The 2015 Bang on a Can People’s Commissioning Fund concert will present world-premiere works by three PCF-commissioned composers: Glenn Kotche, Jace Clayton and Ben Frost.
This event is a part of Kaufman Music Center’s Ecstatic Music Festival at Merkin Concert Hall. Other concert works include Donnacha Dennehy’s “Streetwalker,” Michael Gordon’s “For Madeline,” selections from Erdem Helvacioglu’s “Tales of Resistance and Oppression” and Annie Gosfield’s” Overvoltage Rumble.”
Bang on a Can, an international community dedicated to innovative music, will present the works from Kotche, Clayton and Frost on their growing multimedia project Field Recordings. The idea behind Field Recordings is for composers to go into the field of recorded sound and respond with their own music. The project so far includes commissioned works by Tyondai Braxton, Mira Calix, Anna Clyne, Dan Deacon, Bryce Dessner, Florent Ghys, Michael Gordon, Jóhann Jóhannsson, David Lang, Alvin Lucier, Christian Marclay, Paula Matthusen, Richard Reed Parry, Steve Reich, Todd Reynolds, Daniel Wohl, Julia Wolfe and Nick Zammuto. The all-stars’s recording will be released as a special CD/DVD set May 12 through Cantaloupe Music.
Kotche’s new piece will use recordings that he made over the years from his travels, while Clayton’s piece is a conceptual work about forgetting. Frost’s work is a sonic reflection upon a test flight of the X47b Unmanned Drone aircraft at an undisclosed location onboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt, documented by Frost in 2014.
John Schaefer of WNYC-FM will host the evening for future radio broadcasts on his program “New Sounds Live.” The concert will be streamed live on Q2 Music and will be available for on-demand listening at q2music.org. The show will be Feb. 26 at 7:30 p.m. at the Kaufman Music Center in New York.
