Bang on a Can All-Stars

The Bang on a Can All-Stars is a touring and recording offshoot of its parent organization, Bang on a Can. More a festival than a recording ensemble, Bang on a Can emerged in the 1990s to bridge the gap between avant-garde and popular music, and the All-Stars have an impressively large recording catalog.
Bang on a Can was formed in 1987 as a music festival by composers Julia Wolfe, David Lang, and Michael Gordon. The composers regarded Louis Andriessen as their spiritual mentor, and his works, along with other avant-garde pieces, were performed at Bang on a Can events. At first, Bang on a Can was a one-day festival, but it quickly branched out into live and recorded enterprises of various kinds. Recordings of Bang on a Can events began to be issued, with Bang on a Can Live, Vol. 1, appearing in 1992 on the CRI label. That year, the Bang on a Can All-Stars were formed as a six-member ensemble. The group played amplified instruments and crossed boundaries between classical, jazz, rock, world music, and experimental music. The distinction between Bang on a Can and the Bang on a Can All-Stars was not fixed at first, with the 1995 Bang on a Can album Industry featuring a group of players performing music by the three founders and by Andriessen.
The members of Bang on a Can All-Stars are Robert Black, Mark Stewart, David Cossin, Vicky Chow, Ken Thomson, and Arlen Hlusko; prior members include composer Evan Ziporyn and cellist Maya Beiser. Both in performance and on recordings, the work of the Bang on a Can All-Stars is marked by collaboration with a wide variety of artists. Collaborations have included those with composers Steve Reich, Philip Glass, and Tan Dun, jazz saxophonist Ornette Coleman, Burmese circle drum master Kyaw Kyaw Naing, and hip-hop’s DJ Spooky. Live performances have included a dance collaboration with Sasha Waltz based on Terry Riley’s In C and Wolfe’s Flower Power for the Bang on a Can All-Stars and orchestra. The group gained wide attention for its 2015 recording of Wolfe’s composition Anthracite Fields and for one of Meredith Monk’s Memory Game in 2020. Bang on a Can All-Stars recordings have appeared on the group’s Cantaloupe label. In 2022, the Bang on a Can All-Stars joined Riley for a recording of the latter’s Autodreamographical Tales. ~ James Manheim