loadbang ensemble
UW Hamel Music Center-Collins Recital Hall 740 University Ave., Madison, Wisconsin 53706
Mead Witter School of Music Guest Artist Series. $20.
media release:
Andy Kozar, trumpet
Ty Bouque, baritone
William Lang, trombone
Performing works by David Acevedo, Hilda Paredes, Masahiro Aogaki, Elaina Stuppler (through the Luna Lab/loadbang Partnership), and Laura Schwendinger
New York City-based new music chamber group loadbang is building a new kind of music for mixed ensemble of trumpet, trombone, bass clarinet, and baritone voice. Since their founding in 2008, they have been praised as “cultivated” by The New Yorker, “an extra-cool new music group” and “exhilarating” by the Baltimore Sun, “inventive” by the New York Times and called a “formidable new-music force” by TimeOutNY. Creating “a sonic world unlike any other” (The Boston Musical Intelligencer), their unique lung-powered instrumentation has provoked diverse responses from composers, resulting in a repertoire comprising an inclusive picture of composition today.
In New York City, they have been recently presented by and performed at Miller Theater, Symphony Space, MATA, and by the Look and Listen Festival; on American tours at Da Camera of Houston, Rothko Chapel, and the Festival of New American Music at Sacramento State University; and internationally at Ostrava Days (Czech Republic), China-ASEAN Music Week (China), the Xinghai Conservatory of Music (China), Shanghai Symphony Hall (China), Visiones Sonoras Festival (Morelia, Mexico), and the Musikverein (Vienna, Austria).
loadbang has premiered more than 500 works, written by members of the ensemble, emerging artists, and today’s leading composers. Their repertoire includes works by Pulitzer Prize winners Raven Chacon, David Lang, and Charles Wuorinen; Rome Prize winners Andy Akiho and Paula Matthusen; and Guggenheim Fellows Chaya Czernowin, George Lewis, and Alex Mincek. They were the ensemble-in-residence at Cornell University through the Steven Stucky Memorial Residency for New Music, and through a partnership with the Longy School of Music of Bard College in Boston, they are the ensemble-in-residence at Divergent Studio, a contemporary music festival for young performers and composers held each summer.
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A native of Pittsburgh, Andy Kozar is a New York City and Boston based trumpeter, improviser, composer and educator that has been called a ‘star soloist‘ by TimeOutNY, noted for his ‘precise trumpeting‘ by New York Classical Review and has been said to be ‘agile as he navigated leaps and slurs with grace…he shifted between lyricism and aggression deftly’ by the International Trumpet Guild Journal.
A strong advocate of contemporary music, he is a founding member of the contemporary music quartet loadbang which has been called ‘inventive’ by the New York Times, ‘cultivated’ by The New Yorker, and ‘a formidable new-music force’ by TimeOutNY. With loadbang, his playing has been said to be ‘polished and dynamic, with very impressive playing’ by the Baltimore Sun, and that he ‘coaxed the ethereal and the gritty from [his] muted instrument…and revealed a facility for shaping notes and color‘ by the San Francisco Classical Voice. He is also a member the Byrne:KozarDuo, and has performed with new music ensembles including Bang on a Can, Ensemble Signal, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Argento Chamber Ensemble, Talea Ensemble, Ensemble Echappe, Tilt Brass, Wet Ink, Boston Music Viva, and Mark Gould’s Pink Baby Monster. He has performed alongside artists and conductors such as Dave Douglas, Pablo Heras Casado, James Thompson, Mark Gould and Brad Lubman, in addition to working closely with numerous composers including Helmut Lachenmann, Christian Wolff, Joe Hisaishi (Spirited Away), George Lewis, Chaya Czernowin, and Pulitzer Prize winning composers Raven Chacon, David Lang, and Charles Wuorinen. Kozar has performed at venues both domestically and abroad including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, The Kennedy Center, MoMA, Rothko Chapel, The Barclays Center, and Shanghai Symphony Hall.
A flexible performer well versed in many styles, he has performed with the St. Petersburg Ballet, Wordless Music Orchestra, the Ostravska Banda (Czech Rep.), and Symphony New Hampshire. As a baroque trumpeter, he has performed as a part of the Boston Early Music Festival and with period performance ensembles including Rebel Baroque Orchestra, American Baroque Orchestra, The Bach Players of Holy Trinity in New York City, Ensemble Musica Humana, and at St. Thomas alongside the St. Thomas Boys Choir. In addition to contemporary and traditional classical music, his versatility has also allowed him the opportunity to perform with Sigur Ros, Andrea Bocelli, the Grammy nominated Travis Sullivan’s Bjorkestra, Russian pop-stars Tamara Gverdtsiteli and Igor Krutoi, indie pop bands including Foley, YUCK, the Generationals, and Emanuel and the Fear, with Bang on a Can’s Asphalt Orchestra, and on Broadway’s Mary Poppins.
As a commercial recording artist, he can be heard on indie pop albums by Yuck on Mercury Records, Emanuel and the Fear and Bennett Lin, the Hollywood film Sushi Girl, and on PBS’s special featuring baritone Paul Byrom from Celtic Thunder. As a classical recording artist he can be heard on labels including Mode Records, New Focus Recordings, Neos, Bridge Records, Wide Hive Records, and ANALOG Arts. In 2020, Andy released ‘A Few Kites’ on New Focus Recordings, an album of music for trumpet and electronics that was called ‘entrancing‘ by Alex Ross (The New Yorker, The Rest is Noise) and that ‘Trumpeters around the world owe Kozar…a debt of gratitude…the variety here is simply astonishing‘ by anearful.
In addition to performing, his work as a composer has been said to have ‘intriguing sonorities’ by the New York Times, to be ‘virtuosic’ by The New Yorker, ‘…extremely effective and quite touching’ by New Music Box, and ‘at the cutting edge of creativity’ by Sequenza21. It has been performed by loadbang, the MIVOS Quartet, Bang on a Can All Star’s pianist Vicky Chow, and many others.
Andy has studied with Anthony Pasquarelli, James Thompson, Brian McWhorter, Jens Lindemann and Mark Gould, has studied at Carnegie Mellon University, holds a BM from the Eastman School of Music, and a MM in contemporary performance at Manhattan School of Music. He has given lectures and master-classes at institutions including The Juilliard School, Eastman School of Music, Peabody Conservatory, New York University, and Northwestern University. Kozar regularly works as a teaching artist for the New York Philharmonic’s Very Young Composers program and is on faculty New England Conservatory Prep and at the Longy School of Music of Bard College in Boston where, in addition to teaching trumpet, he is the Chair of the Instrumental Studies Department, co-directs Ensemble Uncaged, Longy’s contemporary music ensemble, and is a co-director of the Divergent Studio, a summer program designed for young composers and performers of contemporary music. Andy is a Yamaha Performing Artist and exclusively performs on Yamaha trumpets.
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Ty Bouque (b. 2000) is equal parts musicologist, baritone, and educator specializing in experimental opera and vocal music.
Bouque’s musicological interests are intimately tied to his praxis as a performer, focusing on issues of embodiment and vocal phenomenology in post-1980 opera, and the negotiations of time and space between narrative theater and sound-based music. He has given papers for the Gesellschaft für Musiktheorie and the University of Reading’s Samuel Beckett Symposium, and completed archival research on the Sciarrino manuscripts at the Paul Sacher Stiftung. He has lectured on voice and performance for New England Conservatory and the Sydney Conservatorium, and writes liner notes for Huddersfield Contemporary Records. In addition, he is completing his first book, an act of subjective cartography revolving around the single question that informs all of his work: how can we understand opera as a genre in the twenty-first century?
As a performer, Bouque is equally comfortable in opera, chamber music, and unaccompanied repertoire. He has given solo recitals in Berlin, Baden, Chicago, and Boston, where he gave a rare complete performance of Chaya Czernowin’s “Adiantum” trilogy. In 2021-2022, he toured in the original cast of Wayne Shorter and Esperanza Spalding’s Iphigenia. He is a founding member of Alinéa, a Boston-based contemporary music ensemble nominated in 2021 by the Royal Philharmonic Society for their virtual interview series “Everything But The Kitchen Sink.” With Alinéa, he’s premiered works by Richard Barrett, Michael Finnissy, Salvatore Sciarrino, Kelley Sheehan, and Victoria Cheah and held residencies at New England Conservatory and Ithaca College.
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Originally from Long Island, trombonist William Lang is an active performer and improviser in New York and Boston. The New York Times has called his playing “fiercely, virtuosic”, and he has been hailed for his “superb performance” by the Boston Globe, William is dedicated to playing premieres and new music. He has performed solo recitals at New York City’s premiere floating concert venue: Bargemusic, the Dimenna Center, the Stone, the Tank, the Gershwin Hotel, and Greenfield Hall, as well as many other venues throughout the country and abroad. He has also appeared as a concerto soloist with the Janacek Philharmonia in an acclaimed performance of Iannis Xenakis’ trombone concerto: Trookh, and with the Ostrava New Orchestra in both Prague and Ostrava, with the Fredonia Wind Ensemble on a tour of New York State; the Brooklyn Community Orchestra, and the Broadway Bach Ensemble. He has been a special guest soloist with Talujon Percussion, Ekmeles, Ensemble Pi, Mivos String Quartet, and the Rhythm Method. William has also been featured on the Avant Media Festival, the Defacto Music Series, and the Electronic Music Festival, among others. He has also been a featured guest at the International Trombone Festival both as a soloist and chamber musician multiple times.
As a chamber musician William is a founding member of: loadbang, the groundbreaking ensemble consisting of Baritone, Bass Clarinet, Trumpet, and Trombone, hailed as “inventive” by the New York Times and “cultivated” by the New Yorker. William is a member of the SEM Ensemble, Ostrava Bandska, TILT Brass, the Argento Chamber Ensemble, and the Boston Microtonal Society’s premier ensemble: Notariotous, where he works alongside like minded composers and performers on the definition of pitch. He has also appeared as a guest artist with the Art Ensemble of Chicago, Signal, Wet Ink, TACTUS, Ensemble Echappe, Sound Icon, and Talea. William also was a founding member of two now defunct groups, the Guidonian Hand, a trombone quartet hailed by the New York Times for their “expertly played, with meaty low brass textures” performance, and Occasional Noise, a trio of Trombone, Piano, and Percussion, which were active in commissioning original and exciting works for their instrumental combinations by many leading composers.
As a recording and commercial musician William has appeared on albums with such luminaries as David Byrne and St. Vincent (their album Love This Giant,) and Jonsi (from Sigur Ros,) on his solo album Go. You can also hear him on Bryce Dessner, Sufjan Stevens, and Nico Muhly’s collaboration Planetarium. He can also be heard on many classical releases, such as TILT Brass’ debut recording, to TILT vol. 1 and as a recording soloist for John Cage’s Ryoanji with the Avant Media Festival. He has also recorded commercial music for Philip Glass, the TV Show Lois & Clark, and also the soundtrack for a Matthew Barny film, the River Fundament. In addition to recording credits, William has been heard as the house trombonist for Rockefeller Center’s Christmas Music Spectacular, featuring the Rockettes!, as well as on numerous on and off-Broadway shows.
Mr. Lang is also an accomplished Orchestral and Opera musician as well, appearing with many ensembles throughout New York, such as the American Ballet Theatre, Dicapo Opera, Musicra Sacra, the Little Orchestra Society, the Garden State Philharmonic, and the Manhattan Chamber Symphony. In addition he has played with the Orchestra of the SEM Ensemble, the Janacek Philharmonic, the Western New York Chamber Orchestra, and the Eroica Ensemble.
William has also performed in such venues as the Guggenheim Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Carnegie’s Isaac Stern and Zankel Halls, le Poisson Rouge, Radio City Music Hall, the Winter Garden, St. Paul’s Church in Boston, St John the Divine’s in New York City, Paul Hall, Lincoln Center’s Rose Theatre, the Flea, Issue Project Room, Galapagos, Secret Project Robot, and St. Peter’s in New York City. As a curator alongside trumpeter Andrew Kozar, William founded and ran a weekly concert series, “Power Concerts”, at Manhattan School of Music. Featuring guest performers every week and a dedication to new music, Will and Andy hosted 42 concerts, which built up a steady following and featured the premieres of over 50 new works during their tenure, and which continues to exist at Manhattan School of Music to this day.
William received his Masters Degree from Manhattan School of Music, where he studied with Benjamin Herrington, and his Bachelors Degree from SUNY Fredonia, where he studied with Stefan Sanders, Scott Parkinson, and Carl Mazzio. He is a also a frequent teaching artist for the New York Philharmonic’s Very Young Composers program and has also given masterclasses and lectures at over 60 different Universities and Colleges throughout the United States.
William is also on faculty at the Longy School of Music in Boston, where he teaches lessons in trombone and the nature of being a 21st century musicians. He is also an artist both for Stephens Horns, who made his instrument, and Long Island Brass Co. which created his unique mouthpiece.