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The Bang on a Can All-Stars will return to Lafayette’s Williams Center for the Arts, connecting avant-garde jazz and “next wave” voices in world music, 8 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 6.
Tickets cost $15 and may be purchased by calling the Williams Center box office at 610-330-5009.
The concert program will be highlighted by “Eugene I,” a piece composed by noted jazz clarinetist Don Byron that incorporates vintage footage of an old Ernie Kovacs television show, drawing on Kovacs’ unique wit and humor and Byron’s inventive use of phrasing and rhythms. Other selections will include “Exquisite Corpses” by Phil Kline; “New Work” by Scott Johnson; “ProMotion” by Elena Kats-Chernin; “Escalator” by Arnold Dreyblatt; and “Arapua” by Brazilian jazz genius Hermeto Pascoal.
The evening will include a 7 p.m. talk by Bang on a Can composer and co-artistic director David Lang in Williams Center room 108. The lecture is free and open to the public.
Bang on a Can All-Stars made its Williams Center debut in November 2000. The group is comprised of Wendy Sutter, cello; Robert Black, bass guitar and contrabass; Lisa Moore, piano; Steven Schick, percussion; Mark Stewart, electric guitar; and Evan Ziporyn, clarinet and saxophone. The ensemble unleashes a mix of jazz, classical, and rock and roll music.
“The Bang on a Can All-Stars present new music the way it should be presented — with passion, precision, dynamism, stylistic authority and welcoming informality,” according to New York Newsday.
The Bang on a Can All-Stars’ first major collaboration as an ensemble came in 1989, and by 1991, the group had become a regular feature of the Bang on a Can Festival. In 1992, Bang on a Can created a separate series of performances for the Bang on a Can All-Stars, starting the group on its way to establishing an international reputation as a pioneer of music from the cutting edge. The founding artistic directors and composer collective of David Lang, Michael Gordon, and Julia Wolfe continues to provide artistic direction for the programming commitments and touring activities of Bang on a Can All-Stars.
The 1993-94 season marked the ensemble’s debut at Lincoln Center with two concerts in the Great Performers Series, which has continued to present the Bang on a Can All-Stars on a regular basis. Additional breakthroughs in 1994 included an appearance in the Meltdown Festival at London’s South Bank Centre, the Holland Festival, and Tanglewood.
In the following years, the group sold out concerts at Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, Royal Festival Hall in London, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, and many other notable venues. Television appearances have included spots on CNN, MTV, and National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered.”
The ensemble’s 2001-02 season includes a who’s-who of New York concert spaces — Merkin Concert Hall, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, and the Miller Theatre — as well as concerts at international venues ranging from the United Kingdom to Uzbekistan.
The 2001-2002 Performance Series at Lafayette is supported in part by gifts from members of Friends of the Williams Center for the Arts, and by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, Pennsylvania Performing Arts on Tour, and New England Foundation for the Arts.