When the composers Michael Gordon, David Lang, and Julia Wolfe put on an eclectic marathon concert of contemporary music in downtown Manhattan in May 1987—and decided to call it the Bang on a Can Festival—they might not have known it would become the powerhouse organization it is today. But they were young, scrappy, and hungry for avant-garde music to reach a broader audience. They were also not alone: As Bang on a Can sought new relevance for new music, other institutions in the United States—from government funders to major record labels to Lincoln Center—saw the need for contemporary composition to reach beyond the academy. My new book, Industry: Bang on a Can and New Music in the Marketplace, traces the rise of Bang on a Can through the 1980s and 1990s, amidst an idealistic, capitalistic, and tumultuous period in American new music. The sounds of this era were fraught with contradictions: populist and anti-commercial, brutally dissonant and blissfully groovy, meditative and combative. Here is some of my favorite music from this moment.
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