SoundWorks Collection Interview Series - Composer David Lang on the film YOUTH

Composer David Lang discusses his collaboration with Director Paolo Sorrentino crafting the music for his recent film YOUTH.

Fred and Mick, two old friends, are on vacation in an elegant hotel at the foot of the Alps. Fred, a composer and conductor, is now retired. Mick, a film director, is still working. They look with curiosity and tenderness on their children’s confused lives, Mick’s enthusiastic young writers, and the other hotel guests. While Mick scrambles to finish the screenplay for what he imagines will be his last important film, Fred has no intention of resuming his musical career. But someone wants at all costs to hear him conduct again.

ABOUT COMPOSER DAVID LANG:

David Lang is one of the most highly-esteemed American composers writing today. His works have been performed around the world and in many of the great concert halls. The recipient of a wide array of awards, Lang won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize in music for the little match girl passion, based on a fable by Hans Christian Andersen and Lang’s own rewriting of the libretto to Bach’s St. Matthew’s Passion. The recording of the piece on Harmonia Mundi was awarded a 2010 Grammy Award for Best Small Ensemble Performance.

Lang’s tenure as 2013-14 Composer-in-Residence at Carnegie Hall saw his mystery sonatas with Augustin Hadelich premiered. His festival, collected stories, showcased different modes of storytelling in music. This season Lang premieres a string quartet for the 10th anniversary of Sage Gateshead, a choral piece for the 75th anniversary of Tanglewood Music Center, a new piece for musikFabrik, a new composition for the Bamberg Symphony, and just (after song of songs) for Trio Mediaeval and Saltarello. Lang’s compositional range will be on display when he serves as the 2014-15 Composer-in-Residence at de Doelen in Rotterdam, and many of the pieces will be receiving their European premieres.

Lang’s music is used regularly in ballet and dance productions around the world by such choreographers as Twyla Tharp, Susan Marshall, Edouard Lock, and Benjamin Millepied, who is choreographing a new piece by Lang to be performed by the LA Dance Project at BAM in 2014. Lang’s film work includes the score for Jonathan Parker’s (Untitled), the music for the award-winning documentary The Woodmans, and the string arrangements for Requiem for a Dream, performed by the Kronos Quartet. His music is also on the soundtrack for Paolo Sorrentino’s Oscar-winning La Grande Bellezza and the director’s upcoming film, La Giovinezza. In addition to his work as a composer, Lang co-founded Bang on a Can, a prominent new music festival in New York. He is Professor of Composition at the Yale School of Music.