Over 70 pioneering musicians from around the world come together to give shape to new sounds during this three-day, super-mix of experimental music.
North Adams, MA and New York, NY, March 31, 2026 — MASS MoCA and Bang on a Can announce the 2026 edition of their multi-day music festival LOUD Weekend, presented on Thursday, July 30 through Saturday, August 1, 2026, at MASS MoCA in North Adams, MA. LOUD Weekend features three days of immersive music experiences set within the context of MASS MoCA’s vast galleries, performing arts stages and outdoor spaces nestled among the Berkshires mountains. LOUD Weekend is the culminating event of the twenty-fourth annual Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival at MASS MoCA, a three-week artist residency for innovative composers and performers selected from an international applicant pool.
LOUD Weekend 2026 Highlights (additional artists and more details to be announced):
- Bang on a Can All-Stars perform a brand new arrangement of the iconic Philip Glass album Glassworks, in its entirety, PLUS a new live arrangement of Terry Riley’s inspirational A Rainbow in Curved Air, a piece that significantly impacted the development of minimalism, ambient music, jazz fusion, progressive rock, and more.
- Ever-inventive and virtuosic guitarist Yasmin Williams.
- Powerhouse pianist Conrad Tao performing Frederic Rzewski and more.
- Eliza Bagg and Mantra Percussion premiere Annie Gosfield’s one-act chamber opera Emma – exploring the radical vision, ideals, and enduring legacy of Emma Goldman, one of the most legendary and influential social activists in US history.
- Morton Feldman’s mind-altering, meditative Piano and String Quartet.
- The US premiere of Michael Gordon’s 8, performed by an all-star cast of eight festival cellists with special guests.
- Composer/Alto Saxophonist Darius Jones conducts his large ensemble work WAR, exploring the sonic palette of sustained intensity.
- The inimitable poetic jazz combination of Brandon López & Fred Moten.
- Experimental Percussion/Synth duo NOMON (sisters Shayna and Nava Dunkelman) – an endless blend of percussion, drum machine, and synthesizers, touching on fragments of memories from their lives in Tokyo, Oakland and now New York, where they both currently reside.
- Art-pop songstress Lisel (Eliza Bagg).
- Longtime Bang on a Can collaborator Karl Larson plays the world premiere of Scott Wollschleger‘s Ghost Song, for solo piano.
- Concert celebrations of music by Martin Bresnick, Raven Chacon, David Lang, Ken Thomson, Shelley Washington, Julia Wolfe, and more.
- Steve Martland Band Tribute! – we are resurrecting the iconoclastic Martland Big Band in a unique tribute to the ground-breaking British composer.
- WORLD PREMIERES by the 2026 summer festival composition fellows.
- Performances by David Byrd-Marrow, Vicky Chow, David Cossin, Arlen Hlusko, Riley Palmer, Nick Photinos, Todd Reynolds, Maya Stone, Ken Thomson, plus fellows from the 2026 Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival at MASS MoCA.
About Bang on a Can
Bang on a Can is dedicated to making music new. Since its first Marathon concert in 1987, Bang on a Can has been creating an international community dedicated to innovative music, wherever it is found. With adventurous programs, it commissions new composers, performs, presents, and records new work, develops new audiences, and educates the musicians of the future. Bang on a Can is building a world in which powerful new musical ideas flow freely across all genres and borders. Bang on a Can plays “a central role in fostering a new kind of audience that doesn’t concern itself with boundaries. If music is made with originality and integrity, these listeners will come.” (The New York Times)
Bang on a Can has grown from a one-day New York-based Marathon concert (on Mother’s Day in 1987 in a SoHo art gallery) to a multi-faceted performing arts organization with a broad range of year-round international activities. Projects include the annual LONG PLAY (Brooklyn, April 30-May 3, 2026) and LOUD Weekend (MASS MoCA) festivals; the Bang on a Can All-Stars, who tour to major festivals and concert venues around the world every year; recording projects; the Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival at MASS MoCA – a professional development artist residency for young composers and performers led by today’s pioneers of experimental music; the People’s Commissioning Fund, a membership program to commission emerging composers; Asphalt Orchestra, Bang on a Can’s extreme street band that offers mobile performances re-contextualizing unusual music; cross-disciplinary collaborations and projects with DJs, visual artists, choreographers, filmmakers and more. Bang on a Can has also launched an extensive public digital archive, CANLAND, including recordings, videos, posters, program books, and more.
Each new Bang on a Can program has evolved to answer specific challenges faced by today’s musicians, composers and audiences, in order to make innovative music widely accessible. Bang on a Can’s inventive and assertive approach to programming and presentation has created a large and vibrant international audience made up of people of all ages who are rediscovering the value of contemporary music. For more information about Bang on a Can, please visit bangonacan.org.
About MASS MoCA
MASS MoCA is a contemporary art museum that emphasizes bold creative exploration and fosters surprising connections between people every single day. It upholds artistic freedom and is an indispensable home for artists who stretch toward what has yet to be created. From its beginnings as the major textile mill Arnold Print Works in the mid-19th century, to its days as the Sprague Electric Company in the mid-20th century, to its current existence as a globally renowned, contemporary art museum and fabrication center, the MASS MoCA campus has a rich history of serving as an economic engine of the City of North Adams and the surrounding region. With vast galleries, artist studios and a variety of indoor and outdoor stages, MASS MoCA is able to embrace art in all forms. For more information visit massmoca.org or follow on Instagram at @massmoca.
For more information, please contact:
Bang on a Can: Emily Motherwell, OtherARTS | 646-266-6918 | motherwell@otherarts.net
MASS MoCA: Jennifer Falk, Chief Communications Officer | press@massmoca.org