Bang on a Can: Long Play Festival at Roulette
Five performances in one day at Roulette, as a part of Long Play Festival 2026.
12:00 pm – David Longstreth
2:00 pm – Michael Brook Cobalt Blue
7:00 pm – David Lang: Mystery Sonatas with Emma Meinrenken
8:00 pm – Julia Wolfe Anthracite Fields with the Bang on a Can All-Stars and Trinity Choir
10:30 pm – Contemporaneous plays Gavin Bryars Jesus’ Blood and The Sinking of the Titanic
David Longstreth is the founder and songwriter behind Dirty Projectors, a mainstay in the pop and indie rock worlds since the band’s inception in 2002.
Cobalt Blue is an album by the Canadian musician Michael Brook, released in 1992. Brook supported the album with a North American tour, playing some shows with John Cale. The album was reissued in 1999, with an additional disc of live material.
Originally premiered as part of a Carnegie Hall residency, mystery sonatas are inspired by a remarkable set of violin pieces from the 1670s by Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber. Rather than the original fiery sonatas depicting Jesus’ life story, Lang created intimate spiritual works, divided into ‘joy,’ ‘sorrow,’ and ‘glory,’ performed here by virtuoso Emma Meinrenken.
Long interested in labor in America, Julia Wolfe dove deeply into the coal mining country of her childhood for Anthracite Fields. In researching the piece, she went down into coal mines, visited patch towns and the local museums, and interviewed retired miners. Wolfe says, “My aim with Anthracite Fields is to honor the people who persevered and endured in the Pennsylvania Anthracite coal region during a time when the industry fueled the nation, and to reveal a bit about who we are as American workers.”
One of the experimental double-bassist’s best-known early works is Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet, which uses a recorded loop of a homeless man singing an improvised fragment, with rich string harmonies layered on top. A recording of the piece was made in 1993 with Tom Waits. Here, Contemporaneous brings the piece to life again.
You can get access to this show with a Long Play Pass.
Bang on a Can presents the 5th year of Long Play, a four-day destination music festival, presented from Thursday, April 30 through Sunday, May 3, 2026. Long Play takes place at multiple venues around Downtown Brooklyn and features 70+ concerts, including the Bang on a Can All-Stars playing a brand new arrangement of the iconic Philip Glass album Glassworks in its entirety and Julia Wolfe’s Pulitzer prize-winning Anthracite Fields with Trinity Choir, Steve Reich’s classic Sextet plus Electric Counterpoint performed live by 13 electric guitarists, the legendary Billy Hart Quartet, the esteemed and extraordinary Amina Claudine Myers, and the US premiere of Kali Malone.
Full 4-day and Supporter Passes are on sale now, as well as 1-day Saturday and Sunday passes. Roulette Members get 20% off full Long Play festival passes! Email development@roulette.org for more information.