BANG ON A CAN ALL-STARS

A new definition of concert music.
Join us in the Red Theater for the world premiere of Wahat al Karamah by Mohammed Fairouz.

Awarded Musical America’s Ensemble of the year and freely crossing the boundaries between classical, jazz, rock, world, and experimental music. New York’s electric chamber ensemble Bang on a Can All-Stars has consistently forged a distinct category-defying identity, taking music into uncharted territories and shattering the definition of what concert music is today. With a massive repertoire of works written specifically for the group, the All-Stars have become a genre in their own right.

For their UAE debut, the All-Stars play a program including signature works by Bang on a Can founders Michael Gordon, David Lang, and Julia Wolfe, plus multi-media works from the All-Stars’ Field Recordings initiative by Steve Reich, Anna Clyne, Bryce Dessner, Jóhann Jóhannsson, Christian Marclay, and more. At the center is a world premiere piece commissioned by The Arts Center at NYU Abu Dhabi and the Abu Dhabi Festival by celebrated Emirati-American composer Mohammed Fairouz.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Mohammed Fairouz, born in 1985, is one of the most frequently performed, commissioned, and recorded composers of his generation. Hailed by The New York Times as “an important new artistic voice” and by BBC World News as “one of the most talented composers of his generation,” his large-scale symphonies, operas and oratorios all engage major geopolitical and philosophical themes with persuasive craft and a marked seriousness of purpose. Fairouz recently became the youngest composer in the 115-year history of the Deutsche Grammophon label to have an album dedicated to his works with the spring 2015 release of Follow, Poet. The album, which launched the label’s Return to Language series, includes two works that exalt the transformative power of language: his elegiac song cycle Audenesque and the ballet Sadat. The album has met with broad critical acclaim and received “highbrow and brilliant” distinctions in New York Magazine’s taste-making Approval Matrix. Fairouz’s solo and chamber music attains an “intoxicating intimacy,” according to New York’s WQXR. A composer who describes himself as “obsessed with text,” he has been recognized by New Yorker magazine as an “expert in vocal writing” and described by Gramophone as “a post-millennial Schubert.” His principal teachers in composition include György Ligeti, Gunther Schuller, and Richard Danielpour, with studies at the Curtis Institute and New England Conservatory. Fairouz’s works are published by Peermusic Classical. He lives in New York City.