Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival at MASS MoCA

Mon, Jul 17 - Sun, Aug 6  2017

MASS MoCA

The Bang on a Can summer festival at MASS MoCA will take place from July 17 through August 6. On August 3 at 7:30 pm this year’s Mass Moca’s guest composer, Dutch master Louis Andriessen, will give a public talk of his Worker’s Union, which is free to the public.  On Saturday, August 5 from 4-6 pm, he will introduce two of his pieces on the Bang on a Can marathon.

About the festival

The Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival at MASS MoCA (the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art) is a musical utopia for innovative musicians in the beautiful Berkshire mountains of western Massachusetts. The festival is dedicated entirely to adventurous contemporary music. We will spend three weeks immersed in today’s most exciting music. Composers will have their new works performed. Players will perform in ensembles sitting alongside their teachers. The Festival includes daily performances in the museum galleries, free with museum admission, and concludes with a six-hour blow-out Marathon Concert performed by the Festival ensembles and special guests. The Festival also features African and Latin music workshops, electronics and music business seminars, free events in the community, and more.

The Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival will take place at MASS MoCA, located in North Adams, Massachusetts. MASS MoCA presents exhibitions and performances by renowned artists and cultural institutions, but it also is a place where the process of creativity is explored; rehearsals, art fabrication shops, and production studios are open to public view. Bang on a Can has found a home at MASS MoCA for the Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival and is thrilled to work with them in building a bridge between the arts.

About Louis Andriessen 

Louis Andriessen is widely regarded as the leading composer working in the Netherlands today and is a central figure in the international new music scene. From a background of jazz and avant-garde composition, Andriessen has evolved a style employing elemental harmonic, melodic, and rhythmic materials, heard in totally distinctive instrumentation. His acknowledged admiration for Stravinsky is illustrated by a parallel vigor, clarity of expression, and acute ear for color. The range of Andriessen’s inspiration is wide, from the music of Charles Ives in “Anachronie I,” the art of Mondriaan in “De Stijl,” and medieval poetic visions in “Hadewijch,” to writings on shipbuilding and atomic theory in “De Materie.” He has tackled complex creative issues, exploring the relation between music and politics in “De Staat,” the nature of time and velocity in “De Tijd” and “De Snelheid,” and questions of mortality in “Trilogy of the Last Day.” 
Andriessen held the Richard and Barbara Debs Composer’s Chair at Carnegie Hall and was awarded the Composer of the Year Award by Musical America in 2010