Music by everybody

On the heels of Joan Tower's 70th birthday concert at Merkin Hall -- where Joan presented music written by some of the musicians who've played her own work -- comes another triumph of participation. On October 2, Bang on a Can's office staff will offer their own performances, at the Bell House in Brooklyn, NY. They call their music, variously, nouveau-bluegrass, smarty-pants avant;skronk, neo-indie-classicism, baroque noir (I like that one), and boogie-down anachronism-funk, while happily telling us that "such ludicrous descriptive categories are entirely fabricated and arbitrary" (something I wish mainstream classical institutions would admit, when they're vacantly hyping their music as "magnificent").

Here's their press release, as it was e-mailed to me. I might only wish that Bang on a Can itself had produced the event (though, OK, I can see how maybe they can't take responsibility for music by people who weren't hired for their music). Or at least they could mention it on their website. 

Still -- I like this, and I hope the show is good.