News – David Lang

Kravis Prize for New Music: New York Philharmonic

November 12, 2024

The New York Philharmonic has awarded David Lang the Marie-Josée Kravis Prize for New Music — one of the world’s largest new-music prizes. In addition to a monetary award, the Kravis Prize includes a commission for a new work that the NY Philharmonic will premiere in the 2025–26 season.

Lang’s receipt of the Kravis Prize builds on a decades-long history of premieres and performances by the NY Philharmonic — most recently, in 2019 the NY Phil co-commissioned and premiered Lang’s fully-staged opera, prisoner of the state, with then-Music Director Jaap van Zweden…

darker with film by Bill Morrison

October 9, 2024

David Lang’s darker, a slow, methodical and moody exploration of sound for 12 strings, received its premiere release on a recording by NYC’s renowned Ensemble Signal, conducted by Brad Lubman. In their capable hands, the music becomes a piece that gradually unfolds with the fervor and foreboding of a cinematic thriller.

Quite fittingly, Signal’s performance on Oct 9 of the hour-long piece at Brooklyn’s National Sawdust was accompanied by a provocative visual tableau designed by filmmaker Bill Morrison, known for his poignant use of long-forgotten, sometimes deteriorated, and often haunting archival footage…

Tallis Scholars perform ‘sun-centered’ at Carnegie Hall

April 8, 2024

“Tallis Scholars: the rock stars of Renaissance vocal music!”
— The New York Times

On Monday April 8 — appropriately, the 2024 Solar Eclipse — The Tallis Scholars give the New York premiere of David Lang’s sun-centered at Carnegie Hall/Zankel Hall. Commissioned for the Tallis Scholars by Cal Performances, Carnegie Hall Corporation, Hopkins Center, John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Stanford Live, Virginia Tech and Concertgebouw Bruges (Belgium), the work is a meditation on humanity’s predilection for disbelief…

‘the little match girl passion’ new recording

November 15, 2023

Cantaloupe Music releases a new recording of
David Lang’s 2008 Pulitzer Prize-winning work,
the little match girl passion,
on streaming, CD, and Limited Edition Vinyl LP

Since its premiere by Paul Hillier and Theatre of Voices at Carnegie Hall in 2007, David Lang’s the little match girl passion has been performed close to 600 times in over 40 countries…

composer-in-residence Flagey Choir Days

September 29, 2023

From October 13-15 Choir Days at Flagey in Brussels features David Lang’s music throughout the festival, including the Belgium premiere of Lang’s we were (co-commissioned by Flagey) performed by Vox Clamantis with conductor Jaan-Eik Tulve.

‘prisoner of the state’ European premieres!

October 17, 2022

European premieres
prisoner of the state
David Lang, libretto/music
Elkhanah Pulitzer, director
Cast:
Claron McFadden — the assistant
Davone Tines — the jailer
Alan Oke — the governor
Michael Wilmering — the prisoner
(in Bochum, Rotterdam, and Bruges)
Jarrett Ott — the prisoner
(in Malmö and Barcelona)

David Lang’s prisoner of the state—co-commissioned by the New York Philharmonic, De Doelen, Barbican Centre, L’Auditori, Bochumer Symphoniker, Concertgebouw Bruges and Malmö Opera – premiered in June 2019 with the New York Philharmonic, conducted by Jaap van Zweden, and received its British premiere in January 2020 at the Barbican Centre in London with BBC Symphony Orchestra, BBC Singers and conductor Ilan Volkov…

Song of Song premiere with dance

June 30, 2022

From July 1-3 at Bard SummerScape David Lang and choreographer Pam Tanowitz premiere a new evening-length work, entitled Song of Songs. A hymn of yearning, steeped in images from the natural world, the dance was commissioned by The Fisher Center at Bard College, and the music was co-commissioned by The Fisher Center with LA Opera, The Company of Music (Austria), The Crossing (Philadelphia), and Flagey (Brussels). The program pairs Lang’s 2014 work just (after song of songs) with three vocal works composed and premiered over the past two years: let me come in, the sense of senses, and we were…

David Lang, ‘again (after ecclesiastes)’ featured on NPR

June 14, 2022

David Lang, ‘again (after ecclesiastes)’

June 14, 2022 10:35 AM ET
Tom Huizenga

David Lang‘s again (after ecclesiastes) opens with sections of the Cappella Amsterdam choir, from high to low, interlacing on the phrase “People come and people go / The earth goes on and on.” The words are from Ecclesiastes, a curious book of The Old Testament that reads more like a philosophical argument than a rousing validation of belief…

‘the writings’ premiere recording

June 10, 2022

“[the writings] are enchanted unaccompanied choral pieces, jewel-like in their crystalline beauty and performed with just the right degree of gentle detachment by Cappella Amsterdam.”
— Andrew Clements, The Guardian

Conductor Daniel Reuss and Cappella Amsterdam’s premiere recording of David Lang’s a cappella cycle the writings is now available on Pentatone Records and all streaming services…

Tallis Scholars premiere ‘sun-centered’

May 23, 2022

In April and May, The Tallis Scholars premiered sun-centered, a work commissioned to share a program with Antoine Brumel’s monumental Missa “Et ecce terræ motus” — a Renaissance mass for 12 voices that gets its name from a scrap of chant whose text means ‘and the earth moved.’

Lang describes the connection:

This scrap of text immediately reminded me of Galileo’s trial for the blasphemy of proving the Earth revolves around the Sun, which seemed to contradict the Bible…