Listen to an interview with Paul Lazar.
David describes the epiphany he had at nine years old that lead to his life as a composer. He and Paul have a fun, freewheeling conversation amidst excerpts of David’s music, with a little Steve Reich thrown in as well.
http://www.bboxradio.com/archive/talk-to-paulie/1202-talk-to-paulie.html
By 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. (…)
David Lang’s true pearl: an opera in five tapestries (with libretto by Sybil Kempson), is inspired by Isabella Stewart Gardner’s sixteenth-century tapestries that tell the story of the first king of Persia, Cyrus the Great. The five-part “in-ear opera” is a private experience, available only through headphones in the Museum’s Tapestry Room. The “stage set” for each scene is an individual tapestry from the Cyrus series, and listeners are immediately immersed into tales of empire building and passion…
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“[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…
continue readingNPR Music announced their 25 Favorite Albums of the Year (so far)… and David Lang’s ‘death speaks’ is on their list!
Here’s what they have to say about it:
You probably wouldn’t expect The National‘s Bryce Dessner and My Brightest Diamond‘s Shara Worden to work on a classically focused project inspired by Franz Schubert, but that’s exactly what happens within composer David Lang‘s amazing Death Speaks, which also features Nico Muhly playing piano and Owen Pallett on violin…
continue readingOn August 13, The Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center gives the world premiere of David Lang’s the public domain — a performance that not only welcomes the public as a free and open event, but will also be performed by the public. A piece inspired by the theme of the collective knowledge shared amongst us all, the new work is performed by 1,000 volunteer vocalists from throughout New York City, conducted by Simon Halsey, Choral Director of the London Symphony Orchestra…
continue readingBy Anne Midgette
Classical music critic
Dec. 10, 2019
People often ask: Why can’t we update old operas for our time? With “Prisoner of the State,” David Lang has done just that. He remakes Beethoven’s only opera, “Fidelio,” a problem child of the repertory, into a new work that hews to the original in form while underscoring its relevance to today’s society…
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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…
continue readingAfter much anticipation….. On May 6, David Lang hosts the winners of his piano competion at (le) Poisson Rouge.
The winner, Peter Poston, performs his winning-version of Lang’s solo, wed; Andrew Zolinsky, who recorded Lang’s memory pieces recently on Cantaloupe; Zolinsky and Poston premiere a new work for piano-four-hands; and the runners-up premiere a new work for piano-six-hands.
This is a not-to-be-missed event!
On this edition of New Sounds, composer David Lang presents his CD-length ambient concerto, ”the passing measures.” The new album is a most unusual concerto for bass clarinet, chorus, and orchestra that explores mortality, time, and the function of music. As Lang explains, ”My piece is about the struggle to create beauty. A single very consonant chord falls slowly over the course of forty minutes. That is the piece.”