As PBS’s NewsHour reported, “If Tanglewood – classical music's far better known summer festival, just 30 miles down the road –  is the bastion of tradition, ‘Banglewood’ – as the folks here like to call this gathering – is home to the experimental, with everything from a contemporary duet to a Balinese monkey chant.”
 
Festival highlights this year include daily gallery recitals at 1:30pm and 4:30pm, free with museum admission; an afternoon conversation about the music of George Crumb (July 24, 3pm); the world premiere of Jim Findlay’s staging for George Crumb’s music  (July 24, 8pm); and the Festival-closing Bang on a Can Marathon – six hours of non-stop, boundary-smashing music featuring more than thirty composers and performers (July 31, 4-10pm). Events for kids include the perennially popular Kids Can Too event (July 17, 11:30am).  The Festival will spill beyond the museum with a free concert at Windsor Lake in North Adams (July 28, 7pm) and Williamstown’s Sundays @ Six (July 18, 5pm).
 
This year’s Festival faculty members include Gregg August (bass), Michael Gordon (composition), David Lang (composition), Brad Lubman (conducting), Nicholas Photinos (cello), Vicki Ray (piano), Todd Reynolds (violin), Ken Thomson (clarinet, saxophone), and Julia Wolfe (composition). We will also be joined by Ashley Bathgate, cello, Vicky Chow, piano, (the newest Bang on a Can All-Stars) and Ted Hearne, composer. The Festival will be attended by 8 composers and 30 performers traveling to North Adams from across the United States, as well as from Colombia, Russia, Serbia, Ireland, Germany, and Uzbekistan.
 
MASS MoCA is known for exhibitions and performances by renowned artists, in addition to being a place where the process of creativity is explored; rehearsals, art fabrication shops, and production studios are open to public view. Bang on a Can has found a home at MASS MoCA for the Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival since 2001, building a bridge between music and the visual arts.
 
Festival Events (Please see below for a complete schedule.)

International George Crumb Day – Saturday, July 24; afternoon conversation at 3pm; concert at 8pm
Celebrating composer George Crumb’s combination of drama, darkness, and mysticism, the day starts with a conversation/demonstration between stage director and designer Jim Findlay and composer David Lang.  This informal close-up look at Crumb’s music will include film, projection, discussion, demonstration and performance. The conversation will be followed by a recital in the galleries at 4:30pm of Crumb’s work, Music for a Summer Evening (Makrokosmos III), performed by a Festival Ensemble. Tickets for the talk are $6 or free with purchase of tickets for the evening performance.  Gallery admission is required for the recital. 
 
At 8pm is the Music of George Crumb: Enter the mystical world of Crumb's music with staging by New York director Jim Findlay. Findlay uses lighting and video to seamlessly connect the stylized ritual theater of Vox Balaenae, the intense anti-war masterpiece Black Angels, the eerie lyricism of Madrigals and the mysterious and meditative Lux Aeterna for masked musicians.
 
Bang on a Can Marathon – Saturday, July 31 from 4-10pm
A tradition in New York since 1987, Bang on a Can brings its signature Bang on a Can Marathon back to the Berkshires on Saturday, July 31, from 4-10pm. More than thirty performers and composers from around the world will team up for a six-hour feast of sound ranging from classical, contemporary, and jazz, to rock and experimental music. This concert includes Steve Reich’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Double Sextet, Arvo Part’s moving avant-baroque concerto Fratres for percussion and string orchestra; Julia Wolfe's blazing Fuel for string orchestra with a film by legendary experimental filmmaker Bill Morrison (Decasia); plus a new work by Swiss post-jazz master and ECM records mainstay Nik Baertsch; Evan Ziporyn's Music from Shadowbang - a Balinese folktale dressed up in ripped jeans; an ensemble of Uzbekis who have come half way around the globe just to shake up North Adams; Christine Southworth's concerto for sampled Van de Graaf generator and ensemble; pattern master Tom Johnson's translation of an ancient Indian math problem into a minimalist masterpiece; and much more. 
 
Gallery Recitals – Daily at 1:30pm and 4:30pm
Throughout the Festival, daily 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 4:30pm recitals feature performances by the Bang on a Can faculty and Festival ensembles. The 4:30pm recital schedule is posted at www.massmoca.org. Highlights include many world premieres, including work by Evan Ziporyn (7/14), Todd Reynolds (7/ 16) and festival composers (7/26), a day devoted to the work of Martin Bresnick (7/21) and another featuring music by Bang on a Can co-founders David Lang, Michael Gordon, and Julia Wolfe (7/27), music from Uzbekistan (7/20) and Gamelan music on July 28. For up-to-date schedule information, visit www.massmoca.org throughout the Festival.
 
Kids Can Too – Saturday, July 17 at 11:30am
The always popular (and nearly always sold out!) Kids Can Too event, a delightful morning with the faculty and fellows of Bang on a Can of music that teaches kids about a variety of new instruments and sounds, will take place on Saturday, July 17 at 11:30am.
 
Concerts in the Community – Sunday, July 18 at 5pm and Wednesday, July 28 at 7pm
The Festival will spill beyond the museum with a free concert at Windsor Lake in North Adams (July 28, 7pm) and Williamstown’s Sundays @ Six (July 18, 5pm).

Tickets & Directions: Festival passes are available for $60. Festival passes admit patrons to both concerts, all Crumb Day events, Kids Can Too, and the galleries for recitals from July 14 – July 31.  Tickets to the evening concert on July 24 and the Marathon on July 31 are $22 each.  Tickets for the Crumb lecture are $6 or free with purchase of a ticket to the evening event. Kids Can Too tickets are $6 per person. MASS MoCA members receive a 10% discount on tickets to any evening event. Tickets are available at the MASS MoCA Box Office at 87 Marshall St. in North Adams, MA, from 10am-6pm daily, by phone at 413.662.2111 during Box Office hours, or online at www.massmoca.org.
 
2010 Bang on a Can Music Festival Schedule (Visit www.massmoca.org for the latest schedule updates.)
Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) | 87 Marshall Street, North Adams, MA
 
Daily Gallery Recitals
Daily except for Sundays; 1:30pm (performance and composition fellows) and 4:30pm (faculty and Festival ensembles)
Free with Museum admission. Check www.massmoca.org for recital schedule.
 
Wednesday, July 14 at 4:30pm
Music by Evan Ziporyn
 
Thursday, July 15 at 4:30pm
Vicky Ray, piano. Music by Chinary Ung, Vicki Ray, Rand Steiger, David Rosenbloom
 
Friday, July 16 at 4:30pm
Music by Todd Reynolds
 
Saturday July 17 at 4:30pm
Performances by Ashley Bathgate cello, and Vicky Chow, piano
 
Monday July 19 at 4:30pm
Nick Photinos, cello, with Todd Reynolds violin and Vicki Ray, piano. Music by George Crumb, Shaun Naidoo, Salvatore Sciarrino, Mischa Zupko
 
Tuesday July 20 at 4:30pm
music from Uzbekistan
 
Wednesday July 21 at 4:30pm
The Music of Martin Bresnick
Performed by festival ensembles
 
Thursday July 22 at 4:30pm
Music by Gregg August
 
Friday July 23 at 4:30pm
Collaboration between Christine Southworth, Ken Thomson and Evan Ziporyn, for Bagpipes and baritone saxophone and more
 
Saturday July 24 – International Crumb Day
 
4:30pm in the gallery
George Crumb: Music for a Summer Evening (Makrokosmos III), performed by festival ensemble
 
8:00pm in the Hunter Center
George Crumb
Black Angels
Lux Aeterna
Vox Balanae
Madrigals I, II
 
Monday July 26 at 4:30pm
World premieres of music written by the festival composers, performed by festival ensembles. Music by Sophie Cash-Goldwasser, Jeremy Howard Beck, Amanda Feery, Maria Vladimirovna Grigoryeva, Adam Haws, Robert Honstein, Ravi Kittappa,  Svetlana Maraš.
         
Tuesday July 27 at 4:30pm
Music performed by festival ensembles 
 
Wednesday July 28 at 4:30pm
New music for Balinese Gamelan, composed by the festival composers

Thursday July 29 at 4:30pm
Music performed by festival ensembles
 
Friday July 30 at 4:30pm
TBA
 
Saturday July 31 – Bang on a Can Marathon
 
4-10pm
Featuring:
Michael Gordon, Yo Shakespeare
David Lang, Forced March
Arvo Pärt, Fratres I
Steve Reich, Double Sextet
Christine Southworth, Zap
Julia Wolfe, Fuel
Evan Ziporyn, Music from ShadowBang
Music from Uzbekistan
And much more!

About Bang on a Can: Formed in 1987 by composers Michael Gordon, David Lang and Julia Wolfe, Bang on a Can is dedicated to commissioning, performing, creating, presenting and recording contemporary music. With an ear for the new, the unknown and the unconventional, Bang on a Can strives to expose exciting and innovative music as broadly and accessibly as possible to new audiences worldwide. And through its Summer Festival, Bang on a Can hopes to bring this energy and passion for innovation to a younger generation of composers and players.
 
The San Francisco Chronicle has called Bang on a Can “the country's most important vehicle for contemporary music.” Over the years, Bang on a Can has grown from a one-day festival to a multi-faceted organization. Projects include festival concerts and the annual Bang on a Can Marathon; The People's Commissioning Fund, a membership program to commission emerging composers; the Bang on a Can All-Stars, who tour to major festivals and concert venues around the world every year; recording projects; the Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival & Institute – a professional development program for young composers and performers; and cross-disciplinary collaborations and projects with DJs, visual artists, choreographers, filmmakers and more. Bang on a Can’s innovative and aggressive approach to programming and presentation has created a large and vibrant international audience made up of people of all ages who are rediscovering the value of contemporary music. For more information, visit www.bangonacan.org.
 
About MASS MoCA: MASS MoCA is known for exhibitions and performances by renowned artists, in addition to being a place where the process of creativity is explored; rehearsals, art fabrication shops, and production studios are open to public view. Bang on a Can has found a home at MASS MoCA for the Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival since 2001, building a bridge between music and the visual arts.
 
MASS MoCA, the largest center for contemporary visual and performing arts in the United States, is located off Marshall Street in North Adams on a 13-acre campus of renovated 19th-century factory buildings.  MASS MoCA is an independent 501c(3) whose operations and programming are funded through admissions and commercial lease revenue, corporate and foundation grants, and individual philanthropy.  Except for an initial construction grant from the Commonwealth, and competitive program and operations grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Massachusetts Cultural Council, MASS MoCA is privately funded: 90% of annual operating revenues are from earned revenues, membership support, and private gifts and grants.
 
 
2010 Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival Faculty

Gregg August (bass) lives in New York and is actively involved in the classical as well as latin and jazz scenes. He performs with the Orchestra of St. Luke's and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and is the assistant principal bass of The Brooklyn Philharmonic. He has performed chamber music with The Brentano Quartet, the Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society, and for 2 years was the principal bassist of La Orquesta Ciutat de Barcelona in Spain. At the same time he has played and recorded with Ray Barretto, Paquito D'Rivera, James Moody and Kenny Burrell. At present heps the bassist with Ray Vega and his Latin Jazz Sextet. Gregg will be releasing a record of original music in the spring of 2004 featuring Ray Barretto and Frank Wess. He received his Bachelor and Masterps degrees from The Eastman School of Music and The Juilliard School respectively.
 
Michael Gordon (composition) Michael Gordon's compositions demonstrate a deep exploration into the possibilities and nature of rhythm and what happens when rhythms are piled on top of each other, creating a glorious confusion. John Adams, who has conducted Gordon's works with the London Sinfonietta and Ensemble Modern, calls these raw and complicated sounds “irrational rhythms.” Gordon's special interest in adding dimensions to the concert experience has led to frequent collaborations with artists in other media. For example, in DECASIA, a multimedia orchestra piece with films by Bill Morrison and spectacle by Ridge Theater, the audience stands in the middle of a three-tiered, triangular structure surrounded by an orchestra and large projection scrims. DECASIA was commissioned by the Basel Sinfonietta and premiered at European Music Month 2001. Gordon's most significant recent project is a new CD for Nonesuch, “Light is Calling”. The music here is sonic and sensual with layers of violins, electric guitars and voice in counterpoint with studio-based electronic creations. Other recent works include POTASSIUM for the Kronos Quartet, TRANCE for Icebreaker, and WEATHER, written for the young Hamburg-based string orchestra Ensemble Resonanz. Gordon's music has been presented at BAM, Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, Royal Albert Hall, the Bonn Oper, the Sydney 2000 Olympic Arts Festival, and the Holland, Rotterdam, Edinburgh, St. Petersburg, and Settembre Musica festivals, and in choreography of The Royal Ballet, Eliot Feld, Emio Greco/PC, among others. His CDs include LIGHT IS CALLING (Nonesuch), DECASIA (Cantaloupe), WEATHER (Nonesuch) and LOST OBJECTS (Teldec).
 
David Lang (composition) “There is no name yet for this kind of music,” writes Los Angeles Times music critic Mark Swed, but audiences around the globe are hearing more and more of David Lang's work: in performances by such organizations as the Santa Fe Opera, the New York Philharmonic, the San Francisco Symphony, The Cleveland Orchestra, and the Kronos Quartet; at BAM, Tanglewood, the BBC Proms, The Munich Biennale, the Settembre Musica Festival, the Sydney 2000 Olympic Arts Festival and the Almeida, Holland, Berlin, and Strasbourg Festivals; in theater productions in New York, San Francisco and London; in the choreography of Twyla Tharp, La La La Human Steps, The Nederlands Dans Theater and the Paris Opera Ballet. Lang's music was recently heard at BAM in The Most Dangerous Room in the House for choreographer Susan Marshall, for which he received a Bessie Award in 1999. Lang is composer-in-residence at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. Recent projects include monumental musical environments like the dark and meditative amplified orchestra piece THE PASSING MEASURES; THE DIFFICULTY OF CROSSING A FIELD - an opera for the Kronos quartet with libretto by Mac Wellman and direction by Carey Perloff; the critically acclaimed opera MODERN PAINTERS about the curious and tragic life of art critic John Ruskin and the evening-length piano solo PSALMS WITHOUT WORDS. He is currently working on ANATOMY THEATER, an opera with visual artist Mark Dion, director Bob McGrath and the Ridge Theater, and concertos for percussionist Evelyn Glennie and pianist Andrew Zolinsky. The CD recording of THE PASSING MEASURES (Cantaloupe) was named one of the best CD's of 2001 by The New Yorker magazine. Other CDs include the introspective chamber work CHILD (Cantaloupe) and other works on Sony Classical, BMG, Point, Chandos, Argo/Decca, Caprice, CRI and Cantaloupe labels.
 
Brad Lubman (conducting) has played a vital role in modern music for two decades. He has worked with a great variety of illustrious musical figures including John Adams, Luciano Berio, Pierre Boulez, Elliott Carter, Elvis Costello, Oliver Knussen, Meredith Monk, Steve Reich, and John Zorn. Lubman has appeared with numerous orchestras and ensembles including Ensemble Modern, Musik Fabrik, Hamburg Symphoniker, Deutsches-Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Los Angeles Philharmonic New Music Group, Brooklyn Philharmonic, and the Steve Reich Ensemble. He has recorded for BMG/RCA, Bridge, CRI, Koch, and Nonesuch. Lubman's music has been recorded on the Tzadik label. Mr. Lubman was a Fellow in Composition at the Tanglewood Music Center in 1990 where he studied with Oliver Knussen. Lubman is Associate Professor of Conducting and Ensembles at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester (www.rochester.edu/Eastman), New York. He is represented by Karsten Witt Musik Management (www.karstenwitt.com). Please also visit www.bradlubman.com
 
Nicholas Photinos (cello) Nicholas Photinos, cellist, is a founding member of the Grammy Award-winning chamber music ensemble eighth blackbird. As a member of the group, he has won numerous competitions, including the Naumburg and Concert Artists Guild Competitions, has been featured on CBS's Sunday Morning and in the New York Times, performed throughout the US, Asia and Europe and currently gives 40-50 concerts annually. He teaches at the University of Richmond and the University of Chicago. Nicholas has taught at the 2007 Bang on a Can Summer Festival has also performed as a member of the Canton and Columbus Symphony Orchestras. He has toured with Bjrk as part of the Icelandic String Octet, and his interest in jazz had led him to perform with violinist Zach Brock and singer Grazyna Auguscik, among others. Solo work includes recital performances throughout the country and appearances as soloist with orchestras in California and Ohio. His principal teachers include Andor Toth, Jr., Irene Sharp, Lee Fiser, Hans Jorgen-Jensen, and Grace Vamos. Nicholas is a graduate of Northwestern University, the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. He has recorded for the Cedille and Naxos labels.
 
Vicki Ray (piano) performs widely as a soloist and collaborative artist. She is a member of the award winning California E.A.R. Unit and Xtet. As a founding member of PianoSpheres, an acclaimed solo piano series dedicated to exploring the less familiar realms of the piano repertoire, her playing has been hailed by the Los Angeles Times for “displaying that kind of musical thoroughness and technical panache that puts a composer's thoughts directly before the listener.” A long-time champion of new music Ms. Ray has had works written for by composers John Adams, Paul Dresher, Stephen Hartke, Kamran Ince, Shaun Naidoo and many others. In 1989 she was the first place winner in the National Association of Composers USA competition for performers of contemporary music. Ms.Ray has been featured on the Los Angeles Philharmonic Green Umbrella Series, with Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, the German ensemble Compania and the Blue Rider Ensemble of Toronto with whom she made the first Canadian recording of Pierrot Lunaire. Ray has played on various national and international festivals including the Salzburg Festival, the Berlin 750 Jahre Festival and the Ojai Festival where she premiered a new concerto with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Sir Simon Rattle. Her solo recording from the left edge, a collection of works written for her by composers living in California can be found on the CRI label. As a pianist who excels in a wide range of styles Ms.Ray's numerous recordings cover everything from the semi-improvised structures of Wadada Leo Smith to the twisted groove base of John Adam's Road Movies, from the elegant serialism of Mel Powell to the austere beauty of Morton Feldmans' Crippled Symmetries. Ms. Ray has been a member of the piano faculty at the California Institute of the Arts since 1991.
 
Todd Reynolds (violin) is violinist and assistant conductor for Steve Reich and Musicians and The Walter Thompson Orchestra. He was a student of the late Jascha Heifetz, a student at the Eastman School of Music, former Principal Second Violin of the Rochester Philharmonic, and holds a Master's degree from SUNY at Stony Brook. As an improviser and solo interpreter of new musics from classical to jazz and pop, Mr. Reynolds has appeared and/or recorded with such artists as Anthony Braxton, Uri Caine, John Cale, Steve Coleman, Joe Jackson, Dave Liebman, Graham Nash, Greg Osby, Steve Reich, Marcus Roberts, Wayne Shorter and Cassandra Wilson. In addition to his solo appearances at home and abroad, Mr. Reynolds appears as guest artist with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and is often featured as violin soloist and chamber musician with Bang On A Can. Mr. Reynolds has premiered countless numbers of compositions by composers including Michael Gordon, John King, Steve Reich, Elliot Sharp, Julia Wolfe, and Randall Wolff, and recently appeared as soloist with Yo Yo Ma in Tan Dun's Water Passion after St. Matthew at the Barbican Center in London. He is a co-founder of Ethel, New York's hippest string quartet, and as composer/performer, Mr. Reynolds is currently developing Still Life With Mic, a theater piece which incorporates with his own composed and improvised music, elements of video and theater arts. He has recorded for Nonesuch, CRI, and Atlantic Records and can also be heard on Tan Dun's soundtrack for the film Fallen, starring Denzel Washington. On Broadway, he originated the role of “The Fiddler”, playing and dancing on stage in the Tony Award-winning revival of Irving Berlin's Annie, Get Your Gun, starring Bernadette Peters and Reba McEntire. Currently he tours as part of the Mahavishnu Project, a five-piece jazz-fusion band which centers around the music of John McLaughlin's Mahavishnu Orchestra, performs often with The Betty Buckley Band, alongside Kenny Werner, Billy Drewes, Tony Marino, Jamey Haddad, and, of course, Ms. Buckley herself. Mr. Reynolds recently returned from a week of educational residencies in our nation's capitol with Yo Yo Ma's Silk Road Project, performing and teaching with composer Bright Sheng, ethnomusicologist Ted Levin, and Yo Yo Ma, culminating in a season opening performance at the Kennedy Center.

Christine Southworth (gamelan) through her work with robots and automated music systems as co-founder and Director of Ensemble Robot, is dedicated to making music based on the interaction between science, technology and creativity. Employing sounds from man and nature, from Van de Graaff Generator to honeybees, Balinese gamelan to seismic data from volcanoes, Southworth's works are performed worldwide by Gamelan Galak Tika, Ensemble Robot, and The Calder Quartet. Her collaborations with The Calder Quartet and Andrew W.K., including performances with robots, live honeybees and aerial dancers, have been dubbed “sinister and athletic” and “pleasingly post-minimalist” by the L.A. Times and “strange as hell... pretty much ruled” by Metal Edge Magazine. Christine is currently writing a new piece for Kronos Quartet and Gamelan Galak Tika's Electro Gamelan (designed by Alex Rigopulos of Harmonix Music). Southworth received a B.S. from MIT in 2002 in mathematics and M.A. in Computer Music & Multimedia Composition from Brown University in 2006. She composes for Western ensembles, Balinese gamelan, and mixed ensembles of gamelan, western instruments, electronics, and robots. Her compositions draw from her interests in modern American and European music, jazz, Balinese music, and rock and roll, and have received awards and recognition from the LEF Foundation, American Composers Forum, Meet the Composer, New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA), The Explorers Club, Carlsbad Music Festival, the MIT Eloranta Fellowship, and Bang on a Can. Her music is available on Airplane Ears recordings Zap! (2008) and Gamelan Galak Tika: Bronze Age Space Age (2009)
 
Ken Thomson (clarinet, saxophone), a 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).
 
Julia Wolfe’s (composition) music is muscular and kinetic and experienced through the body. She creates journeys like unfolding dramatic landscapes, a music meant to be entered into by the listener. Wolfe's work is distinguished by this intense focus on sound, the power of sound, the ways in which sound is related to memory and experience, the possibilities for new harmonies between familiar chords and micro tonal tunings or sounds found in nature and the urban world. With a care and attention to detail that is both masterful and highly respectful, Wolfe's music celebrates the extraordinary qualities contained within something as specific as a gesture or an inflection. Julia Wolfe's music is heard around the world in performances at the Next Wave Festival at BAM, the Sydney Olympic Arts Festival, Settembre Musica (Italy), the Holland Festival, Theatre de la Ville (Paris), the San Francisco Symphony, and more . Upcoming works include a string quartet concerto for Kronos quartet and Orchestra, a new work for the Munich Chamber Orchestra, a new work for music with film for the Asko Ensemble, an accordian concerto commissioned by the Miller Theater. Recent collaborations include the provocative theater piece, House Arrest, with playwright and performing artist Anna Deavere Smith; The Carbon Copy Building with comic book artist Ben Katchor, the Ridge Theater Company and composers Michael Gordon and David Lang; and Lost Objects, an oratorio with Gordon, Lang, and writer Deborah Artman that will receive it's first staged production under the direction of Francois Girard at BAM's Next Wave Festival 2004. For The Carbon Copy Building, she received the 2000 Village Voice OBIE Award for Best New American Work. Wolfe received a 2001 OBIE for the music to Jennie Ritchie, a collaboration with playwright Mac Wellman and Ridge Theater. Her recent recording “Julia Wolfe - The String Quartets” was released on the Cantaloupe label. Her music has also been recorded on Teldec, Universal, Sony Classical, and Argo/Decca.
 
Evan Ziporyn (clarinet, composition) has toured the globe with the All-stars since 1992. He is also founder and Artistic Director of Gamelan Galak Tika, a Boston-based Balinese music and dance troupe devoted to new works by American and Balinese composers. With Galak Tika, he has presented his groundbreaking Balinese/western fusion works in venues as diverse as New York's Zankel Hall and and the Balinese International Arts Festival. He is the recipient of the 2007 USA Artists Walker Fellowship and the 2004 American Academy of Arts and Letters Goddard Lieberson Award. His music has been commissioned and performed by Yo-yo Ma's Silk Road Project, the Kronos Quartet, Wu Man, the American Composers Orchestra, the American Repertory Theater (their acclaimed 2004's “Oedipus Rex”), Maya Beiser, and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, with whom he recorded his 2006 orchestral CD, “Frog's Eye.” His works have been released on Cantaloupe, Sony Classical, New Albion, New World, Koch, Innova, and CRI; his 2001 solo clarinet CD, “This Is Not A Clarinet,” made numerous Top Ten lists and was featured on All Things Considered and PRI's The World. He has also recorded for Nonesuch (including Steve Reich's New York Counterpoint and the Grammy Award winning Music for 18 Musicians), Thirsty Ear, and Point; his music provided the soundtrack for the PBS film “Tail-enders”, and his playing was featured in Tan Dun's soundtrack for the film “Fallen.” With the All-stars, a partial list of collaborators includes Brian Eno, Ornette Coleman, Thurston Moore, Meredith Monk, Iva Bittova, Philip Glass, Terry Riley, Don Byron, Louis Andriessen, Cecil Taylor, Henry Threadgill, Wayan Wija, Kyaw Kyaw Naing, and Pamela Z. He has also recorded with Paul Simon, Matthew Shipp, So Percussion, and Ethel. He is Kenan Sahin Distinguished Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and has two children, Leo (14) and Ava (7). His opera, “A House in Bali,” featuring the All-stars and a full Balinese gamelan, was recently premiered in Bali and Berkeley.