Percussions, guitars, contrabass, cello, clarinets and the piano… . What kind of music uses such a combination of instruments? Jazz? Rock? It cannot be classical music, can it? The answer is, all of them. Since its formation in 1992, Bang on a Can All-Stars has created multifaceted innovative music by crossing the boundaries of various genres and styles of music. Known worldwide, they came to perform in Kresge Auditorium in the Green Center for the Performing Arts at DePauw University this past Saturday, as a part of their U.S. tour.
Their live performances challenged the audience’s common senses about what music is. “It was different,” Junior Dinorah Guillen uttered. With the tone of her voice, this single sentence carried her mixed feelings very well, including betrayed expectation, puzzle, and a little bit of excitement toward the new music. The sound they make was not quite a harmony. Rather, it was chaotic, but it was also not completely chaotic. All the instruments generated dense sounds by vibrating their entire bodies and the air around them as if they were all the main characters in the ensemble. The sounds met high in the air and flew far away as by being one mixture but retaining their own personalities.
What startled the audience the most was the collaboration of their live music with noises and images in the real world. “They used distorted sounds and images challenging and extending our senses. I felt impressed that the noises and images which lost their original meanings, even like sounds of flushing a toilet and crashing glass, were reused and seem to seek for new purposes,” Sophomore Kumiko Nakajima reflected.
Ken Thompson, the clarinet and bass clarinet performer of the All-Stars, offered me an interview before the concert and shared his thoughts on what the band means to him. “This group for me is really something that I think I can take advantage of different things that I can do, because if you are an orchestra clarinet player there is certain things that you are not used to doing like playing with drummers,” he said.
As a composer, saxophone player, and member of other ensembles, “[Bang on a Can All-Stars] seems a natural fit” to him because the band puts it all together. He had been involved in projects of Bang on a Can All-Stars even before he joined this band in 2013 and he sees so many possibilities in their music like marching band and theatrical work. “There are bunch of fantastic positions for playing experimental music for many different genres like jazz, rock, and world music.”
Bang on a Can All-Stars’ music leaves you with a shock, like a flying can banging against your head. The impact remains in your body for a while and is unforgettable.