BANG ON A CAN ALL-STARS:

At the very beginning of Bang on a Can, founders Michael Gordon, David Lang and Julie Wolfe recognized that their new and open approach to presenting required new and open performers. A new generation of virtuosic and passionate performers was needed to make this music come alive. These new players needed new skills. They had to be able to cross musical boundaries, and be at home with many styles and technologies. And they had to be great. Michael, David and Julie quickly started assembling a core of such exciting, dedicated and versatile players, and these performers started showing up with regularity from festival to festival. Out of this core, in 1992, they assembled the Bang on a Can All-Stars.

The instrumentation itself shows the aesthetic intention for which the All-Stars were designed. Clarinets, cello, keyboard, electric guitar, bass, and drums – it is part rock band and part amplified chamber group. Constructed specifically to blur the lines between classical and pop ensembles, the line-up was chosen to give voice to a huge range of musics and styles, and the players have the musical backgrounds and abilities to match. Each player is completely at home with new music but has lived somewhere else as well - collaborating with Yo-Yo Ma, leading a gamelan, touring with Paul Simon and Bob Dylan, and more. The players bring their otherworldly experiences back to their life with the All-Stars, and their mixing creates an intense, hard-rocking approach to performance that no other group can match.

We bring this attitude to our work with other artists. We are always looking for the people in other parts of the music world who are as passionate, as fierce, and as dedicated as we are. Every category of music is being challenged now by adventurous musicians - rock, folk, jazz, world. These musicians are pushing long established boundaries, asking revolutionary questions, and changing those categories forever. In the past few years we have collaborated with such artists as Burmese circle drum master Kyaw Kyaw Naing, Czech composer / singer / violinist / performance artist Iva Bittova, post-jazz virtuoso Don Byron and recently, two avant-rock giants, Lee Ranaldo from Sonic Youth and Glenn Kotche from Wilco. All these musicians, along with the All-Stars, are testing the boundaries of the worlds they have inherited, tearing down old walls and building something new.

In the 21st century, the All-Stars continue their ambassadorship, bringing their brand of beauty to concert halls across the world. Most recently, the group opened the 2009 Manchester Festival with the world premiere of Steve Reich’s 2x5, sharing the bill with legendary German electronica pioneers Kraftwerk and visited Cal Performances/UC Berkeley for the premiere of Evan Ziporyn’s A House in Bali, a new dance-opera featuring the All-Stars with Balinese Gamelan. New projects in 2009/10 include commissions from Louis Andriessen, Bill Frisell, Ryuichi Sakamoto and more. The All-Stars now record on Cantaloupe Music (www.cantaloupemusic.com) and have released past recordings on Sony, Universal and Nonesuch. Please visit www.bangonacan.org for more information.

TRIO MEDIÆVAL:

The mesmerizing voices of Oslo's Trio Mediæval have captivated the concert world with their breathtaking performances and recordings of a diverse polyphonic repertoire that features medieval music from England and France, contemporary works written for the ensemble, and traditional Norwegian ballads and songs. Founded in 1997, the Grammy nominated Trio Mediæval developed its unique repertory during intense periods of work at the Hilliard Summer Festivals in England and Germany between 1998 and 2000, and subsequently with Linda Hirst and John Potter. "Singing doesn't get more unnervingly beautiful," wrote Joshua Kosman of the San Francisco Chronicle, who declared their San Francisco debut "among the musical highlights of the year." He added, "To hear the group's note-perfect counterpoint - as pristine and inviting as clean, white linens - is to be astonished at what the human voice is capable of."

Trio Mediæval made its US debut in 2003, performing two sold-out concerts at New Haven's International Festival of Arts and Ideas. Since that first appearance, the trio has embarked on multiple North American tours performing in cities across the continent. Highlights include concerts in New York's Carnegie (Weill) Hall, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the National Cathedral in Washington D.C., the Kennedy Center, engagements at San Francisco Performances and Spivey Hall, and broadcasts on American Public Media's Saint Paul Sunday and Performance Today.

The trio delights in performing new music and collaborates with a multitude of contemporary composers, including Gavin Bryars, Piers Hellawell, Roger Marsh, Ivan Moody, Paul Robinson, Thoma Simaku, Oleh Harkavyy, Bjørn Kruse and Andrew Smith. In 2005, the trio premiered Shelter in Cologne Germany. This joint production of Bang on a Can composers Michael Gordon, Julia Wolf & David Lang, German new music ensemble musikFabrik, and Ridge Theater, received its U.S. premiere at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM).

Trio Mediæval performs throughout Europe, giving concerts and radio broadcasts in Austria, Belgium, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Norway, Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands and the UK in such venues as the Oslo Concert House, the Vienna Konzerthaus, Wigmore Hall and numerous festivals.

Their four albums on ECM Records feature pristine performances of a diverse repertoire, and have met with near unanimous praise. Their first release, Words of the Angel, immediately charted on Billboard's Top 10 Bestsellers list and was the April 2002 Stereophile "Recording of the Month." Soir, dit-elle (2004), features Leonel Power's Missa Alma Redemptoris Mater along side works by Gavin Bryars, Andrew Smith and Ivan Moody, and met with similar critical and commercial success. The trio's third recording, Stella Maris (2005), features 12th and 13th-century music from England and France as well as the world premiere recording of Missa Lumen de Lumine by Korean composer Sungji Hong. Trio Mediæval found themselves back on the Billboard charts and with a 2008 Grammy nomination for "Best Chamber Music Performance" with their most recent release, Folk Songs - an intimate collection of Norwegian folk songs featuring traditional percussion.

Ashley Bathgate (cello) American cellist Ashley Bathgate was born in 1985 in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. and began cello studies at the age of 12. As a recitalist and chamber musician, she has appeared at the Saratoga Chamber Music Festival, Barge Music, Windham Chamber Music Festival, the Pleshakov Music Center and the Moulin d’Ande in Normandy, France to name a few. Her 2008 New York Debut in Carnegie’s Weill Hall with noted pianist Todd Crow was well received by audience and critics alike. Ashley was also a featured artist on WMHT FM and on WQXR FM’s ‘Young Artist Showcase’, hosted by Robert Sherman. She has been invited frequently to perform as a guest soloist with orchestra, including appearances with the Lake Placid Sinfonietta, the Woodstock Chamber Orchestra, the Windham Chamber Players and in performances of the d’Albert and Barber cello concertos with the American Symphony Orchestra, directed by Leon Botstein. Recent guest appearances include Elgar's Cello Concerto with the Greater Newburgh Symphony Orchestra and Saint-Saens' Cello Concerto No. 2 with the Yale Philharmonia. Devoted to chamber music, Ashley performs regularly in benefit concerts and chamber recitals throughout the US, Canada, Europe and Asia. She has been privileged to work with many distinguished artists including pianist, Pascal Rogé and violinist Chantal Juillet. In addition, Ashley has relished the opportunity to perform new and recent works, most notably of renowned composers John Adams, Martin Bresnick, Julia Wolfe, Michael Gordon and David Lang. Now a member of the renowned Bang on a Can All-Stars, she continues to champion contemporary music. Ashley was a full scholarship student at Bard College, where she studied cello with Luis Garcia-Rènart and composition with Joan Tower. Having received her Master’s degree in 2007 from the Yale University School of Music, she was selected for the prestigious Artist Diploma program by her teacher Aldo Parisot, and in that same year received the Prize in his name for the gifted cellist most showing promise for a concert career. While at the Yale University School of Music, studies included composition with Ezra Laderman and chamber music with Claude Frank, Boris Berman, Peter Frankl, Ani Kavafian and the Tokyo String Quartet. She was also a member of the internationally acclaimed ensemble, the Yale Cellos, directed by Aldo Parisot. Among her many awards are a grant from the New York Philharmonic Players Fund sponsored by Stephen and Elaine Stamas, top prizes in the Lois Lyman concerto competition (’99 & ’01, an unprecedented achievement), the Hugo Kauder Memorial Strings competition in 2006 and the 2008 Yale University School of Music Woolsey Hall concerto competition. Most recently, Ashley’s newly formed Lorien Trio received the Bronze Medal at the 2009 Fischoff National Chamber Music competiton.

Robert Black (bass) Robert Black's interests range from traditional orchestral and chamber music to solo recitals, collaborations with actors, music with computers, movement-based improvisations with dancers, and live action-painting performances with artists.  He has commissioned, collaborated, or performed with musicians from John Cage to D.J. Spooky, Elliott Carter to Meredith Monk, Cecil Taylor to Paquito d’Rivera, as well as many young emerging composers.  His recital activities frequently take him to five continents and has appeared at major festivals (Takefu International Music Festival, Japan; Festival de Eleazar Carvalho, Fortalzea, Brazil; Colombo-Catalan Festival, Medellin, Colombia; the Helsinki Festival; NYYD, Estonia; etc.), on radio and television broadcasts (Asia Live, Singapore, VPRO, Holland; NPR, United States; CBC, Canada; etc.) and as an artist-in-residence (American Center, Paris; the Banff Centre, Canada; Studio P.A.S.S., NYC). Currently, Robert performs with the Bang On A Can All Stars, New York City’s hard-hitting new music ensemble.  Additional chamber music activities include performances with the Ciompi and Miami String Quartets.  He recently created and performed the music for Kathryn Walker and the Music Theater Group's production of The Odyssey, and with the Full Force Dance Company, Time On Our Hands.   Other collaborations include films by Rudy Burckhardt and live action-painting improvisations with the Brazilian painter Ige D'Aquino.  He annually appears at Monadnock Music Festival and the Moab Music Festival among others.  He also performs with the Hartford Symphony and the Monadnock Festival Orchestra. Robert maintains a full teaching schedule at The Hartt School at the University of Hartford, the Festival Eleazar de Carvalho (Brazil), and is a member of the Manhattan School of Music’s Contemporary Performance Program. A recipient of numerous grants, he received a 1998 Bessie Award for his collaborative work with The School of Hard Knocks in NYC.  His solo CDs are State of the Bass (O.O. Discs), The Complete Bass Music of Christian Wolff (Mode Records), The Complete Bass Music of Giacinto (Mode Records) and an up-coming 2 CD set of mid 20th Century American Bass Music.  Robert has also recorded for Sony Classical, Point/Polygram, Koch International, CRI, Neuma Records, Gasparo, Opus One, Artifact Recordings, and Folkways Records. Robert joined the International Society of Bassists (ISB) Board of Directors in 2001, and is the Director the ISB’s biennial International Composition Competition. He serves as the editor of the New Score column in the Journal Bass World. He is a frequent adjudicator for the Concert Artists Guild Competition in New York City. He is also on the Advisory Board for the international radio program, Art of the States.

David Cossin (percussion) is a specialist in new and experimental music, David has worked across a broad spectrum of musical and artistic forms to incorporate new media with percussion.  

David Cossin has recorded and performed internationally with composers and ensembles including the Bang on a Can All-Stars, Steve Reich and Musicians, Philip Glass, Yo-Yo Ma, Meredith Monk, Tan Dun, Cecil Taylor, Talujon Percussion Quartet,and the trio, Real Quiet. Numerous theater projects include collaborations with Blue Man Group, Mabou Mines, and director Peter Sellars. David was featured as the percussion soloist in Tan Dun’s Grammy and Oscar winning score to Ang Lee’s film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. David has performed as a soloist with orchestras through out the world including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Orchestra Radio France, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Sao Paulo State Symphony, Sydney Symphony, Gothenburg Symphony, Hong Kong Symphony, and the Singapore Symphony.  David ventures into other art forms include sonic installations, which have been presented in New York, Italy and Germany. David is also an active composer and has invented several new instruments, which expand the limits of traditional percussion. David is the curator for the Sound Res Festival, an experimental music festival in southern Italy and also teaches percussion at Queens College in New York City.  

Jody Elff (sound engineer) is an audio engineer, sound artist, musician, and composer. Elff has had the pleasure of working in some of the most unusual musical and sonic environments imaginable. He has worked with Laurie Anderson, Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Ensemble, Bang on a Can All-Stars, Paul Winter, Hall & Oates, Paul Simon, and many others. In addition, Elff has mixed countless televised concert events. He scored the feature-length film All the Wrong Places, and is the resident sound designer for the National Theater of the United States of America. His work with sonic environments has led him to develop a series of sound art works which have been presented at museums and galleries internationally. In 2002, he was commissioned to create a permanent sound art installation for a public parking garage in Lyon, France, which opened in October 2004.

James Findlay (set, video, lighting designer) Jim Findlay works across specialties as a designer, director, performer and creator with a constellation of theater, performance and music groups in New York City. He is a founding member and primary collaborator in both the experimentally ground breaking COLLAPSABLE GIRAFFE (1995- present) and the successful music/media performance ensemble ACCINOSCO/Cynthia Hopkins (2003-present). Findlay has also been an associate member of The Wooster Group since 1994, designing sets which include House/Lights and To You, the Birdie!. He also works often with Ridge Theater, most recently designing Lightning at Our Feet at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Other notable recent designs include Success of Failure by Cynthia Hopkins at St. Ann's Warehouse (Brooklyn), Saving the Princess by choreographer Ralph Lemon at the Lyon Opera, and Slug Bearers of Kayrol Island at the Vineyard Theater (NYC). Findlay's awards include the Henry Hewes Design Award, Lucille Lortel Award, Princess Grace Award, Obie Awards in 2001 and 2008, and Bessie Awards in 1999 and 2008.

David Friend (piano) David Friend is quickly establishing a reputation as one of the more adventurous young pianists in New York. His omnivorous approach has seen him featured in traditional concerts, sound installations, multimedia collaborations, and shows in rock venues. Recent performances include those with the Juilliard Percussion Ensemble in a sold-out concert at Lincoln Center, a recital of Frederic Rzewski’s theatrical masterpiece De Profundis at the Riverside Church in New York, and a concert with the Conservatory Project at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. A passionate advocate of contemporary music, David Friend equally relishes working with established and young emerging composers. These range from Pulitzer prizewinners, such as Charles Wuorinen and David Lang, to the composers of the countless premieres he has performed by students at the Manhattan School of Music, the Aspen Music Festival, and the Bang on a Can Summer Residency. To celebrate the Messiaen centennial Mr. Friend was featured as soloist in the Oiseaux Exotiques chamber concerto in the Aspen music tent last summer, and he was also the soloist in the New York premiere of Lowell Liebermann’s Concerto No. 1 in a performance that critics described as “magical.” With an abiding interest in pushing the boundaries of musical performance, Mr. Friend has mounted numerous multimedia productions, most notably with innovative dance-theatre troupe danceimprints. At Bang on a Can’s Summer Residency, he played with genre-busting musicians such as Don Byron and Iva Bittova. He has worked with chamber music groups of every conceivable constellation, with orchestras, singers, theatrical works, and film scores. He is also a founding member of TRANSIT, a Brooklyn-based new music collective dedicated to revitalizing the concert experience for a quickly globalizing world. David Friend is currently enjoying a busy season. Upcoming concerts include those for Issue Project Room and the MATA festival with TRANSIT, as well as solo engagements and the pilot of a new workshop for young pianists on extended technique and contemporary programming at McNeese University in Louisiana.

Anna Maria Friman (voice) Born in Gothenburg, Sweden, Anna Maria Friman studied with Thorbjørn Lindhjem at the Barratt Due Institute of Music in Oslo and with Linda Hirst at Trinity College of Music in London; she is currently doing a PhD at the University of York, where she is researching the modern performance of medieval music. During the last six years she has been teaching singing and coaching vocal ensembles at the University. In Europe Anna has given workshops in the U.K, Sweden, Latvia and Finland. Her work in the USA has included coaching and recording with the Girl Choristers of Washington National Cathedral. Anna's solo engagements include performances with Gavin Bryars Ensemble, Red Byrd, The Ciconia Ensemble, The Norwegian Soloists' Choir, NYYD Ensemble, Latvian Radio Choir, Collegium Vocale Gent and Ricercar Consort. Anna has been a jury member at the vocal ensemble competition at the Tampere International Choral Festival, Finland, since 2001. This Spring Anna has performed in the Sonnets Project 'Nothing like the sun' (collaboration between RSC and Opera North). The project had its premier at the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford Upon-Avon in February and has since then toured extensively in the UK in Feb/March. More performances will follow in Europe in the Autumn. In 2009 Anna will play Marilyn Monroe in Bryars' opera based on the poetry of Marilyn Bowering in a project for the Victoria Aventa company in Canada and Britain's Almeida Opera.

Linn Andrea Fuglseth (voice) was born in Sandefjord, Norway. She completed her Higher Diploma in singing at the Norwegian Academy of Music in 1997, specializing in baroque interpretation, and writing a dissertation on Restoration Mad Songs. In 1994-95 she studied at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama in London, receiving a diploma in Advanced Solo Studies in Early Music. She has studied singing with Marit Isene, Barbro Marklund, Emma Kirkby and Mary Nichols. Linn Andrea has been soloist with, amongst others, the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra, The Norwegian Baroque Orchestra and The Norwegian Soloists' Choir. Linn Andrea founded Trio Mediæval in October 1997. In addition to singing, she conducts a children's choir in Oslo and writes arrangements of Norwegian folksongs for the Trio.

Joshua Higgason (technical director and assistant designer) Josh is a creator and builder of multimedia theater productions. He is the Technical Director for and tours with The Builder's Association and Latitude 14. He has designed video and audio at HERE, The Atlantic, Edinburgh Fringe, The Public, The Flea, MTC, and others. He has designed lights for NYCLU, Billy the Mime, and numerous theater shows and concerts.

Torunn Østrem Ossum (voice) was born in Namsos, Norway. She was educated at the College of Early Childhood Education in Oslo, specializing in music and drama. Torunn studied singing with Svein Bjørkøy at Rønningen County College in Oslo. She has wide experience as an ensemble singer and has performed with groups such as The Norwegian Soloists' Choir, Nordic Voices, Con Spirito and Grex Vocalis conducted by Carl Høgset, where she also sings as a soloist. Torunn has been working as a vocal coach for the junior theatre group 'Bærmuda mini'. Her experience working with children has been a great advantage for the trio's work touring throughout Norway giving School concerts, engaged by the Norwegian Concert Institute.

Mark Stewart (electric guitar) Multi-instrumentalist, singer, composer and instrument designer Mark Stewart has been heard around the world performing old and new music. Since 1998 he has recorded, toured and been Musical Director with Paul Simon. A founding member of the Bang on a Can All-Stars, Mark is also a member of Steve Reich and Musicians, The Fred Frith Guitar Quartet, Arnold Dreyblatt's Orchestra of Excited Strings, Zeena Parkins' Gangster Band and the manic duo Polygraph Lounge with keyboard & theremin wizard Rob Schwimmer. He has also worked with Anthony Braxton, Bob Dylan, Charles Wourinen, Cecil Taylor, Meredith Monk, Stevie Wonder, Phillip Glass, Hugh Masakela, Iva Bittova, Bruce Springsteen, Bobby McFerrin, Ornette Coleman, The New York Philharmonic, Edie Brickell, Don Byron, Paul McCartney, the Everly Brothers, Alison Krauss, David Byrne, James Taylor, The Roches, Marc Ribot & Simon & Garfunkel. He has worked with the choreographers Eliot Feld, Susan Marshall, and Yoshiko Chuma and has worked extensively with composer Elliot Goldenthal on music for the feature films The Tempest, Across the Universe, Titus, The Butcher Boy, The Good Thief, In Dreams, and Heat, often playing instruments of his own design and construction. His New York lower east side "Lab" is home to an instrument workshop and sonic salon where traditional, neglected and original instruments cohabitate. Stewart can be heard on Warner Bros., Sony, Sony Classical, Point/Polygram, Nonesuch, Label Bleu, Resonance Magnetique, Cantaloupe and CRI recordings.

Julia Wolfe (composer) Drawing inspiration from rock, folk, and classical genres, Julia Wolfe’s music brings a modern sensibility to each while simultaneously tearing down the walls between them. Wolfe’s music is distinguished by an intense physicality and a relentless power that pushes performers to extremes and demands attention from the audience. In the words of the Wall Street Journal, Wolfe has “long inhabited a terrain of [her] own, a place where classical forms are recharged by the repetitive patterns of minimalism and the driving energy of rock.”

Julia Wolfe has written a major body of work for strings, with pieces commissioned by the Lark, Ethel, Kronos, and Cassatt quartets. Three of her quartets—Dig Deep, Four Marys, and Early that summer—can be heard on the disc Julia Wolfe: The String Quartets. As described by The New Yorker, these one-movement works “combine the violent forward drive of rock music with an aura of minimalist serenity [and] use the four instruments as a big guitar, whipping psychedelic states of mind into frenzied and ecstatic climaxes.” Wolfe’s thirty-minute Cruel Sister for string orchestra, inspired by a traditional English ballad of a love rivalry between sisters, was commissioned by the Munich Chamber Orchestra and received its US premiere at the Spoleto Festival. Her virtuosic eight bass work Stronghold, written for Robert Black, ventures into the extreme stratosphere of the instrument.

My Beautiful Scream, a string quartet concerto was written for Kronos Quartet and the Radio France Orchestra and was premiered in the U.S. at the Cabrillo Festival under the direction of Marin Alsop. The work was inspired by the image of a slow motion scream and was written shortly after September 11th, 2001. The Vermeer Room, Girlfriend, and Window of Vulnerability, are other examples of Wolfe’s ability to induce vivid sonic images. Girlfriend, for mixed chamber ensemble and recorded sound, uses a haunting audio landscape that consists of skidding cars and breaking glass. The Vermeer Room has been performed worldwide and received its orchestral premiere by the San Francisco Symphony. The piece was inspired by an X-ray of the Vermeer painting, A Girl Asleep, which revealed a hidden figure in the doorway. In Window of Vulnerability, written for the American Composers Orchestra and conducted by Dennis Russell Davies, Wolfe created a massive sonic universe of dense textures and fragile windows.

The influence of pop culture can be heard in two of Wolfe’s works for the Bang on a Can All-Stars: Lick and Believing. Lick, based on fragments of funk, has become a manifesto for the new generation of genre-crossing composers. The raucous my lips from speaking, for six pianos, was inspired by the opening riff of the Aretha Franklin tune Think. Wolfe’s Dark Full Ride is an obsessive and relentless exploration of the drum set beginning with an extended hi-hat spotlight. In LAD Wolfe creates a psychedelic landscape for nine bagpipes.

Wolfe has also extended her talents to the theatre by composing for Anna Deveare Smith’s House Arrest and won an Obie award for her score to Ridge Theater’s Jennie Richie. She has a series of collaborative multimedia works with composers Michael Gordon and David Lang including Lost Objects (Concerto Koln, directed by Francois Girard), Shelter (Musikfabrik and Ridge Theater), and The Carbon Copy Building with comic-book artist Ben Katchor. Wolfe recently created Travel Music with architects DillerScofidio+Renfro in Bordeaux, France. Work with film includes FUEL for the Hamburg-based ensemble resonanz and filmmaker Bill Morrison, and Impatience for the Asko Ensemble and 1920s film experimentalist Charles Dekeukeliere. Upcoming projects include a commission from percussionist Evelyn Glennie and an evening-length work for Celtic singer with the string quartet Ethel.

Julia Wolfe’s music has been heard at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Sydney Olympic Arts Festival, Settembre Musica (Italy), Theatre de la Ville (Paris), Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, and has been recorded on Cantaloupe, Teldec, Universal, Sony Classical, and Argo/Decca. Wolfe has been a recipient of numerous grants, including awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Foundation for Contemporary Performance Art, and a Fulbright to the Netherlands. She holds degrees from the University of Michigan, Yale, and Princeton. Julia Wolfe joined the NYU Steinhardt School’s composition faculty in the fall of 2009. She is co-founder of New York’s music collective Bang on a Can.

Evan Ziporyn (clarinets) has toured the globe with the All-stars since 1992. He is also founder and Artistic Director of Gamelan Galak Tika, a Boston-based Balinese music and dance troupe devoted to new works by American and Balinese composers. With Galak Tika, he has presented his groundbreaking Balinese/western fusion works in venues as diverse as New York's Zankel Hall and and the Balinese International Arts Festival. He is the recipient of the 2007 USA Artists Walker Fellowship and the 2004 American Academy of Arts and Letters Goddard Lieberson Award. His music has been commissioned and performed by Yo-yo Ma's Silk Road Project, the Kronos Quartet, Wu Man, the American Composers Orchestra, the American Repertory Theater (their acclaimed 2004's "Oedipus Rex"), Maya Beiser, and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, with whom he recorded his 2006 orchestral CD, "Frog's Eye." His works have been released on Cantaloupe, Sony Classical, New Albion, New World, Koch, Innova, and CRI; his 2001 solo clarinet CD, “This Is Not A Clarinet,” made numerous Top Ten lists and was featured on All Things Considered and PRI’s The World. He has also recorded for Nonesuch (including Steve Reich's New York Counterpoint and the Grammy Award winning Music for 18 Musicians), Thirsty Ear, and Point; his music provided the soundtrack for the PBS film "Tail-enders", and his playing was featured in Tan Dun's soundtrack for the film "Fallen." With the All-stars, a partial list of collaborators includes Brian Eno, Ornette Coleman, Thurston Moore, Meredith Monk, Iva Bittova, Philip Glass, Terry Riley, Don Byron, Louis Andriessen, Cecil Taylor, Henry Threadgill, Wayan Wija, Kyaw Kyaw Naing, and Pamela Z. He has also recorded with Paul Simon, Matthew Shipp, So Percussion, and Ethel. He is Kenan Sahin Distinguished Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and has two children, Leo (14) and Ava (7). His opera, "A House in Bali," featuring the All-stars and a full Balinese gamelan, was recently premiered in Bali and Berkeley.