<div dir="ltr"><div id=":8u" class="ArwC7c ckChnd"><div dir="ltr"><font size="4"><br style="font-family: garamond,serif;"></font><div style="text-align: right;"><font size="4"><span style="font-family: garamond,serif;">Media Contacts Only:</span><br style="font-family: garamond,serif;">
<span style="font-family: garamond,serif;">Marci Janas, Director of Conservatory Communications</span><br style="font-family: garamond,serif;"><span style="font-family: garamond,serif;">440-775-8328 (office); 440-667-2724 (cell); <a href="mailto:marci.janas@oberlin.edu" target="_blank">marci.janas@oberlin.edu</a></span><br style="font-family: garamond,serif;">
<span style="font-family: garamond,serif;">Charlotte Landrum, Associate Director of Conservatory Media Relations</span><br style="font-family: garamond,serif;"><span style="font-family: garamond,serif;">440-775-5474 (office); <a href="mailto:charlotte.landrum@oberlin.edu" target="_blank">charlotte.landrum@oberlin.edu</a> </span><br style="font-family: garamond,serif;">
</font></div><font size="4"><br style="font-family: garamond,serif;"><br style="font-family: garamond,serif;"><u><span style="font-family: garamond,serif;">FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:</span></u><br style="font-family: garamond,serif;">
</font><br style="font-family: garamond,serif;"><div style="text-align: center;"><font size="6"><b><span style="font-family: garamond,serif;">PULITZER PRIZE-WINNING COMPOSER DAVID LANG </span></b><br style="font-family: garamond,serif;">
<b><span style="font-family: garamond,serif;">JOINS THE FACULTY AT THE OBERLIN CONSERVATORY OF MUSIC </span></b></font><br style="font-family: garamond,serif;"></div><br style="font-family: garamond,serif;"><div style="text-align: center;">
<font size="4"><b><span style="font-family: garamond,serif;">"Bang on a Can" Founder is Distinguished Visiting Professor of Composition and Composer in Residence<br><br style="font-family: garamond,serif;"></span></b></font></div>
<br style="font-family: garamond,serif;"><font size="4"><span style="font-family: garamond,serif;">OBERLIN,
OHIO (September 24, 2008)— Composer David Lang, founder of the
boundary-pushing new music collective Bang on a Can and recipient of
the 2008 Pulitzer Prize in Music, will join the Oberlin Conservatory of
Music this fall as Distinguished Visiting Professor of Composition and
Composer in Residence. <br>
<br style="font-family: garamond,serif;"></span><span style="font-family: garamond,serif;">"David's
work as a composer is extraordinary and his contribution to the canon
of great music will endure with importance for generations into the
future," says Dean of the Conservatory David H. Stull. "He is a
tremendous advocate for the creation and performance of new music, and
this advocacy is only surpassed by his passion for teaching and
mentoring young musicians. We are privileged to welcome him to our
faculty."<br>
</span><span style="font-family: garamond,serif;"><br>Lang was awarded the 2008 Pulitzer Prize in Music for <i>The Little Match Girl Passion</i>, a work for four solo voices and percussion based on the Hans Christian Andersen fable <i>The Little Match Girl.</i>
The work was co-commissioned by the Carnegie Hall Corporation and the
Perth Theater and Concert Hall, and premiered October 25, 2007, in
Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall in New York City.<br>
<br style="font-family: garamond,serif;"></span><span style="font-family: garamond,serif;">Lang
is perhaps best known as a leader of Bang on a Can, which he co-founded
in 1987 with Michael Gordon and Julia Wolfe. The organization advances
contemporary music through recordings, performances by the touring Bang
on a Can All-Stars, and two signature annual concert events, the
Marathon in New York City and the Summer Music Festival at the
Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in the Berkshires. Of the
Marathon, <i>Vanity Fair </i>writes: "There are other places to hear
new contemporary music, but it is seldom offered with such a potent
blend of intensity, authority, and abandon." In 1997, Bang on a Can
established the People's Commissioning Fund, which bundles
contributions of all sizes from individuals to commission new works for
the Bang on a Can All-Stars. </span><br style="font-family: garamond,serif;">
<br style="font-family: garamond,serif;"><b><span style="font-family: garamond,serif;">About David Lang</span></b><br style="font-family: garamond,serif;"><span style="font-family: garamond,serif;">"There is no name yet for this kind of music," writes <i>Los Angeles Times</i>
music critic Mark Swed about the works of American composer David Lang,
but audiences around the globe are hearing more and more of it: in
performances by such organizations as the Santa Fe Opera, the New York
Philharmonic, the San Francisco Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, and
the Kronos Quartet; at Tanglewood, the BBC Proms, the Munich Biennale,
the Settembre Musica Festival, the Sydney 2000 Olympic Arts Festival,
and the Almeida, Holland, Berlin, Strasbourg and Huddersfield
festivals; in theater productions in New York, San Francisco, and
London; in the choreography of Twyla Tharp, La La La Human Steps, the
Nederlands Dans Theater and the Royal Ballet; and at Lincoln Center,
the South Bank Centre, Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, the Barbican
Centre, and the Brooklyn Academy of Music.<br>
<br style="font-family: garamond,serif;"></span><span style="font-family: garamond,serif;">Recent projects include the Pulitzer Prize-winning <i>The Little Match Girl Passion</i>, commissioned by Carnegie Hall for Paul Hillier's vocal ensemble, Theater of Voices; <i>Writing On Water </i>for the London Sinfonietta, with visuals by English filmmaker Peter Greenaway; <i>The Difficulty of Crossing a Field</i>, a fully staged opera for the Kronos Quartet; <i>Loud Love Songs</i>, a concerto for the percussionist Evelyn Glennie; and the oratorio <i>Shelter</i>,
with co-composers Michael Gordon and Julia Wolfe, at the Next Wave
Festival of the Brooklyn Academy of Music, staged by Ridge Theater and
featuring the Norwegian vocal ensemble Trio Mediaeval.<br>
<br style="font-family: garamond,serif;"></span><span style="font-family: garamond,serif;">In
addition to the Pulitzer Prize, Lang has received numerous honors and
awards, including the Rome Prize, the BMW Music-Theater Prize (Munich),
and grants from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Foundation for
Contemporary Performance Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, the
New York Foundation for the Arts, and the American Academy of Arts and
Letters. In 1999, he received a Bessie Award for his music for
choreographer Susan Marshall's <i>The Most Dangerous Room in the House</i>, performed live by the Bang on a Can All-Stars at the Next Wave Festival of the Brooklyn Academy of Music. <i>The Carbon Copy Building</i> won the 2000 Village Voice OBIE Award for Best New American Work. The CD recording of <i>The Passing Measures</i> was named one of the best CDs of 2001 by the <i>New Yorker</i> magazine. His most recent recording, <i>ELEVATED</i>
(on Cantaloupe), comprises three atmospheric and meditative pieces on
CD accompanied by a DVD of the same three pieces interpreted by noted
visual artists William Wegman, Bill Morrison, and Matt Mullican.<br>
<br style="font-family: garamond,serif;"></span><span style="font-family: garamond,serif;">Lang
is cofounder and co-artistic director of New York's legendary Bang on a
Can and Professor of Music Composition at the Yale School of Music. His
work is recorded on the Sony Classical, Teldec, BMG, Point, Chandos,
Argo/Decca, Caprice, CRI, and Cantaloupe labels. His music is published
by Red Poppy (ASCAP) and is distributed worldwide by G. Schirmer, Inc.</span><br style="font-family: garamond,serif;">
<span style="font-family: garamond,serif;">More information is available at <a href="http://www.bangonacan.org/" target="_blank">www.bangonacan.org</a>.</span><br style="font-family: garamond,serif;"><b><br style="font-family: garamond,serif;">
<span style="font-family: garamond,serif;">About the Oberlin Conservatory of Music</span></b><br style="font-family: garamond,serif;"><span style="font-family: garamond,serif;">The
Oberlin Conservatory of Music, founded in 1865 and situated amid the
intellectual vitality of Oberlin College since 1867, is the oldest
continuously operating conservatory in the United States. Renowned
internationally as a professional music school of the highest caliber
and pronounced a "national treasure" by the <i>Washington Post</i>,
Oberlin's alumni have gone on to achieve illustrious careers in all
aspects of the serious music world. Many of them have attained stature
as solo performers, composers, and conductors, among them Jennifer Koh,
Steven Isserlis, Denyce Graves, Franco Farina, Christopher Robertson,
Lisa Saffer, George Walker, Christopher Rouse, Huang Ruo, David Zinman,
and Robert Spano. All of the members of the contemporary sextet eighth
blackbird, most of the members of the International Contemporary
Ensemble, and many of the members of Apollo's Fire are Oberlin alumni.
The Miró, Pacifica, Juilliard, and Fry Street quartets, among other
chamber ensembles, include Oberlin-trained musicians, as do major
orchestras and opera companies throughout the world.<br>
<br style="font-family: garamond,serif;"></span><span style="font-family: garamond,serif;">Articles appearing in the <i>New York Times</i>
have acclaimed Oberlin as a "hotbed of contemporary classical players"
and acknowledged that Oberlin "has produced some of the top names in
contemporary music." In 2007, in a co-production with Miller Theatre at
Columbia University, Oberlin presented the American premiere of Olga
Neuwirth's opera <i>Lost Highway </i>to considerable critical praise.
Since 1969 Oberlin has been a pioneering institution in the field of
electronic and computer music; its TIMARA Department (Technology in
Music and the Related Arts) is renowned throughout the world as one of
the leading programs of electronic and computer music for undergraduate
students.<br>
<br style="font-family: garamond,serif;"></span><span style="font-family: garamond,serif;">For more information about Oberlin, visit <a href="http://www.oberlin.edu/con" target="_blank">www.oberlin.edu/con</a>. </span><br style="font-family: garamond,serif;">
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<br style="font-family: garamond,serif;"><span style="font-family: garamond,serif;">-- </span><br style="font-family: garamond,serif;"><span style="font-family: garamond,serif;">Marci Janas</span><br style="font-family: garamond,serif;">
<span style="font-family: garamond,serif;">Director of Conservatory Communications</span><br style="font-family: garamond,serif;"><span style="font-family: garamond,serif;"> and Editor, <i>Oberlin Conservatory</i> Magazine</span><br style="font-family: garamond,serif;">
<span style="font-family: garamond,serif;">Oberlin Conservatory of Music</span><br style="font-family: garamond,serif;"><span style="font-family: garamond,serif;">39 West College Street</span><br style="font-family: garamond,serif;">
<span style="font-family: garamond,serif;">Oberlin, OH 44074</span><br style="font-family: garamond,serif;"><span style="font-family: garamond,serif;"><a href="http://www.oberlin.edu/con" target="_blank">www.oberlin.edu/con</a></span><br style="font-family: garamond,serif;">
<span style="font-family: garamond,serif;">Voice: 440.775.8328</span><br style="font-family: garamond,serif;"><span style="font-family: garamond,serif;">Fax: 440.775.5457</span><br style="font-family: garamond,serif;"><font color="#888888"><span style="font-family: garamond,serif;"><a href="mailto:marci.janas@oberlin.edu" target="_blank">marci.janas@oberlin.edu</a></span></font></font>
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