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Bang on a Can Marathon Features Chaya Czernowin, Harrison Birtwistle

Apr. 29, 2008

The 2008 Bang on a Can Marathon commences on Saturday, May 31 at 6 PM in the Winter Garden of the New York City World Financial Center. An innovative twelve-hour festival of continuous music where artists of the various and sometimes disparate scenes of new music converge, the marathon brings together pioneering performers and composers resulting in an eclectic and exciting showcase of contemporary music in all of its forms. Vanity Fair has described the festival by saying, "Imagine Lollapalooza advised by the ghost of John Cage. There are other places to hear contemporary music, but it is seldom offered with such a potent blend of intensity, authority and abandon."

Included in this year's program is the US premiere of Chaya Czernowin's new work Sahaf, performed by the Ensemble Nikel, and Sir Harrison Birtwistle's Carmen Arcadiae Mechanicae Perpetuum (Perpetual Song of a Mechanical Arcadia) performed by Alarm Will Sound. Commissioned and dedicated to Ensemble Nikel of Israel, Sahaf is part of a series of works by Czernowin called Shifting Gravity which consists of five pieces expressing a distinct physical gesture. Birtwistle's Carmen was written in homage to the artist Paul Klee and was particularly inspired by the artist's sketches, which Birtwistle referred to as "mechanical."

This year's marathon also features music by Steve Reich, The Beatles, Brian Eno, Karlheinz Stockhausen, John Adams, Lukas Ligeti, Terry Riley, Bang on a Can co-founders Michael Gordon, David Lang, Julia Wolfe, and performances by the Bang on a Can All Stars, Signal, Crash Ensemble, Contact, So Percussion, and many more.

For more information on the Bang on a Can Marathon, visit www.bangonacan.org.

To learn more on the music of Chaya Czernowin, go to www.schott-music.com.

For more on the music of Sir Harrison Birtwistle, visit www.universaledition.com.

Chaya Czernowin
Sahaf (2008)
for ensemble
saxophone (baritone and sopranino), egtr, piano and percussion
7'

Sir Harrison Birtwistle
Carmen Arcadiae Mechanicae Perpetuum (1997/1978)
for ensemble
11111110-mba.pno-str(1.1.1.1.1)
12'

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