The Jewish Museum and Bang on a Can Announce Second Year of Partnership for 2015-2016 Season

New York, NY – Bang on a Can and the Jewish Museum are pleased to announce the second year of their partnership with the 2015-2016 season, producing dynamic musical performances inspired by the Museum’s diverse slate of exhibitions. The series will include five programs throughout the year, primarily in the Jewish Museum’s Scheuer Auditorium (Fifth Avenue and 92nd Street). The season kicks off with a free, outdoor performance by DJ Spooky at the Museum Mile Festival on June 9 and continues on July 9 with a concert by innovative violinist-composer Todd Reynolds in conjunction with the Museum’s exhibition Repetition and Difference, which explores artistic repetition and serialization. Other concerts throughout the season will include The Power Of Pictures featuring Bang on a Can All-Stars bassist Robert Black with the Hartt Bass Band and Friends (November 5), Unorthodox featuring the Mivos Quartet (February 4), and Brazil Gardens and Beyond (May, TBA).

“We are pleased to partner with Bang on a Can for a second year to bring such original and innovative productions to our audiences,” said Claudia Gould, Helen Goldsmith Menschel Director of the Jewish Museum.  “Their expertise in merging music with art creates an exciting line-up that perfectly complements the Museum’s exhibitions.”

Of the collaboration, Bang on a Can executive director Kenny Savelson says, “The past year has been a remarkable opportunity for Bang on a Can to immerse ourselves in and curate music alongside the inspirational exhibitions at the Jewish Museum and we’re looking forward to round 2!  I think we’ve cultivated a unique, warm, and intimate salon-style atmosphere where artists and audiences can share new experiences with both the inventive visual art exhibitions and the pioneering music and ideas are flowing freely without typical boundaries or limitations.”

The June 9 performance at the Museum Mile Festival is free. Tickets for the July 9, November 5, February 4, and May programs are $18 general public; $15 students and senior citizens; and $12 for Jewish Museum members and Bang on a Can list members, and include exhibition admission prior to the performance. Further program and ticket information is available by calling 212.423.3337 or at TheJewishMuseum.org/calendar. The Jewish Museum is located at Fifth Avenue and 92nd Street, Manhattan.

PROGRAM SCHEDULE

MUSEUM MILE FESTIVAL

Paul Miller aka DJ Spooky That Subliminal Kid

Tuesday, June 9, 2015 from 6:00pm to 9:00pm

Composer / turntablist Paul Miller, also known as DJ Spooky That Subliminal Kid, whose “ambitious, elaborate, often hypnotic soundscapes have been notable as much for their eclectic imagination as for their post-modern intellectualism” (Chicago Tribune), brings an art-party set to the streets of New York. What makes his DJing so powerful is the range of influences from which he draws his materials – old films, dance music, noise, world beats. Loud, thoughtful, and very fresh.

BANG ON A CAN: REPETITION AND DIFFERENCE

Featuring Todd Reynolds, violin

Thursday, July 9, 2015 at 7:30pm

A forerunner in the expansion of the violin beyond its classical and “wood-bound” tradition, Reynolds electrifies in concert, weaving together composed and improvised segments, and making use of computer technology and digital loops to sculpt his sounds in real time, seamlessly integrating minimalist, pop, Jazz, Indian, African, Celtic and indigenous folk music into his own sonic blend. The violinist of choice for a generation of New York composers, particularly those who trace their influences to the minimalists of downtown New York, this program explores repetition and difference in music for violin and electronics by Bang on a Can co-founders Michael Gordon and David Lang, expressivist/post-minimalist Ingram Marshall, and by Todd Reynolds himself. This concert is made possible by a generous endowment from the William Petschek Family.

Exhibition: Repetition and Difference

March 13 – August 16, 2015

Through over 350 historic objects from the Museum’s collection and recent works by contemporary artists, Repetition and Difference explores how subtle disruptions in form, color, or design can reveal intriguing information about a work’s creation and meaning. Large groups of seemingly identical objects, including silver coins struck in ancient Lebanon and 19th-century Iranian marriage contracts, are juxtaposed with recent works by artists including Abraham Cruzvillegas, N. Dash, and Hank Willis Thomas.

BANG ON A CAN: THE POWER OF PICTURES

Robert Black, the Hartt Bass Band and Friends
Thursday, November 5, 2015 at 7:30pm

Composers who were isolated behind the Iron Curtain had to develop their own unique ways of pushing musical boundaries. Bassist and founding member of the Bang on a Can All-Stars Robert Black anchors a program of chamber music by experimental Soviet composers Galina Ustvolskaya, Arthur Lourie, and Sofia Gubaidulaina. A highlight of the program is a rare performance of Ustvolskaya’s relentless Composition No. 2 for piano, eight double basses, and one giant cube of wood.

Exhibition: The Power of Pictures: Early Soviet Photography,  Early Soviet Film

September 25, 2015 – February 7, 2016

Believing that images had the power to transform people and society, photography, film, and poster art came to be recognized as the most effective tools for the dissemination of Communist ideology following the 1917 October Revolution. From early vanguard constructivist works by artists such as Alexander Rodchenko and El Lissitsky, to the modernist photography of Arkady Shaikhet and Max Penson who represented a new generation of photojournalists, this exhibition will explore how early photo based art work, defined a new Soviet style while energizing and expanding the very nature of these media. Exhibition visitors will see striking Soviet avant-garde photographs and film posters from the 1920s to the early 1940s, which today remain in the forefront of 20th century photography.

BANG ON A CAN: UNORTHODOX

Steve Reich – The String Quartets featuring Mivos Quartet

Thursday, February 4, 2016 at 7:30pm

The Mivos Quartet performs the string quartets of Steve Reich. Reich is one of New York’s and the world’s most influential composers and his quartets are arguably the most important cycle of quartets since Béla Bartók. This concert includes his Holocaust-related masterpiece Different Trains, and the intensely contrapuntal Triple Quartet. Plus a rare all-live four-violin performance of Reich’s seminal Violin Phase.

Exhibition: Unorthodox

November 6,  2015 – March 27, 2016

Unorthodox is a large-scale group exhibition featuring over 50 contemporary artists from around the world whose practices mix techniques, forms, and genres without concern for traditional hierarchies and conventions. Though the artists in Unorthodox are global and multigenerational, they are united in their spirit of independence and rebellion. Through over 200 works, the exhibition will highlight the importance of iconoclasm and art’s key role in breaking rules and traditions. Numerous works exploring social and religious values, humanism, trauma, and identity underscore the relationship between the human figure and the modern creative process. The exhibition is conceived and curated by Jens Hoffmann, Deputy Director, Exhibitions and Public Programs.

BANG ON A CAN: BRAZIL GARDENS AND BEYOND

May (Date TBA), 2015 at 7:30pm

Program TBA

Exhibition: The Art of Roberto Burle Marx: Brazil Gardens and Beyond

May 6 – September 18, 2016

This exhibition will be the first in the United States to showcase the art of Brazilian artist Roberto Burle Marx (1909-1994), one of the most prominent landscape architects of the twentieth century. Famous projects range from the pavement design for Rio de Janeiro’s Copacabana Beach seaside avenue to the multitude of gardens that embellish Brasilia. Burle Marx was a veritable Renaissance man bursting with creativity – a painter, designer of textiles and jewelry, an engraver, a ceramicist, and a sculptor. He was also an art collector, a talented baritone, and a consummate cook. Works by contemporary artists who have been inspired by Burle Marx will also be featured.

Support

Public Programming at the Jewish Museum is supported , in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council.

About Bang on a Can

Bang on a Can is dedicated to making music new. Founded by composers Michael Gordon, David Lang, and Julia Wolfe, who curatored the first Marathon concert in 1987 and remain co-Artistic Directors to this day, Bang on a Can has been creating an international community dedicated to innovative music, wherever it is found. With adventurous programs, it commissions new composers; performs, presents, and records new work; develops new audiences; and educates the musicians of the future. “Bang on a Can plays “a central role in fostering a new kind of audience that doesn’t concern itself with boundaries. If music is made with originality and integrity, these listeners will come” (The New York Times). Current projects include the annual Bang on a Can Marathon; The People’s Commissioning Fund, a membership program to commission emerging composers; the Bang on a Can All-Stars, who tour to major festivals and concert venues around the world; the Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival at MASS MoCA, a professional development program for young musicians; Asphalt Orchestra, Bang on a Can’s extreme street band; and Found Sound Nation, a musical outreach program partnering with the U.S. State Department to create OneBeat, a program that bridges the gulf between young American musicians and young musicians from developing countries. For more information, visit www.bangonacan.org.