Last year I got an amazing phone call, out of the blue, from Robert Blackson, who runs the contemporary art gallery at Temple University.  He told me that he had somehow – miraculously – gotten access to all the broken instruments in the Philadelphia public school system, and he asked if I had any interest in writing something for them.  In fact, I did!

Robert didn’t know it, but my first thought about these instruments was autobiographical.  I am only a musician because there were robust music programs in the public schools that I attended as a child – a public school music education is why I am here today.  My first thought was that 1500 broken musical instruments meant 1500 missed opportunities to change school children’s lives, the way my life had been changed.

My second thought was that I have been writing a kind of community music lately and that this project might be a good way continue my interest in using music to build a better world.  In 2014, I wrote a piece called crowd out, for 1000 people yelling and singing.  Commissioned by presenters in London, Birmingham (UK) and Berlin, it was based on the kind of singing I had heard in a London soccer match.  the public domain, from 2016, is a kinder and gentler sequel, commissioned by Lincoln Center and three European presenters for 1000 amateur voices.  What I hoped to do in these pieces was to give untrained and lesser trained performers the chance to do what our most trained and sophisticated performers do all the time – to work really hard together, to solve a tough musical problem together, to make something beautiful together.

I have tried to do the same thing in symphony for a broken orchestra.  Our ensemble has a range of everyone in the city – from school children just learning how to play to amateurs to future professionals to members of the Philadelphia Orchestra.  People from all across the city, coming together, making music.  It is a beautiful sight.  

Of course, in this piece, one of the problems these musicians have come together to solve is that their instruments don’t work as they are expected to.  Some are barely changed, some are just more complicated to play, and some are now incapable of doing what they were designed for.  Part of each player’s job is learning what each instrument can and cannot do, and then adapting himself or herself to it.  These instruments, like the people who play them, are unique, extraordinary.  It has been a joy to work with them.å

I have worked with So Percussion for a very long time now and I know them really well.  When I got the opportunity to write a concerto for them I wanted to make it specifically for them, for the things that they have been concentrating on for the past few years.  They are frequently theatrical, they invite found objects into their performances, they build their own instruments, etc.  I wondered if I could make the unusualness of their musicality the centerpiece of this concerto, but how could an orchestra of 'normal' instruments doing mostly 'normal' things find common ground with them?  My solution was to set up a kind of ecology between the soloists and the orchestra, using the orchestral percussionists as 'translators.'  An idea begins with the soloists on an invented instrument, the percussionists in the orchestra hear the solo music and translate it into something that can be approximated by more traditional orchestral percussion, the rest of the orchestra hears and understands the orchestral percussion, and they join in.  The opening, for example begins with the soloists snapping twigs, which the orchestral percussionists translate into woodblocks, marimba and xylophone, which the orchestra takes up and embellishes, eventually overwhelming the soloists.  This process of finding something intricate and unique, decoding it, regularizing it, and mass producing it reminded me of how a lot of ideas in our world get invented, built and overwhelmed, so I decided to call it 'man made.'

I wanted to make a piece about the inner thought process of a person who is not sure how, or why, to live. to do this I needed a text that felt like a litany of questions and statements and possibilities for self exploration, and I hit upon the idea of making the text out an internet search. the libretto for this piece is made up entirely from the results out of an internet search of the phrase AND I WILL MAKE IT, setting to music every iteration of that phrase plus whatever words follow it, in the order in which it appeared in the search - that day, that very moment. 'and I will make it, and I will make it waste, and I will make it fit, and I will make it snow, and I will make it proud, etc....' the weight of these statements accumulates until it begins to feel like the story of a single person, convincing himself or herself that life is worth living.

—David Lang

Text by David Lang

And I will make it

And I will make it waste

And I will make it

And I will make it fit

And I will make it proud

And I will make it snow

And I will make it better

And I will make it

And I will make it come true

And I will make it happen

And I will make it a pit of clay

And I will make it for five dollars

And I will make it famous

And I will make it right

And I will make it worse

And I will make it known

And I will make it desolate

And I will make it

And I will make it lighter

And I will make it

And I will make it

And I will make it for you

And I will make it up to you

And I will make it again for sure

And I will make it worth your while

And I will make it

And I will make it in the end

And I will make it

And I will make it at the mourning

And I will make it

And I will make it burn

And I will make it rhyme with another word

And I will make it up to you somehow

And I will make it

And I will make it

And I will make it on my own

And I will make it longer

And I will make it this weekend

And I will make it into a link

And I will make it a proverb and a byword among all the peoples

And I will make it as the mourning

And I will make it into a quilt

And I will make it count

And I will make it something to possess

And I will make it a devastated place

And I will make it private

And I will make it with my child

And I will make it available for you soon

And I will make it

And I will make it so

And I will make it perpetual desolations

And I will make it

And I will make it to her graduation

And I will make it

And I will make it

And I will make it

And I will make it a possession of the hedgehog

And I will make it out of aluminum

And I will make it my foundation

And I will make it fast

And I will make it communicate

And I will make it worth thy while

And I will make it back, I know I can

And I will make it the law of the land

And I will make it

And I will make it clear

And I will make it work

And I will make it a top priority

And I will make it type

And I will make it appear

And I will make it

And I will make it through the day

And I will make it

And I will make it home

And I will make it my priority

And I will make it a goal of mine

And I will make it together

And I will make it again and again

And I will make it

And I will make it big news on the frontpage

And I will make it

And I will make it easy to use

And I will make it if you will support me in this difficult situation

And I will make it soon

And I will make it to the top

And I will make it desolate forever

And I will make it back into the mix

And I will make it happen for you

And I will make it look good

And I will make it

And I will make it

And I will make it available

And I will make it all true

And I will make it

And I will make it in gaza

And I will make it as comfortable an atmosphere as I can for you

And I will make it my mission to get you where you want to be in life

And I will make it again

And I will make it

And I will make it all up to you

And I will make it home alive

And I will make it for you

And I will make it

And I will make it so it costs less

And I will make it very much worth your time

And I will make it

And I will make it so that you will follow

And I will make it into rafts to go by sea

And I will make it even easier

And I will make it

And I will make it up I promise

And I will make it available to you

And I will make it

And I will make it right for free

And I will make it out alive right now

And I will make it a proverb and a byword among all peoples

And I will make it

And I will make it very clear

And I will make it soon

And I will make it for them

And I will make it

And I will make it all right with you

And I will make it available to the public

And I will make it this time

And I will make it some day

And I will make it a perpetual desolation

And I will make it work somehow

And I will make it

And I will make it easy for you

And I will make it my legacy

And I will make it my goal

And I will make it open

And I will make it

And I will make it to dallas

And I will make it up to you, I promise

And I will make it rustle and crackle

And I will make it

And I will make it public

And I will make it one of these days, I promise

And I will make it easier for you

And I will make it tomorrow

And I will make it a point to be quiet

And I will make it together this weekend

And I will make it come out well

And I will make it unnecessary for them

And I will make it

And I will make it up to them

And I will make it before the season is out, mark my words

And I will make it interesting

And I will make it a good one

And I will make it down again

And I will make it to the yacht club

And I will make it for you immediately

And I will make it

And I will make it again often

And I will make it a point to go back and try it

And I will make it

And I will make it up to each and every one of you

And I will make it later

And I will make it more realistic

And I will make it vast as sky

And I will make it through

And I will make it a priority

And I will make it work for you

And I will make it through the winter

And I will make it a top priority for my first year as president

And I will make it

And I will make it more presentable

And I will make it my awesome everything

And I will make it go well with you

And I will make it truth

And I will make it

And I will make it a possession

And I will make it all the way

And I will make it a point to comply with you from right now on

And I will make it live

And I will make it a number one hit

And I will make it back

And I will make it my career

And I will make it there

And I will make it happy

And I will make it to the final

And I will make it to retreat in the sight of thy rays

And I will make it

And I will make it tomorrow if I can

And I will make it go

And I will make it a lot more clear with the use of images

And I will make it into a cushion

And I will make it

And I will make it so as the image in this mirror does become reality

And I will make it

And I will make it available to everyone once it is finished

And I will make it a personal goal

And I will make it a life goal of mine

And I will make it

And I will make it one of our top priorities

And I will make it as easy as I possibly can

And I will make it alive

And I will make it so that you follow my decrees

And I will make it

And I will make it or not

And I will make it to may

And I will make it happen with everyone’s help

And I will make it for you then

And I will make it easy

And I will make it

And I will make it fit your doll

And I will make it for thee

And I will make it prompt

And I will make it my mission to share my experience

And I will make it a point to adhere to you from now on

And I will make it disappear totally

And I will make it up to you in every way I know how

And I will make it available tomorrow

And I will make it my priority to help these young individuals succeed

And I will make it through the day and I will smile

And I will make it

And I will make it

And I will make it

And I will make it

And I will make it just for you

And I will make it

And I will make it smaller

And I will make it

And I will make it like a time of mourning

And I will make it a point to allow extra time

And I will make it more heart winning

And I will make it in

And I will make it one of the best

And I will make it freely available

And I will make it a point to make sure

And I will make it yours

And I will make it

And I will make it known when I do

And I will make it

And I will make it okay

And I will make it all caps

And I will make it

And I will make it impossible

And I will make it on my own and don’t worry about me

And I will make it as you have it

And I will make it there eventually

And I will make it an everlasting desolation

And I will make it done in less than five minutes

And I will make it active as possible

And I will make it

And I will make it

And I will make it official

And I will make it a point

And I will make it real, even if you don’t believe it

And I will make it my new theme song

And I will make it through this week too

And I will make it through this night alive

And I will make it all effortless

And I will make it right any way I can

And I will make it

And I will make it long

And I will make it a point to write

And I will make it up somehow

And I will make it through this day

And I will make it a position to follow you from now on

And I will make it my new project

And I will make it mine

And I will make it instrumental

And I will make it go insane

And I will make it

And I will make it accordingly

And I will make it to your specifications

And I will make it a level to comply with you from now on

And I will make it big enough for everyone

And I will make it

And I will make it

And I will make it my duty

And I will make it for my inlaws

And I will make it even better

And I will make it unstable

And I will make it through this

And I will make it up

And I will make it

And I will make it very short

And I will make it here

And I will make it a memorable experience for you

And I will make it hot

And I will make it hotter for you

And I will make it

And I will make it a reality

And I will make it all about you

And I will make it as realistic as possible

And I will make it

And I will make it out alive

And I will make it quick

And I will make it

And I will make it available for you

And I will make it known to the whole world

And I will make it

And I will make it

And I will make it home safely

And I will make it come true somehow

And I will make it an annual event

And I will make it beautiful

And I will make it this time around

And I will make it

And I will make it

And I will make it to the mountain top

And I will make it a point in every city that I visit

And I will make it so beautiful

And I will make it funny

And I will make it for you with pleasure

And I will make it fine

There is a big gulf between the way that classical music teaches us to experience emotions and the way that our emotions are actually felt.

We have a great tradition in Western music of embracing great swings of temperament and mood – we have no problem thinking that a piece can move seamlessly from something that is whisper-soft to ear-splittingly loud. When I think of how my life actually works, however, I don’t think of it in terms of giant emotional leaps from one extreme to another – most of my emotional range is not from extreme bliss to gut-wrenching misery and back, all in a short period of time; my range is much more narrow, and too slowly changing for that. In my piece darker I wanted to make a piece of music that more closely matches my own emotional narrative than the narrative we have inherited from the dramatic music of the past.

darker is in many ways more like an object than a piece of music. It is a long, slow passing from something mostly even and pleasant to something a little less pleasant. My piece, like life, expends a lot of effort to go a very short distance, from beautiful to a little less beautiful, from a little light to something a little darker.

darker is dedicated to the memory of Jeanette Yanikian.

pierced was commissioned by the ensemble Real Quiet – Felix Fan, cello, David Cossin, percussion and Andy Russo, piano, as a concerto for their ensemble and string orchestra. I was trying to imagine a way the soloists and the orchestra could relate to each other that would not be old-fashioned. I liked the idea of an opposition between them but I didn't want the kind of competition that traditional concerti generate, where the soloists try to struggle with the orchestra for the supremacy of their ideas. What would it be like to make two almost completely separate musical worlds, in which the musical material from one world was needed in order to decode the meaning of the material of the other? I imagined, for example, a dissonant, chromatic line in one ensemble and a tonal chord progression in the other – maybe we would perceive the two as related and necessary to each other, but the material in each world would remain distinct. There would be a wall between them – they wouldn’t hear or influence each other but we could hear their separate contributions mixed together. (And it goes without saying that the combination of materials that we hear would have to sound whole.)

—David Lang

The reason why the psalms are so central to religious experience is that they are a comprehensive catalogue of examples of how to talk to the Almighty, not by a prophet or a priest but in the voice of a single person out in the world, with problems and concerns not unlike those faced by real people in all times. Of course, it’s like reading one side of a correspondence—we can read David’s letters but the letters back are the ones we really want to see. 

My pieces are not conventionally virtuosic, but they are very hard. One of the things that interests me very much is how certain mechanical musical tasks force players - and listeners - into a kind of concentration that can be spellbinding. The intense concentration necessary to coordinate the ensemble in Grind to a Halt is a kind of virtuosity in itself. 

— David Lang

pierced was commissioned by the ensemble Real Quiet – Felix Fan, cello, David Cossin, percussion and Andy Russo, piano, as a concerto for their ensemble and string orchestra. I was trying to imagine a way the soloists and the orchestra could relate to each other that would not be old-fashioned. I liked the idea of an opposition between them but I didn't want the kind of competition that traditional concerti generate, where the soloists try to struggle with the orchestra for the supremacy of their ideas. What would it be like to make two almost completely separate musical worlds, in which the musical material from one world was needed in order to decode the meaning of the material of the other? I imagined, for example, a dissonant, chromatic line in one ensemble and a tonal chord progression in the other – maybe we would perceive the two as related and necessary to each other, but the material in each world would remain distinct. There would be a wall between them – they wouldn’t hear or influence each other but we could hear their separate contributions mixed together. (And it goes without saying that the combination of materials that we hear would have to sound whole.)

—David Lang

My piece ''street'' was written for the Dutch wind group Orkest de Volharding. This ensemble was organized by Louis Andriessen as a hip, dynamic, no-nonsense street band. What occurred to me while writing my piece was that the actual street was there long before Louis imagined what sort of ensemble should be standing upon it. What sort of music would a hip, dynamic, no-nonsense street band have played if it had been standing on that street 400 years earlier, founded not by Andriessen but by, maybe, Sweelinck, for example? Just as Louis created for Orkest de Volharding a complete musical world out of a few fundamental musical concepts, my piece concentrates on a few 16th Century ideas - most notably ideas about vocal lines, suspensions and scale - focusing in on them relentlessly until they take over the entire piece.

—David Lang

I said something mean to a friend of mine once. My only excuse was that it must have been my evil twin who had said such a horrible thing. I immediately started thinking about how within each of us there are dramatic competitions between good and bad impulses—sometimes the desire to be kind is in a strange equilibrium with the desire to be cruel. My piece ''my evil twin'' explores the relationship between these competing impulses. Scraps of relentlessly happy melodies struggle to be heard behind angry walls of sound. It is almost as if the presence of the naïve melodies infuriates the other instruments and they search each melody as it goes by, looking for ways to destroy it.

''my evil twin'' was commissioned by the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, which premiered it in 1992, and I revised it in 1996. It is dedicated to my friend Mark-Anthony Turnage. Coincidentally I met him when we were both students at Tanglewood in 1983.

—David Lang

[The potato] begins its life at its most coherent, losing its shape and substance with the growth of its sprouts. The sprouts will, of course, become other potato plants, but, seen from the point of view of the potato, they are agents of death and decay. A piece based on the life of the potato, such as my composition, ''spud,'' might begin with the coherence of all musical voices and move towards their independence, much in the way that a series of variations might bear successively less resemblance to their theme.

—David Lang

In 2005 I did a project with the English artist and filmmaker Peter Greenaway, called writing on water. It was a kind of circus, with live calligraphy, live multi-screen video and film projection on four screens that surrounded the stage, and the London Sinfonietta. I enjoyed it a lot. What I enjoyed the most, however, was the beautiful libretto that Peter had crafted out of fragmentary descriptions of sea travel and shipwrecks from The Tempest, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, and Moby Dick. This text was so moving to me that I asked Peter if he would write me another one, this time possibly on a religious subject, or at least somehow related to an old testament theme. ark luggage was the text he sent me, a list of 92 things Noah took along with him during the flood. The way I interpreted this text was to notice how Peter shows the confidence Noah has in packing for his life after the flood, confident about his survival past the catastrophe. The act of packing these suitcases itself becomes a statement of faith, and a simple list becomes a kind of prayer. ark luggage was commissioned by Glasgow Concert Halls and was written for Else Torp and the Smith Quartet, who premiered it 24 March 2012, in Glasgow, Scotland. The music is dedicated to Else Torp.

To me, the whole idea of field recordings was dealing with memories, and bringing things that were recorded from the outside world into the concert hall. I started thinking about some of the recorded things from my memories, and I remember I worked on a project many many years ago, right as I was starting out as a composer.  I made a background track of people sharpening knives and sharpening scissors. I remember loving that track, but what I remember in particular is that the show was terrible and one of the worst experiences of my professional life. I still feel bad about it. So I though it would be interesting to bring that memory and that soundtrack into this project.

--David Lang

When I was approached to write a fanfare for the opening of DiMenna Center for Classical Music in New York I trolled my memory for all the fanfares I had played in my life. I am a trombone player so I have played many, and I remember playing an arrangement in high school of the famous 'trumpet voluntary.' I also remember my amazement that 'trumpet voluntary' was not in fact supposed to have any trumpets in it, but was in reality an organ piece! For me, an early lesson in irony. In honor of that moment of disillusionment I wrote my piece 'involuntary.' And I wish the DiMenna Center well in its mission to make classical music easier to create, to rehearse, to perform and to record.

After the New Century Saxophone Quartet asked me to write a piece for them they sent me all their past recordings. I listened to them with curiosity and enthusiasm, and I heard something that totally changed my thinking about the genre. It was their recording of ''The Art of Fugue,'' by J.S. Bach. The first thing that struck me was the absolute mastery of tone of the ensemble—this music was played with such great control and discipline. It was hard not tot get excited about the possibility of working with them.

What impressed me the most, however, was the monumentality of the project. There is so much light music for saxophone, music that can’t make up its mind if it should be classical or jazz, if it should be serious or funny, restrained or aggressive. A lot of this music is truly enjoyable—I don’t mean to say anything bad about it. This Bach project however, is on an entirely new level—it is asking to have the saxophone taken seriously, for all that it can do.

As a composer I immediately imagined how important for the medium it would be for a composer to take this seriousness, this monumentality into consideration, in the creation of a new work.

I started with what became the second movement of my piece, writing seemingly endless streams of notes, trying to trick the melodic and harmonic changes to emerge virtuosically from the dense fabric of the material. Somehow what I was doing reminded me of what Chopin did in his Etude, Opus 10, Number 12—make a ridiculously fast and vaguely minor scale last forever. Chopin’s piece is of course called the Revolutionary Etude. I decided to make a set of these myself.

''revolutionary etudes'' was commissioned by the New Century Saxophone Quartet, with generous support from the Mary Duke Biddle Foundation, the Rockport Chamber Music Festival, the University of South Carolina, Tom Kenan, and Freda Silberman.

—David Lang

breathless

I was a horn player in high school and in college.  Not a good horn player.  I was mostly a trombonist but I switched to horn after breaking my arm playing sports and I stuck with it for a while after my arm healed.  I remember being terrified playing in wind quintets - I would sit and wait for all the fluffy flute and oboe parts to build and then I would have to enter with something heroic, which I invariably wrecked.  Mostly as a kind of rationalization I started thinking that there was a democracy problem in quintets, that my part was harder than the other parts, and that the musical responsibilities were not spread equally though the ensemble.  When I got the commission from the Royal Philharmonic Society to write a piece for the excellent Galliard Ensemble all these memories and perceived injustices came back to me, and I vowed to make a more democratic quintet.  I devised a plan for the piece that would require all the instruments to play all the time, and always play the same thing, each contributing a continuous flow of almost identical bits of information to a larger almost unison whole.  For some strange, completely unmusical reason I am proud that each instrument plays just about the same number of notes.  When I wrote it I was sure that my piece had a relationship to the amazing film of the same name by Jean-Luc Godard, but for the life of me I now don't remember what that was.

— David Lang

child is my attempt to examine certain experiences as I remember (and misremember) them from my childhood. Each of the individual moments is in some way a memory of how I learned how to do something. Because I was taught (as most children are) that one learns how to perceive the world by making up rules, it has been possible to apply these rules to musical environments.

I am not nostalgic for childhood, mine or anyone else's. It is not a point of child to show either how childhood is a time of great excitement of great disturbance, or that I miss it or that I suffered through it. What is most interesting to me, especially now that I have children of my own, is that childhood is the time when one learns how to think, how to feel, how to move forward. Because each piece of music in some way needs to teach its listener its own rules for how it works, it is a comparison I have found meaningful.

—David Lang

Small children get bored easily when traveling long distances by car. One way to distract them is to play the game I spy with my little eye, in which you look out the window and describe something you have noticed. In my experience this does work, not in a very subdued way—it is not the most exciting way to pass the time. Eventually, however, time does pass.

—David Lang

During a trip to the dentist my oldest son Isaac was given laughing gas. The dentist called it sweet air, a gentle name to take the fear out of having a cavity filled. It worked. My son experienced something—a drug—so comforting that it made him ignore all signs of unpleasantness. This seemed somehow musical to me. One of music's traditional roles has always been to soothe the uneasy. I must say I have never been that interested in exploring this role. It is much easier to comfort the listener than to show why the listener might need to be comforted. My piece ''sweet air'' tries to show a little bit of both. In ''sweet air,'' simple, gentle musical fragments float by, leaving a faint haze of dissonance in their wake.

''sweet air'' was written for the ensemble Sentieri Selvaggi for premiere at the Settembre Musica Festival in Torino, Italy, 9 September 1999. It is intended as a birthday present for Louis Andriessen - Happy sixtieth birthday, Louis!

—David Lang

A couple of years ago, I started thinking about how so often when classical composers write a piece of music, they are trying to tell you something that they are proud of and like about themselves. Here's this big gushing melody, see how emotional I am. Or, here's this abstract hard-to-figure-out piece, see how complicated I am, see my really big brain. I am more noble, more sensitive, I am so happy. The composer really believes he or she is exemplary in this or that area. It's interesting, but it's not very humble. So I thought, What would it be like if composers based pieces on what they thought was wrong with them? Like, here's a piece that shows you how miserable I am. Or, here's a piece that shows you what a liar I am, what a cheater I am. I wanted to make a piece that was about something disreputable. It's a hard line to cross. You have to work against all your training. You are not taught to find the dirty seams in music. You are not taught to be low-down, clumsy, sly and underhanded. In ''cheating, lying, stealing,'' although phrased in a comic way, I am trying to look at something dark. There is a swagger, but it is not trustworthy. In fact, the instruction in the score for how to play it says: Ominous funk.

—David Lang

''dance/drop'' is an arrangement of the two instrumental movements from my piece ''are you experienced?'' for narrator, electric tuba and large ensemble. In ''are you experienced?'' the narrator carries on an odd conversation with an imagined vision of an unconscious listener. In turns, the narrator is amusing, consoling and menacing, and sometimes gives the listener various ominous commands. dance and drop are two of those commands.

—David Lang