Bang on a Can All-Stars with Glenn Kotche and Bryce Dessner

Through the years, Bang on a Can All-Stars have established a strong tradition both for multigenre collaboration outside the conservatory context and for tackling novel pieces of music. The ensemble likes to mess with your head, whether that means adapting an ambient classic like Brian Eno’s Music for Airports or commissioning works by such idiosyncratic characters as Matthew Shipp, Iva Bittova and DJ Spooky.

The sextet’s performance at Northwestern University’s Sonic Divergence Music Festival finds it hooking up with local percussion hero Glenn Kotche—who plays drums in Wilco when he’s not composing intricate pieces influenced by gamelan and Max Roach—and Bryce Dessner, guitarist with stalwart Brooklyn indie-rockers the National. Both guest composers will sit in with Bang on a Can, taking a creative break from their day jobs.

The connections aren’t casual. Kotche, who recorded his debut solo album, Mobile, for Nonesuch in 2006, met Dessner in the National’s native Ohio, when he played at a new-music festival curated by the guitarist. And they have recently collaborated on performances of each other’s pieces for small ensembles. If Kotche has mastered an inventive system of drums and electronic loops that extend his one-man-band technique, Dessner proves equally versatile. Trained as a classical guitarist, he can write for the eclectic voices of larger groups of musicians or bring his focus in to simpler duet settings, where the music takes on the quality of back-porch handicraft.