Bang On A Can Meets Kyaw Kyaw Naing Bang On A Can Meets Kyaw Kyaw Naing
CD, 2004

Bang on a Can Meets Kyaw Kyaw Naing
Bang on a Can meets Burma in this cross-cultural collaboration with legendary composer and percussionist Kyaw Kyaw Naing. Kyaw Kyaw Naing is a renowned master of the pat waing, the Burmese Drum Circle, a traditional instrument made of 21 separately tuned drums. These drums surround the player completely, and are played melodically at lightning fast speed. Naing’s blazing tempos and blistering musicality have made him famous throughout Southeast Asia, and he has used his gifts to become highly-sought-after as a composer of music for film, and as a live performer at Burma's traditional kickboxing tournaments.

Now in the US, Naing is spreading the word about Burmese music – so far largely unknown – throughout the country. After a performance at the Asia Society last season, The New York Times called his music “an exhilarating tease, defying expectations of symmetry or steady tempo.”

On this CD, Naing records with Western musicians for the very first time. The Bang on a Can All-Stars, with special guest Todd Reynolds (Ethel), steeped themselves in the Burmese tradition through their frequent meetings with Naing. They have performed together at the BAM Next Wave Festival, Lincoln Center ’s Great Performers series, and the Bang on a Can Summer Festival at Mass MoCA.

Evan Ziporyn of the Bang on a Can All-Stars remarks about the collaboration: “Kyaw Kyaw is a master of this unique and exhilarating music, and having the chance to work with him and find common ground has been a dream fulfilled. This would have been unthinkable ten years ago, and I hope it's only the beginning.”
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About Kyaw Kyaw Naing:

Kyaw Kyaw Naing is one of Burma's most distinguished younger musicians. The son of the great artist Sein Chit Tee, he was a child prodigy, winning first prize in a children's music competition at age 7. At twelve years of age he could already play the pat waing, the drum-chime circle that leads the traditional Burmese orchestra. In 1975 he joined the nation's premier traditional ensemble, Naingan-daw Hsaing Waing, and rapidly rose to prominence within it; from 1982 to 1992 he served as musical director of the ensemble. When he resigned from this troupe he started a long-term collaboration with Burma's senior musical eminence, U Ko Ko, and with him composed music for numerous operas and films (his compositions can be heard in over two hundred films and recordings). Kyaw Kyaw Naing's music is played by some of Burma's most prominent performers, and is routinely heard on the national media network, the Burma Broadcasting Service. His international touring has brought him to Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, the former Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, as well as the USA. The American recording label Shanachie has released two compact discs of his music and he has recorded a soon to be released CD with New York's high-energy electric chamber ensemble Bang on a Can All-Stars for Cantaloupe Music. His collaborations with Bang on a Can at Lincoln Center and the Brooklyn Academy of Music as well as his most recent solo and ensemble performance at the Asia Society in New York have added to his growing reputation in the US as one of the most unique artists combining a masterful traditional virtuosity with newly acquired contemporary western influences.
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About the Performers
Ma Aye Myint, si wa
Robert Black, bass
David Cossin, drumset
Lisa Moore, piano
Kyaw Kyaw Naing, pat waing, gongs, 6-drum set, pat ma
Mark Perlman, keyboard
Todd Reynolds, violin
Mark Stewart, guitar
Wendy Sutter, cello
Maung Maung Myint Swe, si wa
Evan Ziporyn, clarinets

Robert Black - bass
Robert Black's interests range from traditional orchestral and chamber music to solo recitals, collaborations with actors, music with computers and MIDI, movement-based improvisations with dancers, and live action-painting performances with artists. He has commissioned, collaborated or performed with a diverse number of musicians from John Cage to D.J. Spooky; Elliot Carter to Meredith Monk, Cecil Taylor to young emerging composers. Robert's recital activities frequently take him to 5 Continents. In addition, Robert performs with theBang On A Can All Stars ( New York City's hard hitting new music ensemble),Basso Bongo (an electronic duo, with percussionist Amy Knoles) and withThe School of HardKnocks (a post-modern dance company). He has collaborated with theater companies, (most recently with Kathryn Walker and the Music Theater Group Music Theater), made music for films by Rudy Burckhardt and performs action-painting improvisations with the Brazilian painter, Ige D'Aquino. He annually appears at chamber music festivals such as Monadnock Music Festival and the Moab Music Festival. He also maintains a full teaching schedule at The Hartt School at the University of Hartford ( Hartford, CT) and the Festival Eleazar Carvalho ( Fortaleza, Brazil). A recipient of numerous grants, he received a 1998 Bessie Award for his collaborative work with The School of Hard Knocks in NYC. His solo CDs areState of the Bass (O.O. Discs) andThe Complete Bass Music of Christian Wolff (Mode Records). Currently, he is working on a recording of the complete bass music of Giacinto Scelsi for Mode Records. Robert has also recorded for Sony Classical, Point/Polygram, Koch International, CRI, Neuma Records, Gasparo, Opus One, Artifact Recordings, and Folkways Records. Additionally, Robert is on the Board of the International Society of Bassists as well as serving on the Board forAll Aboard, Inc., a Connecticut mass transit advocacy group.
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David Cossin - drumset
A native of Queens, New York City, David Cossin studied classical percussion at the Manhattan School of Music, but his interest in a broad spectrum of styles had led him to drum set, non-Western hand drumming, composition and improvisation. He currently specializes in new and experimental music, and has performed and recorded with the Talujon Percussion Quartet, Bang on a Can All-Stars, New Band (performing on instruments invented by Harry Partch), the New Music Consort, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, composer Tan Dun, R&B legend Bo Didley and the New York based pop band B-Blush. Cossin has participated in music festivals in Europe, Mexico, China, Taiwan, Japan and the United States; and he has appeared as soloist with orchestras in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Beijing, Hunan, Macao, Sweden, California, Montreal and London. Active in musical theater, Cossin performed in productions of The Lion King and Tan Dun’s opera Peony Pavilion. He has also worked with Blue Man Group and Mabou Mines. He played the solo percussion part for the film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, with Grammy and Academy Award-winning music by Tan Dun. In recent seasons, Cossin’s installation pieces SwingSet and SpinCycle have been presented in New York, Italy and Germany; and he has given solo concerts in Europe and the United States incorporating video, electronic processing and homemade instruments. He has appeared on “Good Morning America” and CBS “The Early Show” television programs with cellist Yo-Yo Ma, and has been invited to be artist-in-residence at the Loop Gallery in Italy. Visit at David at davidcossin.com
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Lisa Moore - piano
Lisa Moore grew up in Canberra, Sydney, and London before moving to the U.S. in 1980. She has lived in New York City since 1985 and has collaborated with scores of composers in music and music-theater. One of her most recent ventures includes solo piano works requiring simultaneous text recitation and DVD image synchronization(Martin Bresnick's 'For The Sexes:The Gates of Paradise' based on the original William Blake). Other projects include a new 40 minute solo work by Michael Gordon and an on-stage piano role with director Lee Breuer/ Mabou Mines in Ibsen's 'The Doll's House'. Moore's solo disc recordings include the newly released 'Which Side Are You On?' music by Frederic Rzewski on Cantaloupe Music. On the Australian Tall Poppies label: Stroke'(new Australian music); the piano works of Janácek; and 'Purple, Black and Blues' (music by Elena Kats-Chernin). She has also recorded for Nonesuch, BMG, Deutsche Grammophon, Sony Classical, Point, CRI, and New Albion. Moore has performed with the New York City Ballet, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Da Capo Chamber Players, BargeMusic, St. Luke's Orchestra, Cassatt String Quartet, Steve Reich Ensemble, Paul Dresher Ensemble, Australia Ensemble, Sydney Symphony, and the Australian Chamber Orchestra, among others. She has been playing with the Bang On A Can All-Stars for over 10 years, since its inception and has appeared in festivals with the group and as a guest artist throughout the world including Adelaide, Sydney, Israel, Warsaw, Lisbon, Berlin, Brisbane, Perth, Hong Kong, Holland, Paris d'Automne, BAM's Next Wave, Lincoln Center, Sydney's Olympic Arts, Aspen and Tanglewood, and at venues such as Carnegie Hall, Royal Albert Hall, La Scala, and the Musikverein. She has taught at the Eastman School of Music, the Australian National Music Academy in Melbourne, the Norfolk CT Chamber Music Festival, the 'Bang on a Can Summer Institute' at MassMoca, the Sydney Conservatorium and the Australian Youth Orchestra National Music Camp. Moore has a doctorate from SUNY Stonybrook, where she studied with Gilbert Kalish.
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Todd Reynolds - violin
Todd Reynolds (New York) is violinist and assistant conductor for Steve Reich and Musicians. As an improvisor and solo interpreter of new musics from classical to jazz and pop, Mr. Reynolds has appeared and/or recorded with such artists as Anthony Braxton, Uri Caine, John Cale, Steve Coleman, Joe Jackson , Dave Liebman, Graham Nash, Steve Reich, Marcus Roberts, Wayne Shorter and Cassandra Wilson. In addition to his solo appearances at home and abroad, Mr. Reynolds appears as guest artist with The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and is often featured as violin soloist and chamber musician with Bang On A Can. Mr. Reynolds has premiered countless numbers of compositions by composers including Michael Gordon, John King, Steve Reich, Elliot Sharp, Julia Wolfe, and Randall Wolff , and recently appeared as soloist with Yo Yo Ma in Tan Dun's Water Passion after St. Matthew at the Barbican Center in London. He is a co-founder of Ethel, New York's newest and hippest string quartet, and as composer/performer, Mr. Reynolds is currently developing Still Life With Mic, a theater piece which incorporates with his own composed and improvised music, elements of video and theater arts. He has recorded for Nonesuch, CRI, and Atlantic Records and can also be heard on Tan Dun's soundtrack for the film Fallen, starring Denzel Washington. On Broadway, he originated the role of "The Fiddler", playing and dancing on stage in the Tony Award-winning revival of Irving Berlin's Annie, Get Your Gun, starring Bernadette Peters and Reba McEntire.
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Mark Stewart - guitar
Multi-instrumentalist, singer, composer and instrument designer Mark Stewart has been heard around the world performing old and new music. Since 1999 he has recorded, toured & performed with Paul Simon. He performed at Lincoln Center in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night with Phillip Boscoe, MaxWright, Brian Murray, Helen Hunt, Kira Sedgwick, and Paul Rudd. A founding member of the Bang on a Can All-Stars, Mark is also a member of Steve Reich and Musicians, David Krakauer's Klezmer Madness, the manic duo Polygraph Lounge with keyboard & theremin wizard Rob Schwimmer, The Fred Frith Guitar Quartet, Arnold Dreyblatt's Orchestra of Excited Strings and Zeena Parkins' Gangster Band. He has also worked with Anthony Braxton, Bob Dylan, Cecil Taylor, Meredith Monk, Edie Brickell, Don Byron, Paul McCartney & Marc Ribot. He has worked with the choreographers Eliot Feld, Susan Marshall, & Yoshiko Chuma and has worked extensively with composer Elliot Goldenthal on music for the feature films Titus, The Butcher Boy, Bob the Gambler, In Dreams and Heat often playing instruments of his own design and construction. His New York Lower East Side "lab" is home to an instrument workshop and sonic salon where traditional and new instruments cohabitate. He has also played for the Broadway shows Showboat, The Who's Tommy, The Sound of Music, Carousel, and The Lion King. Stewart can be heard on Warner Bros., Sony Classical, Point/Polygram, Nonesuch, Label Bleu, Resonance Magnetique, Cantaloupe and CRI recordings.
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Wendy Sutter - cello
Cellist Wendy Sutter received degrees both from the Curtis Institute of Music and the Juilliard School where her principal teachers were David Soyer and Aldo Parisot. A native of Seattle, Washington, she made her solo debut with the Seattle Symphony at age sixteen. Awarded the first prize in the Juilliard cello competition, Ms. Sutter made her New York solo concerto debut at Avery Fisher Hall in the New York premiere of Kaddish for cello and orchestra by composer David Diamond and conducted by Gerard Schwarz. An active soloist and chamber musician, Ms. Sutter has performed as a soloist or ensemble player in innumerous festivals and venues throughout the world including the Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society, the Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center, the Lincoln Center Festival, the Ensemble Sospeso, the Seattle International Chamber Music festival, and New York's Music Today series. She has also participated in the summer festivals at Marlboro, Aspen, Tanglewood and Evian. As an ensemble player, Ms. Sutter has toured throughout Europe and Asia with both the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and The Orpheus Chamber orchestra .From 1993-1998, she was a member of the White Oak Chamber Ensemble touring with Mikhail Baryshnikov and the White Oak Dance Project throughout the United States, Europe, South America, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. As a soloist with this ensemble, she premiered Jerome Robbins' A Suite of Dances', an onstage duet for herself and Mikhail Baryshnikov at the New York State Theater at Lincoln Center. She continues to perform this work as a guest artist with the New York City Ballet at Lincoln Center. Ms. Sutter presently serves on the faculty at Columbia University.
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Evan Ziporyn - clarinets
Evan Ziporyn (b. 1959) is a composer/clarinetist whose work draws equally from world and classical music, the avant garde, and jazz. As a member of the Bang On A Can All-stars, he has performed at international venues across the globe, collaborated with Don Byron, Meredith Monk, Henry Threadgill, and Cecil Taylor, and co-produced and arranged Bang's acclaimed recording of Brian Eno's "Music for Airports." He has also recorded and toured with Paul Simon, Steve Reich, Arnold Dreyblatt, Matthew Shipp and Tan Dun. In Boston, he is founder and director of the Gamelan Galak Tika, a Balinese music and dance troupe, for whom he has composed numerous works combining gamelan with western instruments and electronics, recorded on two volumes for New World Records. His recent genre-defying solo CD, "This is Not A Clarinet" (Cantaloupe), was featured on "All Things Considered," "The World," and appeared on numerous 2001 Top Ten lists, in both classical and jazz categories. He has also written for Wu Man, the Kronos Quartet, Ethel, Nederlands Blazers, the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra, Orkest de Volharding, Gamelan Sekar Jaya, Sarah Cahill, the Arden Trio, Basso Bongo, and red fish, blue fish. He has received commissions from the Rockefeller Foundation, Meet the Composer, and the New England Foundation for the Arts. His works have been recorded on Sony Classical, Koch, New World, CRI, and New Tone. He received his BA from Yale University and his MA and PhD from UC Berkeley, where his principle teachers were Martin Bresnick, Gerard Grisey, and John Blacking. He is Kenan Sahin Distinguished Professor at MIT, where he is also Head of Music and Theater Arts. His puppet opera, ShadowBang, a collaboration with Balinese puppeteer I Wayan Wija, was recently released on Cantaloupe Music.