November 9-11, The Nashville Opera presents David Lang’s chamber opera the difficulty of crossing a field.
With this work, Lang and multi-Obie award-winning playwright Mac Wellman have created a radical cross between opera and theater mixing arias with spoken text, emotional melodies with intense drama, and featuring a string quartet as both the ‘orchestra’ and as part of the staging.
Based on a one-page short story by American satirist and abolitionist author,
continue readingIt’s been a long time coming, but Shelter is finally here!
The latest collaborative work by Michael Gordon, David Lang, and Julia Wolfe is a modern oratorio that reunites the Bang on a Can founders with Deborah Artman (author of the libretto for 2001’s Lost Objects). Produced by Michael Riesman, this premiere recording was performed by Ensemble Signal under the baton of conductor Brad Lubman, and features solo voices Martha Cluver, Mellissa Hughes and Caroline Shaw…
continue readingAlthough we all eventually face death, it’s a topic most avoid — except perhaps for philosophers, who explain it to our heads, and artists, who present it to our hearts.
Composer David Lang offers something for both head and heart — and goes one step further in his new song cycle, Death Speaks. Here, death is less a lofty concept than a personality.
“It isn’t a state of being or a place or a metaphor, but a person, a character in a drama who can tell us in our own language what to expect in the World to Come,” Lang wrote for the Carnegie Hall debut of the piece last year…
continue readingDavid Lang’s newest work, the whisper opera, receives its world premiere on May 30 at the MCA in Chicago by the International Contemporary Ensemble with Tony Arnold as solo soprano.
This one-of-a-kind work is performed with the musicians, singer, and audience enclosed in an intimate, onstage set. Composed for flute, clarinet, percussion, cello, and solo soprano, the music and the environment work together to convey themes of secrets, and the tension between what we hide and what we choose to reveal…
continue readingAs part of Nico Muhly’s A Scream and an Outrage festival, The Barbican Centre features two premieres by David Lang.
On May 10, So Percussion and the BBC Symphony Orchestra, with conductor Jayce Ogren, give the world premiere of Lang’s concerto for percussion quartet and orchestra, man made. Lang combines found percussion (sticks, pipes, metal trash) with orchestral instruments in a unique and incredibly compelling work commissioned by the Barbican Centre and the Los Angeles Philharmonic…
continue readingHi Everyone!
I am really excited that my piece ‘man made’ for So Percussion and orchestra is now up on the BBC site, ready to be heard. ‘man made’ was co-commissioned by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and it premiered this past May at the Barbican, played by So and the BBC Symphony, conducted by Jayce Ogren.
You have to listen fast – the recording is only posted this week!…
continue readingSince winning the Pulitzer Prize in 2008, David Lang’s the little match girl passionhas quickly joined the repertoire as a chamber work, a staged production, a work for full chorus, and a featured event on Christmas and Easter concerts around the world.
This season over 50 performances of the little match girl passion are being given by ensembles throughout North America, Europe and Australia, including the return of Donald Nally’s The Crossing to New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art…
continue readingAs 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