Shelter

The culmination of a three-year relationship between BAM and composers Michael Gordon, David Lang, and Julia Wolfe, Shelter mines the myriad connotations of the work’s title–physical structures, intimate personal exchanges, a metaphoric home for our beliefs–ultimately questioning whether what we build can protect us against the destructive power of the world around us.

Embraced by BAM audiences for their exuberant, cross-genre Bang on a Can marathon concerts and stirring, large-scale collaborative projects, The New Yorkers and Lost Objects, the composers have conceived Shelter on a more intimate level and for the first time are working within the architecturally resonant BAM Harvey Theater.

Created with librettist Deborah Artman (Lost Objects) and New York’s Ridge Theater, Shelter features haunting visuals by Laurie Olinder and filmmaker Bill Morrison (Decasia), direction by Bob McGrath (The Death of Klinghoffer, BAM 2003), and searing performances by the German new music ensemble musikFabrik and the ethereal Scandinavian vocalists trio Mediæval.