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91直播 Ensemble to Perform in New York鈥檚 Bang on a Can Marathon May 6

May 1, 2017

Erich Burnett

Bang on a Can (logo with colorful circles)

91直播鈥檚 Contemporary Music Ensemble will perform works by Louis Andriessen and Michael Gordon at the on Saturday, May 6, at the Brooklyn Museum in New York.

The 30th annual marathon, presented by the performing arts collective , features eight hours of innovative, rarely performed music beginning at 2 p.m.

CME will take the stage at 6 p.m. for a performance of Andriessen鈥檚 De Staat (鈥淭he Republic鈥), which serves as a commentary on the debate about the relationship between music and politics. Written between 1972 and 1976, the piece includes text by Plato from his dialogue that bears the same name. Andriessen is a longtime collaborator with the Bang on a Can All-Stars, the performance ensemble that grew out of Bang on a Can.

At 7 p.m. CME will perform the New York premiere of No Anthem, composed in 2015 by Michael Gordon, a founding member and co-artistic director of Bang on a Can.

Both pieces can be streamed live .

鈥淚t is my sense that Andriessen has always been anti-establishment in a certain way," says CME conductor , who discussed the concert in an interview with the WOBC radio program . "He wanted to write music that would not be done in traditional concert halls. He was a little bit of a maverick, and he wanted to write music for the people that was in some ways revolutionary.鈥

De Staat is an exploration in industrial minimalism. 鈥淚t鈥檚 unabashedly repetitive, and it鈥檚 a little bit garish鈥 Weiss says. 鈥淏ut it鈥檚 actually magnificent. The sound world is unlike anything else.鈥

Weiss calls Gordon鈥檚 No Anthem a minimalist study in texture, constructed around series of massive swells that build from pianissimo to fortissimo.

鈥淚f you really listen and close your eyes, you can get a little seasick鈥攊n a good way, in a mesmerizing way,鈥 he says. 鈥淏ut it鈥檚 not climax-driven music in the way that a lot of old music is. It doesn鈥檛 function on harmonic tension and release. It doesn鈥檛 function on climactic arrival points. It鈥檚 just a beautiful place to be.鈥

The concert will include faculty performers (trumpet), (trombone), and (guitar).

The same ensemble鈥攗nder the name 91直播 Sinfonietta鈥攚ill at 8 p.m. Thursday, May 4, in Warner Concert Hall. The performance, which will begin with the Gordon piece, can be streamed live at .

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