studied classical percussion at the Manhattan School of Music. He specializes in new and experimental music, and has recorded and performed internationally with groups including Talujon Percussion Quartet, NewBand (on the Harry Partch instrumentarium), New Music Consort, Yo-Yo Ma, Tan Dun, Bo Didley, and B-blush. Numerous theater projects include Peony Pavilion, Blue Man Group, The Lion King, and Mabou Mines. Cossin was the solo percussionist for films like Fallen and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, which won the Academy Award for best musical score. He has performed solo concerts throughout Europe and the United States, incorporating video, electronic processing, and homemade instruments. Cossin appeared on the television shows Good Morning America and CBS' The Early Show with Yo Yo Ma.

As a chamber musician, cellist Felix Fan has performed and recorded with Janos Starker, Yo-Yo Ma, Gil Shaham and Cho-Liang Lin. His recent solo engagements include the San Diego, Pacific and Kansas City Symphonies, as well as Taiwan's National Symphony Orchestra and the Hong Kong Philharmonic with composer Tan Dun. In 1998, Fan founded the Muzik3 festival in La Jolla, California, a performance series dedicated to the advancement of modern music, theater, video and dance. Muzik3 led to the birth of the trio Real Quiet who has worked with George Crumb, Philip Glass, David Lang, and Terry Riley. Fan has performed a series of radio plays written by acclaimed screenwriters Charlie Kaufman and the Coen Brothers. In 1994, Fan was honored by President Clinton as a Presidential Scholar in the Arts.

Composer and multi-instrumentalist Derek Johnson's compositions have been performed throughout North America by leading instrumentalists and ensembles including the Nouvel Ensemble Moderne and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's MusicNOW ensemble, and have received honors from BMI, ASCAP and the Yvar Mikhashoff Trust for New Music. Johnson is currently active as an electric guitarist performing with various ensembles including the Basilica Project (chamber music meets grindcore) and the goodhandsteam (post-rock free improvisation) in addition to the Bang On a Can All-Stars. Johnson recently completed his doctorate at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music in Bloomington, Indiana, and teaches composition and music theory at the Ball State University School of Music in Muncie, Indiana.

Pianist Ning Yu was born and raised in China. In addition to joining the OBIE award-winning theater production of Mabou Mines Dollhouse in 2003, she has performed at the Sundance Institute, St. Ann's Warehouse in New York City, Spoleto USA, and has toured with the production throughout the US, Israel, Hong Kong, Italy, Spain, Poland, and most recently the Edinburgh Festival. In December, she will appear in a film version of the production on the ARTE French Television. She plays and shares music as often as possible, teaches at the Third Street Music School Settlement, and she is working on a film about the French pianist Alfred Cortot.

Clarinetist Evan Ziporyn's work is informed by his 20-year involvement with the traditional music of Bali. He is founder and director of Boston's Gamelan Galak Tika. He co-produced and arranged Bang on a Can's acclaimed recording of Brian Eno's Music for Airports. As part of the Steve Reich Ensemble, he shared a 1999 Grammy for the recording of Music for 18 Musicians. Other collaborators include the Kronos Quartet, The Netherlands Wind Ensemble, Ensemble Modern, Tan Dun, Wu Man, Basso Bongo, Paul Simon and Red Fish Blue Fish. A professor at MIT, Ziporyn has also taught at the Yale School of Music, New England Conservatory, and the University of California.

Tickets for either the concert or the Marathon are $24 each or $40 for both. MASS MoCA members receive a 10% discount. $50 festival passes include both concerts PLUS unlimited gallery admission for recitals during the festival. Tickets for Kids Can Too are $5. Tickets are available through the MASS MoCA Box Office located off Marshall Street in North Adams from 10 A.M. until 6 P.M. daily in June 28 through September 2. Tickets can also be charged by phone by calling 413.662.2111 during Box Office hours or purchased on line at www.massmoca.org.  MASS MoCA, the largest center for contemporary visual and performing arts in the United States, is located off Marshall St. in North Adams on a 13-acre campus of renovated 19th-century factory buildings.