Collective Groove

BANG ON A CAN TURNS 15

Long before they had a cutting-edge record label, and a sleek band-in-residence, and a yearly mega-concert to tie it all together, composers Julia Wolfe, Michael Gordon, and David Lang had a question:

Why did their friends who followed the latest trends in the worlds of visual art, dance, or theater seem so uninterested in contemporary music? Maybe they just needed a point of entry. After all, the New York music scene in the mid-80s was starkly divided between downtown experimentalists and uptown wonks, with each faction concerned mostly with its own devotees. So Wolfe, Gordon, and Lang launched the Bang on a Can collective to break down stale divisions and to present their own original work along with anything else they found explosively innovative, without regard to stylistic pedigree. The curtain went up in 1987 with a sprawling concert at a SoHo gallery, and, over a decade later, Bang on a Can has become an essential force in the promotion of new music. Its "marathon"—imagine Lollapalooza advised by the ghost of John Cage—is a freewheeling parade of the strange, the raucous, and the beautiful that has become a

popular annual tradition. This month, the event returns to New York with music by the three founders plus an array of acts ranging from a Balinese shadow-puppet opera to the eloquent soliloquizing of jazz clarinetist Don Byron. The atmosphere is informal (Wolfe's brother used to serve beer in the hallway), and audience members may come and go freely throughout the nearly eight-hour show. At its core is the six-piece Bang on a Can All-Stars, an elite band of omnivorous performers with the chops to handle the thorniest avant-garde screed but also the power to crank out a withering sonic blitz. There are other places to hear contemporary music, but it is seldom offered with such a potent blend of intensity, authority, and abandon.

JEREMY ELCHLER