Bang on a Can All-Stars

Some of the myths fit seamlessly into other American myths: that “American-ness” and “manliness” are global virtues, that we are rugged individuals building a new and better world, that revolutionary discoveries are only made by rebels acting outside institutions and academia, that outspoken America is fighting against formalist Europe. All these myths are based on a completely heroic image of America. This is a dangerous perspective for foreign policy. In music, it could be just as dangerous.

The myth that American composers are most susceptible to is the concept of the underdog. There are two really important American contributions to musical culture worldwide: jazz, and then a large number of maverick, experimental rebels, beginning with Charles Ives and continuing with composers like Harry Partch, Conlon Nancarrow, Morton Feldman and John Cage. It may sound counterintuitive to speak of a tradition of independents or a school of mavericks, but in fact this is one of our greatest achievements. There is a long tradition in America of composers/inventors working on the fringes of our various musical mainstreams. Many of their inventions draw their energy from transplanting popular musical elements into “high art” contexts, and this is what links them back to Charles Ives.

Tonight, the Bang on a Can All-Stars present compositions that draw freely on popular American musical genres. And all of them - from the mathematically impossible boogie woogies of Conlon Nancarrow, to the bold sounds of Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore, to the milestone lyrics of Lou Reed and the tremendous energy of Louis Andriessen - take us back to Ives in one way or another.