As part of the 2013/2014 Debs Chair composer-in-residence at Carnegie Hall, David Lang has curated an amazing series of concerts to focus on the art of storytelling in music. From April 22-29, Carnegie Hall presents: Collected Stories
Lang comments on the mini-festival:
Music and storytelling began their lives together—music to accompany heroic tales, music to worship by, music to suggest the emotions running deep below the surface of a text…
continue readingDavid Lang is the composer-in-residence at Rotterdam’s de Doelen center, with 11 concerts featuring Lang’s music throughout the 2014/15 season:
Percussion HeavenResidentie Orchestra & So Percussion Sunday, November 30, 2014 at 20.15 VocaalLabthe little match girl passion Wednesday, December 17, 2014 at 20:30 Ensemble KlangKlang, Dance, Bang, Can Monday January 12, 2015 at 20.15 the whisper operaInternational Contemporary Ensemble, New York Monday, February 9, 2015 at 19:00 the whisper operaInternational Contemporary Ensemble, New York Monday, February 9, 2015 at 22:00 the whisper OperaInternational Contemporary Ensemble, New York Tuesday, February 10, 2015 at 19:00 the whisper OperaInternational Contemporary Ensemble, New York Tuesday, February 10, 2015 at 22:00 Ralph van RaatZappa’s Black Page Sunday, May 3, 2015 at 20:15 Anonymous4David Lang – love fail Tuesday, May 26, 2015 at 20:30 Anonymous4David Lang – love fail Wednesday, May 27, 2015 at 20:30 DoelenEnsembleDavid Lang – death speaks Friday, May 29, 2015 at 22:00
In 1998, I wrote music for a production of Friedrich Schiller’s play Mary Stuart at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. The director was my friend Carey Perloff, the music was sung by the spectacular men’s vocal ensemble Chanticleer, and the translation of the text was by the writer and Village Voice theater critic Michael Feingold. There can be a lot of down time for a composer and a translator during theater rehearsals so Michael and I passed the time telling each other stories about books we should be reading, and Michael suggested I read Thomas Bernhard’s The Loser…
continue readingBy Molly Sheridan
Read more…”I wanted to tell a story,” writes David Lang, introducing the new recording (just out on Harmonia Mundi) of his 2008 Pulitzer-Prize winner the little match girl passion. Such a simple and powerful desire; such a simple and powerful story to tell. (…)
Secrets Found Online, Shared Softly
David Lang’s ‘whisper opera’ Mines Truths From the Web
By WILLIAM ROBIN, August 2, 2013
Opera and technology have long had an uneasy relationship. The one has always required the other — from the Baroque spectacle of 17th-century operas, with their deus-ex-machina gimmickry, to the stagecraft required to mount any contemporary production of Wagner’s “Ring” cycle.
Historically, though, opera tended to avoid confronting the technological head-on…
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