DAVID LANG is one of the most highly esteemed and performed American composers writing today. His works have been performed around the world in most of the great concert halls. Lang’s “simple song #3,” written as part of his score for Paolo Sorrentino’s acclaimed film YOUTH, received many awards nominations in 2016, including an Academy Award and Golden Globe. His opera prisoner of the state (with libretto by Lang) was co-commissioned by the New York Philharmonic, Rotterdam’s de Doelen Concert Hall, London’s Barbican Centre, Barcelona’s l’Auditori, Bochum Symphony Orchestra, and Bruges’s Concertgebouw, and premiered June 2019 in New York, conducted by Jaap van Zweden. prisoner of the state received its UK premiere in January 2020 with the BBC Symphony, and European premieres are rescheduled for 2022–2023.
New works for 2021-2022 include “sun-centered” for the Tallis Scholars — to be interwoven with Antoine Brumel’s monumental Renaissance mass for twelve voices Missa Et ecce terræ motus (“and the Earth moved”); a new evening-length work for Pam Tanowitz Dance, created as part of the dance work Song of Songs; and an evening-length work for the chamber ensemble Eighth Blackbird, composition as an explanation.
Lang is a professor of music composition at the Yale School of Music and is an artist in residence at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. He is co-founder and co-artistic director of New York’s legendary music collective Bang on a Can.
His music is published by Red Poppy Music and G. Ricordi & Co., New York (ASCAP) and is is distributed worldwide by the Universal Music Publishing Group.
Bio as of 7/2023