Bang on a Can Marathon Is Booted Out of New York's Winter Garden This Year

The Bang on a Can Marathon, a non-stop showcase of the world's most innovative new music which has called New York City home for 28 years, will leave the Big Apple.

After losing its space and presenting partner, the Winter Garden at Brookfield Place in Lower Manhattan, the event will have to seek other refuge.

Since 1987, when Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Julia Wolfe founded the new music celebration with husband Michael Gordon and fellow Pulitzer-winner David Lang, the Bang on a Can Marathon has been the world's premiere event for music lovers of all stripes.

A report on the BoaCM website says:

"Imagine Lollapalooza advised by the ghost of John Cage. There are other places to hear new contemporary music, but it is seldom offered with such a potent blend of intensity, authority, and abandon."

To wit, their own Marathon 2007, the event's 20th anniversary celebration, came to an end after 27 hours and 10 minutes of continuous live music. For all the drastic changes in music since 1987, including the recent inundation of artists to music festivals, there is no major event as eccentric or innovative as the Bang on a Can marathon.

Wolfe has even contributed, saying, "We're moving on. We're going someplace new." And after 10 years of sponsorship from the Winter Garden at Brookfield Place, to move on and seek new ground is certainly in the musical modus operandi of Bang on a Can.

Steve Reich, Ms. Wolfe and others began experiments in contemporary classical music in the downtown scene of the 1980s, and New York City has been the de facto hub of new music ever since.

There have been occasional years without a Marathon, and before the partnership with Winter Garden the event was housed at Lincoln Center and the Brooklyn Academy of Music, among other locations. Festival officials say they're looking for a new NYC location for the Marathon's 30th anniversary in 2017.

Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival is still taking place this year at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. Fittingly, the festival plans to charter a bus from New York City to MASS MoCA for the July 30 event.

Check out an earlier iteration of the marathon below in the meantime.