David Lang (composer)

David Lang (b. Los Angeles, California, 1957) is an American composer. Together with Julia Wolfe and Michael Gordon, Lang co-founded Bang on a Can in 1987.

Related Topics:
Los Angeles - California - 1957 - American - Julia Wolfe - Michael Gordon - Bang on a Can

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He can be seen as a composer who challenges the status quo. He sometimes gives his concert pieces strange, and even iconoclastic titles such as Eating Living Monkeys (1985) and Bonehead (1990). His music can be in turn: comic, abrasive, soothing and it usually retains elements of conceptualism. It is also informed by modernism, minimalism, and rock -- and can perhaps be best described by the term post-minimalism.

Related Topics:
Conceptualism - Modernism - Minimalism - Rock - Post-minimalism

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He was a major contributor to the string quartet music, performed by Kronos Quartet, in the film Requiem for a Dream (2000).

Related Topics:
Kronos Quartet - Requiem for a Dream

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Lang holds degrees from Stanford University, the University of Iowa, and Yale University (Ph.D., 1989). His teachers have included Jacob Druckman, Hans Werner Henze, and Martin Bresnick.

Related Topics:
Stanford University - University of Iowa - Yale University - 1989 - Jacob Druckman - Hans Werner Henze - Martin Bresnick

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Lang's music has been released on the Argo/Decca, BMG, Cantaloupe Music, Chandos, CRI, Point, and Sony Classical labels. His scores are published by Red Poppy Music (available from G. Schirmer, Inc.)

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