Like his Pulitzer-winning work the little match girl passion, David Lang's 'poor hymnal' tries to get to the core of what a religious experience can be. "What I love about hymnals," the composer writes in his liner notes to the CD, "is that they're a catalog of things a community of worshippers can agree on - a catalog that can be sung. And what the worshippers are singing about matters." 'poor hymnal' is a concert-length work written for the multiple GRAMMY Award-winning chamber choir The Crossing, conducted by Donald Nally. Lang constructed the text by stitching together lines, phrases and poignant utterances from sources as varied as the Old Testament, Mahatma Gandhi and Tolstoy - to name just a few. As Lang explains: "This piece is trying to say: The reason we are coming together is to remember how important we are to each other, and to remember how important it is that we take care of each other."

This dance film is directed and choreographed by Edouard Lock and performed by the La La La Human Steps dance company to music by David Lang. Lock uses intricate choreography for both camera and dancers, creating amazing and constantly shifting points.

Katia Labèque/Marielle Labèque/David Chalmin/Bryce Dessner -"Sonic Wires"

Founded in 2018, the Dream House Quartet is bringing classical and contemporary music into completely new forms as a matter of course. The members draw on decades of expertise: the two piano sisters, Katia and Marielle Labèque, are joined by Bryce Dessner (Grammy-winning guitarist, composer and founding member of The National), and composer, musician and producer David Chalmin. Together they perform radical commissions from visionary composers and key contemporary works from the past half century.

Classical Music

If there's a place to be called "pictorial" in a special way, then we should think of Untermhaus, a small settlement below Osterstein Castle in Gera, Eastern Thuringia. Small in dimensions, houses and old workshops are clustered between the river Weisse Elster and the mountains. They look like forgotten contemporary witnesses because their reference point, the old castle above them, is ruined. The so-called Mohrenplatz is the starting point of the steep ascent to the castle, a kind of entrance for the castle and still today keeping the charm of ancient times. At this place, we find one of the oldest and most beautiful churches of today's Gera: St. Mary's, and the birthplace of Otto Dix, one of the 20th century's most famous painters, is neighboring, too. The church must have been a source of impression for Dix, who spent his childhood there in Untermhaus: strong walls, a high wooden arch, and it's most special thing, the multi-colored winged altar dating from medieval times. The Gera-based ensemble diX commissioned a cantata on this altar to be composed by Peter Helmut Lang from Thuringia. Each picture of the altar was described musically in one movement and also became the central topic of a special service during the ecclesiastical year.

"•The music of late-Romantic composer Margaret Ruthven Lang (1867-1972)– though quite well known in her time – fell into near-total neglect after she stopped composing in 1919. • Following earlier surveys of her art songs and piano music, this offering features a program of fourteen of Ms. Lang's secular and sacred choral works, all beautifully crafted and very appealing. • Musicians from the Crane School of Music, SUNY Potsdam, perform."

Though unknown to many today, Margaret Ruthven Lang was one of America's pioneering woman composers. Distinguished pianist Lucy Mauro brings Lang's remarkable and underperformed keyboard creations to vibrant life with deep sensitivity, touching emotion, and admirable technical facility. These pieces will be exciting discoveries for any pianist or piano fan on the prowl for fresh repertoire.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Based on actual 18th-century texts, David Lang's anatomy theater follows the astonishing progression of an English murderess from confession to execution and, ultimately, public dissection before a paying audience of fascinated onlookers. Through the miracle of opera, she sings through it all. Composed by David Lang, with libretto co-written by Lang and scenic designer Mark Dion, anatomy theater a tuneful and grisly theatrical event that conjures a time when "specialists" traveled from town to town in pre-modern Europe, conducting public dissections of the corpses of executed criminals, seeking evidence of moral corruption in the interior of the human body. And as Lang himself warns in the liner notes, it's not for the squeamish - and that includes the performers: "No singers were harmed in the creation of this opera. It seems like an odd statement to make about an entertainment, but it is definitely appropriate to make it, since our piece is so full of terrifying things. Crime and punishment, execution, dissection, the thin line that separates moralistic cruelty from dispassionate scientific inquiry - they're all there."

The Day was commissioned for Maya Beiser by the University of Iowa/Hancher Auditorium, and is dedicated to Maya. It premiered at SFJAZZ in San Francisco, California, in August 2016. World To Come was commissioned for Maya Beiser by Commissioning Music/USA, The Carnegie Hall Corporation, The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing arts, and several other arts organizations. It premiered in 2003 in New York City. Cellist Maya Beiser performs both of these works by David Lang with a sparkling interpretation that assures the listener they were tailor-made just for her bow.Cellist Maya Beiser defies categories. Passionately forging a career path through uncharted territories, she has captivated audiences worldwide with her virtuosity, eclectic repertoire, and relentless quest to redefine her instrument’s boundaries. The Boston Globe declares, “With virtuoso chops, rock-star charisma, and an appetite for pushing her instrument to the edge of avant-garde adventurousness, Maya Beiser is the post-modern diva of the cello,” while Rolling Stone calls her a “cello rock star.”

�David Lang's, "love fail" is a meditation on love's timelessness, weaving together details from the Tristan and Isolde story with more modern sources. � The recording also spotlights the vocal quartet Anonymous 4, whose commitment to medieval music and historical scholarship has been acclaimed worldwide. � In a NYTimes review of the BAM performance, Anthony Tommasini wrote: "It was Mr. Lang's music, and the ethereal, pure-toned singing of Anonymous 4, that claimed me in the first section of the piece

An opera in one act for solo baritone voice, solo piano and ensemble, David Lang's 'the loser' has been lauded by the New York Times as a "boldly unconventional" work, and that's almost putting it mildly. 'the loser' is based on the Thomas Bernhard novel of the same name, in which an anonymous narrator and once-promising concert pianist retells the story of his friend's suicide. As it turns out, both were students in the same master class, taught by Vladimir Horowitz, as a young Glenn Gould. Playing in the shadow of Gould brings both to the realization that true greatness will never be theirs, wrecking both their lives forever. As David Lang tells it, "The story is not at all about Gould, Horowitz, or classical music. On one level, the novel is an intense tour-de-force of character development, as the narrator tells you more about himself and his world. In it's own strangely beautiful way, however, it's also about perfectionism, hard work, how we justify our lives to ourselves, and how we learn to appreciate beauty and become alienated from it at the same time." Featuring Rod Gilfry (baritone), Conrad Tao (piano) and the Bang on a Can Opera Ensemble conducted by Lesley Leighton, 'the loser' premiered at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 2016 and made it's west coast premiere at the LA Opera in early 2019. Tracked in New York and Los Angeles, the studio recording recaptures what the LA Times described as "a mesmerizingly virtuosic performance by Rod Gilfry, destined for the annals of opera."

Classical Music

LANG: Violin Sonata / Cello Sonata / Canto / Viviofa