Bang On A Can All-Stars/Brian Eno

MUSIC FOR AIRPORTS

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13 october, h. 20.30

PALLADIUM

programma
Evan Ziporyn: Music from Shadowbang (15′)
David Lang/Lou Reed: Heroin (10′) - (film di Doug Aitken)
Louis Andriessen: Workers Union (17′)
Brian Eno: Music for Airports (50′)

When Ambient # 1 Music for airports was brought out in 1978, not even its creator Brian Eno could have suspected that this “discreet” kind of work would have such a revolutionary effect: in fact it was a record that was to become one of the cornerstones of that trend where artists from the pop-rock scene and cultured music would find a common ground for making and exchanging music, and one which continues to prove fertile ground for new creations.
It is no surprise that the first of the two events that see the return of the Bang on a Can All-Stars to Rome should focus on their dazzling version of this album recorded for the thirty-year anniversary. The ensemble was born in the ’80s out of the heated discussions of three composers: Michael Gordon, David Lang and Julia Wolfe. These debates focused on where music was at and where it was going, and reached the conclusion that the art of sounds is a shattered universe: isolated niches of academics, avant-gardeists, minimalists, rockers, improvisers, egg-heads- Brian Eno amongst them-, metaphysicists, meditativists and symphonists- and the list could go on. In over twenty years of work spanning the most diverse musical enclaves, Bang on a Can has attempted to produce original summaries of different styles, breaking out owing to its communicative force as a rock group and the intellectual strength of its cultured music.
In the All-Stars formation, Bang on a Can perform in the world’s main festivals and theatres playing Music from Shadowbang by Evan Ziporyn -the current clarinettist of the group-, Heroin, a tribute to Lang, one of the founders of Bang on a Can who put the words of Lou Reed’s renowned song to new music and Workers Union by Dutch composer Louis Andriessen. In the second part, it is the turn of Music for Airports, which in this new version accentuates the hypnotic charm of ambient music destined for “non-places”- airports, in particular international ones which all seem alike- and which like all “non-places” of modern life can take you anywhere and nowhere at the same time.

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Formed in 1987 by composers Michael Gordon, David Lang and Julia Wolfe, Bang on a Can is dedicated to commissioning, performing, creating, presenting and recording contemporary music. With an ear for the new, the unknown and the unconventional, Bang on a Can strives to expose exciting and innovative music as broadly and accessibly as possible to new audiences worldwide.
Perhaps best known as a musician and producer, Brian Eno is also an artist, professor and thinker. Music-wise, even if you haven’t heard any of his own records, you may have heard his production contributions to albums by rock legends U2, David Bowie or James.