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before and after nature
words and music by David Lang
video and projections by Tal Rosner
performed by the Bang on a Can All-Stars with SATB chorus
duration: 60 minutes

Lead Commissioner: Stanford Live and LA Master Chorale
premiere TBD fall 2025
We are currently seeking additional commissioning support for interested presenters and/or ensembles

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Based very loosely on things I have thought about after reading the books ‘The End of Nature’ by Bill McKibben, ‘After Nature’ by Jedidiah Purdy, and ‘The Revolt Against Humanity’ by Adam Kirsch, my piece will look at different ways to define and understand nature, now that it has been forever changed by human behavior…

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Simple Song #3 nominated for a 2016 Academy Award

David Lang’s Simple Song #3, written as part of the score for the film Youth by Paolo Sorrentino, has been nominated for a 2016 Oscar for Best Original Song.

http://oscar.go.com/nominees

Lang’s score for Youth represents the compositions written by the film’s protaganist (a classical composer and conductor toward the end of his career) and most importantly his Simple Song #3, an integral and recurring musical and cinematic theme…

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Oneohtrix Point Never remixes ‘darker’ at River to River festival

On Saturday July 14 at 8pm at the World Financial Center Plaza, Lang’s hour-long, slowly-evolving work for strings, darker, is the starting point for a live re-imagination by Oneohtrix Point Never (Daniel Lopatin), who will real time loop and electronically process the live string sound of A Far Cry Orchestra back over and on to themselves.

Lopatin will also present his own work with selections from of his critically acclaimed albums (Returnal and Replica) specially arranged for A Far Cry Orchestra…

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‘whisper opera’ world premiere

David 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…

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David Lang receives Duke Foundation grant

David Lang is among 20 of America’s most vital artists working in the fields of contemporary dance, jazz and theatre announced by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation (DDCF) as recipients of the 2013 Doris Duke Artist Awards.

The grantees include: • Anthony Braxton (Middletown, CT (New York, NY)• Billy Childs (Los Angeles, CA)• Ping Chong (New York, NY)• Kelly Copper (New York, NY)• Lisa D’Amour (New Orleans, LA and New York, NY)• DD Dorvillier (New York, NY and Paris, France)• Amir ElSaffar (New York, NY)• David Gordon (New York, NY)• Pat Graney (Seattle, WA)• Stacy Klein (Ashfield, MA)• David Lang (New York, NY)• Pavol Liska (New York, NY)• Rudresh Mahanthappa (Montclair, NJ)• John Malpede (Los Angeles, CA)• Miya Masaoka (Berkeley, CA and New York, NY)• Myra Melford (Berkeley, CA)• Tere O’Connor (Champaign, IL and New York, NY)• William Parker (New York, NY)• Elizabeth Streb (Brooklyn, NY)• Jawole Willa Jo Zollar (Tallahassee, FL and Brooklyn, NY)

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David Lang’s music featured in new film by Oscar-winning director Paolo Sorrentino

David Lang’s music is featured in the upcoming film, Youth, by Italian director Paolo Sorrentino — 2014 Oscar-winner for best foreign film (The Great Beauty). David scored the new film (about a contemporary composer), and one of his recent pieces ‘just (after song of songs)’ is the music for the official trailer! It was commissioned, premiered and released by the Louth Contemporary Music Society and is performed by vocalists Trio Mediaeval and Garth Knox’s Salterro Trio…