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Who

Famous for merging rock, industrial and classical instrumentation, the contemporary composer is the co-founder of experimental musical group Bang on a Can.

Backstory

The son of Polish Jewish immigrants, Gordon was born in Miami but soon moved to the outskirts of Managua, Nicaragua, where he first began learning the piano. He returned to Florida when he was eight and spent his teen years writing music before attending NYU. As a grad student at Yale, Gordon had the opportunity to study with famed composer Martin Bresnick, but frequently traveled to the East Village to play keyboards in alt-new wave band Peter and the Girlfriends. In 1983 he started an ensemble of his own, the Michael Gordon Philharmonic, and in 1987 he teamed up with Julia Wolfe and David Lang to launch Bang on a Can. The group's first show was a 12-hour concert at a SoHo art gallery, and they've been creating eclectic contemporary music—and putting on their famous "marathon concerts"—ever since.

Of note

As a solo composer, Gordon's work as been performed at Carnegie Hall, the Royal Albert Hall in London, and Lincoln Center—and over the years he's also released a number of albums including Weather, Trance, and Big Noise from Nicaragua. Over the past 20 years Gordon, Lang and Wolfe have performed as Bang all over town, at places like Brooklyn Academy of Music's Next Wave Festival and Alice Tully Hall. The group's minimalist sound, which borrows from rock, jazz and world music, has never made them mainstream stars (they're generally more popular in Europe), but Bang's attracted a dedicated following from those drawn to the group's insistently repeating rhythms and quirky mix of instruments. In 2001, Gordon and his Bang colleagues launched a record label called Cantaloupe. Recently, the group celebrated its 20th anniversary with a 26-hour marathon at Winter Garden of the World Financial Center.

For the record

Bang has long been known for collaborations with other artists, both at their marathon concerts and at Bang's Summer Music Festival, which is held annually at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. The trio has worked with leading composers like Steve Reich, John Cage and Meredith Monk, and performed alongside Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore. In 2000, they teamed up with comic book artist Ben Katchor to write the award-winning opera The Carbon Copy Building.

Personal

Gordon is married to composer and Bang co-founder, Julia Wolfe. They live in a loft on Desbrosses Street.