David Lang (composer)
Encyclopedia
David Lang is an American
composer living in New York City
. He was awarded the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Music
for The Little Match Girl Passion.
, the University of Iowa
, and Yale University
(DMA, 1989). His teachers have included Donald Jenni, Richard Hervig, Jacob Druckman
, Hans Werner Henze
, and Martin Bresnick
.
His first recognition came from the BMI Foundation
's Student Composer Awards in 1980 and 1981. Together with Julia Wolfe
and Michael Gordon
, Lang co-founded Bang on a Can
in 1987.
In 2002 he was awarded a grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award.
In 2008 he joined the Yale School of Music
composition faculty.
He is also currently the Distinguished Visiting Professor of Composition and Composer in Residence at the Oberlin Conservatory.
, minimalism
, and rock
- and can perhaps be best described as post-minimalist or totalist
. His music can be in turn comic, abrasive, and soothing, and it usually retains elements of conceptualism
. He sometimes gives his concert pieces strange and even iconoclastic titles such as Eating Living Monkeys (1985) and Bonehead (1990).
He was a major contributor to the music performed by the Kronos Quartet
in Requiem for a Dream being the arranger in studio. He is also well known for his work with choreographers Shen Wei
, Benjamin Millepied
, Susan Marshall
and Édouard Lock
/ La La La Human Steps
.
in the composition of the "comic strip opera" The Carbon Copy Building. The production won an Obie Award
for Best New American Production. Lang, Wolfe and Gordon subsequently collaborated on the 'oratorio' Lost Objects, the recording of which was released in summer 2001 (Teldec New Line). Their next collaborative project was Shelter, a multi-media work with librettist Deborah Artman,for the Scandinavian vocal group Trio Mediaeval and the German ensemble musikFabrik
, which was performed in Germany and the U.S. in 2005.
, about an Alabama planter
named Williamson who purportedly vanished while walking across a field in 1854.(Bierce's story reoccurs in urban-legend
form, in which, coincidentally, the vanished man is often given the name David Lang.)
, composed in 2007. The piece, based on Hans Christian Andersen
's fable "The Little Match Girl
" and inspired by Bach's St. Matthew Passion
, was co-commissioned by the Carnegie Hall
Corporation and The Perth Theater and Concert Hall and premiered on October 25, 2007 in Zankel Hall in New York City. Tim Page
of the Washington Post wrote that "I don't think that I've ever been so moved by a new...composition as I was by David Lang's The Little Match Girl Passion
, which is unlike any music I know."
The recording of The Little Match Girl Passion
on Harmonia Mundi received a 2010 Grammy Award
for Best Small Ensemble Performance.
/Decca
, BMG
, Cantaloupe Music
, Chandos, CRI
, Naxos Records
, Point Music, and Sony Classical labels. His solo albums for Cantaloupe include "The Passing Measures" (2001) with the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group
, "Child" (2003) played by Sentieri Selvaggi, and "Elevated" (2005) featuringing performances by Audrey Riley
and A Change of Light, and Lisa Moore
. His music has also been represented on recordings by Icebreaker
, So Percussion
, Bang on a Can
All Stars and Evan Ziporyn
. His scores are published by Red Poppy Music (available from G. Schirmer
, Inc.)
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
composer living in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. He was awarded the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Music
Pulitzer Prize for Music
The Pulitzer Prize for Music was first awarded in 1943. Joseph Pulitzer did not call for such a prize in his will, but had arranged for a music scholarship to be awarded each year...
for The Little Match Girl Passion.
Biography
Lang holds degrees from Stanford UniversityStanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
, the University of Iowa
University of Iowa
The University of Iowa is a public state-supported research university located in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. It is the oldest public university in the state. The university is organized into eleven colleges granting undergraduate, graduate, and professional degrees...
, and Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
(DMA, 1989). His teachers have included Donald Jenni, Richard Hervig, Jacob Druckman
Jacob Druckman
Jacob Druckman was an American composer born in Philadelphia. A graduate of the Juilliard School, Druckman studied with Vincent Persichetti, Peter Mennin, and Bernard Wagenaar. In 1949 and 1950 he studied with Aaron Copland at Tanglewood and later continued his studies at the École Normale de...
, Hans Werner Henze
Hans Werner Henze
Hans Werner Henze is a German composer of prodigious output best known for "his consistent cultivation of music for the theatre throughout his life"...
, and Martin Bresnick
Martin Bresnick
Martin Bresnick is a composer of contemporary classical music, film scores and experimental music.-Education and early career:Bresnick was born and raised in the Bronx, and is a graduate of New York City's specialized High School of Music and Art. He was educated at the University of Hartford ,...
.
His first recognition came from the BMI Foundation
BMI Foundation
The BMI Foundation, Inc. is a non-profit organization founded in 1985 by executives of Broadcast Music Incorporated for the purpose of "encouraging the creation, performance and study of music through awards, scholarships, internships, grants, and commissions." Additionally, the Foundation makes...
's Student Composer Awards in 1980 and 1981. Together with Julia Wolfe
Julia Wolfe
Julia Wolfe is an American composer. She was born in Philadelphia, holds degrees from the University of Michigan, Princeton and Yale, and currently works in New York. Wolfe's music is rhythmically vigorous and often clangorously dissonant...
and Michael Gordon
Michael Gordon (composer)
Michael Gordon is an American composer and co-founder of the Bang on a Can festival and ensemble. His music is associated with the genres of totalism and post-minimalism.-Early life:...
, Lang co-founded Bang on a Can
Bang on a Can
Bang on a Can is a multi-faceted classical music organization based in New York City. It was founded in 1987 by three American composers who remain its artistic directors: Julia Wolfe, David Lang, and Michael Gordon...
in 1987.
In 2002 he was awarded a grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award.
In 2008 he joined the Yale School of Music
Yale School of Music
The Yale School of Music is one of the twelve professional schools at Yale University and one of the premier music conservatories in the world....
composition faculty.
He is also currently the Distinguished Visiting Professor of Composition and Composer in Residence at the Oberlin Conservatory.
Works
Lang's music is informed by modernismModernism
Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...
, minimalism
Minimalist music
Minimal music is a style of music associated with the work of American composers La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, and Philip Glass. It originated in the New York Downtown scene of the 1960s and was initially viewed as a form of experimental music called the New York Hypnotic School....
, and rock
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
- and can perhaps be best described as post-minimalist or totalist
Totalism (music)
In music, totalism is a term for a style of art music that arose in the 1980s and 1990s as a developing response to minimalism—parallel to postminimalism, but generally among a slightly younger generation, born in the 1950s....
. His music can be in turn comic, abrasive, and soothing, and it usually retains elements of conceptualism
Conceptual art
Conceptual art is art in which the concept or idea involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns. Many of the works, sometimes called installations, of the artist Sol LeWitt may be constructed by anyone simply by following a set of written instructions...
. He sometimes gives his concert pieces strange and even iconoclastic titles such as Eating Living Monkeys (1985) and Bonehead (1990).
He was a major contributor to the music performed by the Kronos Quartet
Kronos Quartet
Kronos Quartet is a string quartet founded by violinist David Harrington in 1973 in Seattle, Washington. Since 1978, the quartet has been based in San Francisco, California. The longest-running combination of performers had Harrington and John Sherba on violin, Hank Dutt on viola, and Joan...
in Requiem for a Dream being the arranger in studio. He is also well known for his work with choreographers Shen Wei
Shen Wei
Shen Wei is a Chinese choreographer and dancer. He lives and works in New York City and is director of the modern dance company Shen Wei Dance Arts...
, Benjamin Millepied
Benjamin Millepied
Benjamin Millepied is a French danseur, best known for his work as choreographer in the movie Black Swan .-Early life:...
, Susan Marshall
Susan Marshall
Susan Marshall is an American choreographer and dancer. She is the Artistic Director and Choreographer of Susan Marshall & Company which she formed sometime between 1982 and 1983, working initially with dancers Arthur Armijo, David Dorfman, Jackie Goodrich, and David Landis...
and Édouard Lock
Édouard Lock
Édouard Lock is a Canadian dance choreographer and the founder of the Canadian dance group, La La La Human Steps.In 1957 Édouard Lock's parents moved to Montreal, where he studied film and literature at Concordia University....
/ La La La Human Steps
La La La Human Steps
La La La Human Steps is a Québécois contemporary dance group in Canada, known for its energetic, acrobatic style that often involves fast-paced and athletic physical contact...
.
Collaborative works
In 1999 he collaborated with composers Julia Wolfe and Michael Gordon and librettist/illustrator Ben KatchorBen Katchor
Ben Katchor is an American cartoonist best known for his comic strip Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer. He has contributed comics and drawings to The New Yorker and The New York Times...
in the composition of the "comic strip opera" The Carbon Copy Building. The production won an Obie Award
Obie Award
The Obie Awards or Off-Broadway Theater Awards are annual awards given by The Village Voice newspaper to theatre artists and groups in New York City...
for Best New American Production. Lang, Wolfe and Gordon subsequently collaborated on the 'oratorio' Lost Objects, the recording of which was released in summer 2001 (Teldec New Line). Their next collaborative project was Shelter, a multi-media work with librettist Deborah Artman,for the Scandinavian vocal group Trio Mediaeval and the German ensemble musikFabrik
Musikfabrik
The musikFabrik is an ensemble for contemporary music located in Cologne. Their official name is: musikFabrik Landesensemble NRW e.V. .-Overview:...
, which was performed in Germany and the U.S. in 2005.
The Difficulty of Crossing a Field
Also in 1999, Lang based his opera The Difficulty of Crossing a Field on a short story by Ambrose BierceAmbrose Bierce
Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce was an American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist and satirist...
, about an Alabama planter
Plantation
A plantation is a long artificially established forest, farm or estate, where crops are grown for sale, often in distant markets rather than for local on-site consumption...
named Williamson who purportedly vanished while walking across a field in 1854.(Bierce's story reoccurs in urban-legend
Urban legend
An urban legend, urban myth, urban tale, or contemporary legend, is a form of modern folklore consisting of stories that may or may not have been believed by their tellers to be true...
form, in which, coincidentally, the vanished man is often given the name David Lang.)
Pulitzer Prize
Lang was awarded the 2008 Pulitzer Prize in music for his piece The Little Match Girl PassionThe Little Match Girl Passion
The Little Match Girl Passion is a Musical composition by David Lang, based on the Hans Christian Andersen story, The Little Match Girl. It is influenced by Johann Sebastian Bach’s St Matthew Passion and has won the Pulitzer Prize. It premiered at Carnegie Hall....
, composed in 2007. The piece, based on Hans Christian Andersen
Hans Christian Andersen
Hans Christian Andersen was a Danish author, fairy tale writer, and poet noted for his children's stories. These include "The Steadfast Tin Soldier," "The Snow Queen," "The Little Mermaid," "Thumbelina," "The Little Match Girl," and "The Ugly Duckling."...
's fable "The Little Match Girl
The Little Match Girl
The Little Match Girl is a short story by Danish poet and author Hans Christian Andersen. The story is about a dying child's dreams and hope, and was first published in 1845. It has been adapted to various media including animated film, and a television musical.-Plot summary:On a cold New Year’s...
" and inspired by Bach's St. Matthew Passion
Matthäuspassion
The St Matthew Passion, BWV 244, , is a musical composition from the Passions written by Johann Sebastian Bach in 1727 for solo voices, double choir and double orchestra, with libretto by Picander . It sets chapters 26 and 27 of the Gospel of Matthew to music, with interspersed chorales and arias...
, was co-commissioned by the Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....
Corporation and The Perth Theater and Concert Hall and premiered on October 25, 2007 in Zankel Hall in New York City. Tim Page
Tim Page (music critic)
Tim Page is a writer, editor, music critic, producer and professor. He is a Pulitzer Prize-winning music critic for the Washington Post and also played an essential role in the revival of American author Dawn Powell.-Career:Page grew up in Storrs, Connecticut, where his father, Ellis B...
of the Washington Post wrote that "I don't think that I've ever been so moved by a new...composition as I was by David Lang's The Little Match Girl Passion
The Little Match Girl Passion
The Little Match Girl Passion is a Musical composition by David Lang, based on the Hans Christian Andersen story, The Little Match Girl. It is influenced by Johann Sebastian Bach’s St Matthew Passion and has won the Pulitzer Prize. It premiered at Carnegie Hall....
, which is unlike any music I know."
The recording of The Little Match Girl Passion
The Little Match Girl Passion
The Little Match Girl Passion is a Musical composition by David Lang, based on the Hans Christian Andersen story, The Little Match Girl. It is influenced by Johann Sebastian Bach’s St Matthew Passion and has won the Pulitzer Prize. It premiered at Carnegie Hall....
on Harmonia Mundi received a 2010 Grammy Award
Grammy Award
A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...
for Best Small Ensemble Performance.
Recorded works
Lang's music has been released on the ArgoArgo
In Greek mythology, the Argo was the ship on which Jason and the Argonauts sailed from Iolcos to retrieve the Golden Fleece. It was named after its builder, Argus.-Legend:...
/Decca
Decca Records
Decca Records began as a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934; however, owing to World War II, the link with the British company was broken for several decades....
, BMG
BMG
Bertelsmann Music Group, , was a division of Bertelsmann before its completion of sale of the majority of its assets to Japan's Sony Corporation of America on October 1, 2008. It was established in 1987 to combine the music label activities of Bertelsmann...
, Cantaloupe Music
Cantaloupe Music
Cantaloupe Music is a record label founded in March 2001 created by the three founders of New York's legendary Bang on a Can Festival: Michael Gordon, David Lang, and Julia Wolfe, and Bang on a Can Managing Director Kenny Savelson. Cantaloupe Music has made a massive impact in the new music...
, Chandos, CRI
CRI
-Business:* Community Rowing, Inc.* Composers Recordings, Inc.* Computer Resources International, a Danish aerospace company* Copyright infringement* Cricklewood railway station, London; National Rail station code CRI...
, Naxos Records
Naxos Records
Naxos Records is a record label specializing in classical music. Through a number of imprints, Naxos also releases genres including Chinese music, jazz, world music, and early rock & roll. The company was founded in 1987 by Klaus Heymann, a German-born resident of Hong Kong.Naxos is the largest...
, Point Music, and Sony Classical labels. His solo albums for Cantaloupe include "The Passing Measures" (2001) with the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group
Birmingham Contemporary Music Group
Birmingham Contemporary Music Group is a chamber orchestra based in Birmingham, England. BCMG specialises in the performance of new and contemporary music. BCMG performs regularly at the CBSO Centre and Symphony Hall in Birmingham...
, "Child" (2003) played by Sentieri Selvaggi, and "Elevated" (2005) featuringing performances by Audrey Riley
Audrey Riley
Audrey Riley is a cellist and string arranger based in the UK. Riley trained at the Guildhall School of Music with Leonard Stehn and was a cellist for Virginia Astley from 1983 to 1986 and a one-time auxiliary member of The Family Cat. She has been a member of the post-minimalist band Icebreaker...
and A Change of Light, and Lisa Moore
Lisa Moore (musician)
Lisa Moore is an internationally renowned pianist with a diverse and eclectic mix of musical influences. She has been crowned "New York's queen of avant-garde piano" and a "visionary" by The New Yorker magazine; the New York Times claims "her energy is illuminating" and The American Record Guide...
. His music has also been represented on recordings by Icebreaker
Icebreaker (band)
Icebreaker is a UK-based new music ensemble founded by James Poke and John Godfrey. The group have established themselves as one of the UK's leading new music interpreters specializing particularly in post-minimal and "totalist" repertoire. They always play amplified and have a reputation for...
, So Percussion
So Percussion
So Percussion is an American percussion quartet based in New York City.Composed of Josh Quillen, Adam Sliwinski, Jason Treuting, and Eric Beach, the group is well known for recording and touring internationally and for its work with composers such as Steve Reich, David Lang, Paul Lansky, Martin...
, Bang on a Can
Bang on a Can
Bang on a Can is a multi-faceted classical music organization based in New York City. It was founded in 1987 by three American composers who remain its artistic directors: Julia Wolfe, David Lang, and Michael Gordon...
All Stars and Evan Ziporyn
Evan Ziporyn
Evan Ziporyn is an American composer of post-minimalist music and music for Balinese gamelans. He plays the clarinet, bass clarinet, saxophone, and metallophone, borrowing from classical music, avant-garde, and jazz...
. His scores are published by Red Poppy Music (available from G. Schirmer
G. Schirmer
G. Schirmer Inc. is an American classical music publishing company based in New York City, founded in 1861. It publishes sheet music for sale and rental, and represents some well-known European music publishers in North America, such as the Italian Ricordi, Music Sales Affiliates ChesterNovello,...
, Inc.)
Recordings
- Are You Experienced (1989)
- The Passing Measures (2001)
- Child (2003)
- Elevated (2005)
- Pierced (2008)
- The Little Match Girl PassionThe Little Match Girl PassionThe Little Match Girl Passion is a Musical composition by David Lang, based on the Hans Christian Andersen story, The Little Match Girl. It is influenced by Johann Sebastian Bach’s St Matthew Passion and has won the Pulitzer Prize. It premiered at Carnegie Hall....
(2009) - (Untitled) Music from the Film (2009)
- This Was Written By Hand (2011)
- The Woodmans - Music from the Film (2011)
Listening
- David Lang story from NPR, April 7, 2008
- Pulitzer Prize winning composition: "The Little Match Girl Passion"
- Départs Salles des Départs BBC story about a memorial chapel and Lang's piece
Film
- New York Composers: Searching for a New Music (1997). Directed by Michael Blackwood. Produced by Michael Blackwood Productions, in association with Westdeutscher Rundfunk. New York, New York: Michael Blackwood Productions
- (Untitled)(Untitled) (2009 film)is a 2009 comedy film directed and written by Jonathan Parker, co-written by Catherine DiNapoli, and starring Adam Goldberg, Marley Shelton, Eion Bailey, and Vinnie Jones...
(2009)