GLENN BRANCA Email --- Biography --- Mailing List ---Ensemble --- EPK We lost Glenn to throat cancer on May 13, 2018. The Glenn Branca Ensemble is available for exclusive performances of his guitar work. New and Upcoming 2022 July 17. Superior Viaduct is reprinting their vinyl release of The Ascension. It is available for pre-order now. 2020 July 17. Reg Bloor wrote an article for Sound American magazine about the first performance of Glenn Branca's Symphony No. 13. POSTPONED. 2019 September 19. Cambridge, MA. Lewis Music Library at MIT 5pm. Composers Forum with Reg Bloor discussing her work with Glenn Branca September 20. Cambridge, MA. Kresge Auditorium at MIT "The Third Ascension" and "The Light (for David)". October 6. Brooklyn, NY. Saint Vitus "The Third Ascension" and "The Light (for David)".
on Bandcamp, MVD and wherever music is sold March 06, New York, NY Merkin Concert Hall. "Movement Within" Bang on a Can All-Stars 2018 November 08 - 11, Philadelphia, PA. Symphony No. 2 First Movement will be used as part of the ballet piece "This Divide" by Russell Ducker for the Pennsylvania Ballet. 2017 June 2, Melbourne, Australia, Melba Hall. Symphony Nos. 8 & 10 (The Mysteries) University of Melbourne Ensemble. October 14, Brooklyn, NY, Park Church Co-op. "The Blood" Quiet City Ensemble. OUT NOW. Great new book We Sing A New Language: The Oral Discography of Thurston Moore by Nick Souldby with Comments by Glenn. 2016 February 23-24. NYC, THE KITCHEN. "The Third Ascension" (revised with American and world premieres). March 9. KOLN, Germany "Dark Harmony" (Music for 4 Cellos) The Octopus Cello Quartet. Sponsored by Villa Musica. World Premiere. May 3. NYC, Red Bull Studios. Talk with Alan Licht. May 16. NYC, Red Bull Music Academy New York Festival, Manhattan Masonic Temple. Symphonies Nos. 8, 10 &12 conducted by John Myers. May 26. NYC, Cipriani Wall Street. Short solo performance for The Kitchen Spring Gala. June 3 - October 22. FLORIDA, Bob Rauschenberg Gallery. Exhibition of drawings and instruments. October 8. NYC, Roulette. "The Third Ascension" and the world premiere of "The Light (for David)". CD Release of "Symphony No. 13 (Hallucination City)" for 100 Guitars (Live in Rome, 2008) on Atavistic Records. Vinyl release of "Symphony No. 1 (Tonal Plexus)" on ROIR Records. CD Release of "Symphony No. 4 (Physics)" Live in Europe 1983 on Atavistic Records. 2015
1. Cognac And Cigarettes
June 21. NYC, Winter Garden at World Financial Center. American premiere of ASCENSION THREE for the Glenn Branca Ensemble as part of the Bang on a Can Marathon. American Premiere of ASCENSION THREE for the Glenn Branca Ensemble
Performances of solo guitar pieces "Invisible Paintings": World Premiere tour of ASCENSION THREE for the Glenn Branca Ensemble November 18. Sydney, AUSTRALIA, "Fugue for a Temp Track" world premiere for Alaska Orchestra New vinyl releases:
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BOOKING AND LICENSES:
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"This music does somehow seem to take on the aspect of an event in nature or an act of God." (Richard Buell BOSTON GLOBE) "Branca conducted with so much passion that his life could have depended on it. When science fiction writers describe the 'Music of the Future' one can imagine Branca's music -- shimmering and heavenly, and stark, physical and austere." (Lynden Barber MELODY MAKER) "Just occasionally, new music comes as a real shock, a jolt to the system, a reminder that it is possible to go out to a concert and hear something really unexpected, really wild and dangerous. Alongside memories of Hendrix or watching the Sex Pistols there is now the Glenn Branca experience." (Robin Denselon THE GUARDIAN, London) "There were sounds I'd never heard before, never imagined. The music itself seemed to combine raw sexual energy and massive sacred passions into a single irresistible force" (Mark Swed LA WEEKLY) "Branca had me shaking." (John Cage CHICAGO SUN-TIMES) "Branca makes a noise you've always imagined but never expected to hear." (Kristine McKenna L.A.TIMES) "Glenn Branca may emerge as the most important new composer of our time." (Jim Gustafson DETROIT WEEKLY) "The most intense music you'll ever hear in your life." Jim Fouratt "He is an inspired American original" (Robert Palmer NEW YORK TIMES) "The effects and texture Mr. Branca achieves are really remarkable, and the sound is unlike anything in music." (John Rockwell NEW YORK TIMES) "Branca stretches his music further than is normally deemed acceptable or even possible in the world of rock, frequently reaching a plateau of sustained intensity rarely achieved outside of the spiritual or sexual encounter. If anyone else described their music as forcing you 'far back into the subconscious to find out what it is you are hearing' they might appear pretentious; when Branca makes this kind if statement it merely seems modest, inadequate." (Lynden Barber MELODY MAKER) "Glenn Branca is a rock 'n roll renegade who has left the standard rock circuit behind to become a trailblazing new music iconoclast. Branca's music is absolutely hypnotic, building with an enormous cascading crescendo that seems nonstop and nonstoppable. It's absolutely riveting, completely devastating." (Rob Barker NEW YORK DAILY NEWS) "Branca's music calls to mind such works as Penderecki's "Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima" and Luigi Non's "Como una ola de fuerza y luz". His music equals such works as these in the expression of contemporary passions. It is primal and cathartic, sexual yet dispassionate. In its effects on the listener it is a new expansion of musical awareness. Branca has a real and radical talent as a composer." (Louis K. Morra WKCR) "Bells are ringing, Loudly, A celestial choir screams in epiphanic ecstasy. The music unrolls like a blistering juggernaut, spiked with scalding tempos and latticework of overtones and textures that conjure voices, horns, violins and cathedral chimes from thin air. Three hundred years earlier Branca would have been hanged for witchcraft." (Ted Drozdowshi MUSICIAN MAGAZINE) "Branca's symphonies are more than just thunderous explosions of sound. He is interested in dissonant chordal structures that recall the sound-mass explorations of Ligeti and Penderecki. His primal, ritualistic power conjures up images of a berserk Varese. His symphonies have an orgiastic, ecstatic sense of climax - a primitivist power that surges forward in a brazenly romantic manner." (K. Robert Schwarz HORIZON MAGAZINE) "I don't think I will ever be quite the same. I've never seen a performer like him. Branca may as well have put on a full scale production of WAR AND PEACE playing all of the characters by himself. That's about how much energy he put out. Or he could have climbed K-2. That's how high he took the audience." (Rebecca Moore EAR MAGAZINE) "Visually and aurally enthralling, it was subtle, it was blatant, it was beautiful, and it is a complex, brilliant symphony." (Katherine Ludwig NEW YORK TALK) "Glenn Branca's music burns through stylistic barriers like a blowtorch. The sounds generated by his electric guitar ensembles weld the manic energy of heavy metal onto the large forms and massed sonorities of the 20th-century orchestra, Branca is indeed creating new music." (Ted Greenwald KEYBOARD MAGAZINE) "These unprecedented sounds are so complex that the music opens up into hallucination. It doesn't matter what anyone thinks of this music, just as it doesn't matter what anyone thinks of the sun. It was more like witnessing an event in nature than attending a concert." (Cole Gagne OPTION MAGAZINE) "Sculpting Mount Rushmore-sized sonic bedrock into epic symphonies, Glenn Branca's work consistently cuts through artsy gutlessness with the assurance of a Black and Decker circular saw. This is live art of the highest caliber, sacral, ragged and devastatingly honest in a scenario where honesty is the one brand name missing from the record racks, supermarkets and concert halls." (Mark Dery HIGH PERFORMANCE MAGAZINE) "This megamusic is not just an aural assault but a cathartic conjunction of pleasure and pain intended to disrupt fixed ideas and emotions. It confuses the distinctions in intent and experience that are commonly used to characterize and classify art. It is at once visceral and cerebral, anarchistic and controlled, hellish and sublime. Branca's entire creative output has, in this way, a grasp of sanity and a touch of madness, a way of standing perfectly still and yet be throbbing all the while." (Carlo McCormick ARTFORUM) "Glenn Branca's fire-breathing music is a turbulently successful mix of sonic pioneering and experimental melodics with rock-solid, butt-kicking guitar thrash. Branca was out front directing, breathing and lurching with the pulse, extracting some of the most incredible chord combinations ever known to the guitar." (Tristram Lozaw BOSTON ROCK) "There is nobody making music today who even faintly resembles him." (Allan Ulrich SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER) "Stunningly dramatic, hypnotically throbbing, thunderously erotic, sensuously mystical. Branca seemed to pull monster glissandos from his band with his bare hands." (Mark Swed LOS ANGELES HERALD EXAMINER) "Glenn Branca is one of a dwindling number of reasons not to commit suicide. He makes explosive, challenging music that pushes back the borders of what contemporary music can be." (Steve Albini MATTER MAGAZINE) "HIS FORTE IS MASSIVE SONIC GRANDEUR" "Branca is now frighteningly good, one of the best composers alive; the exuberance, intelligence, and newness of his music can make everything else around sound stale and tame. Rock and Roll shocked and transformed the pop music world when it emerged; when Branca's work surfaces, the new music community is in for an equivalent surprise." (Greg Sandow VILLAGE VOICE)
Works Available for Performance: 1. "Symphony No. 13 (Hallucination City)" in 4 Movements (for 100 Guitars , Drums and Conductor) 2. "Symphony No. 16 (Orgasm)" in 5 Movements (for 100 Guitars, Drums and Conductor) 3. Selections from the "The Ascensions" (for 4 Guitars, Drums, Bass and Conductor) 4. "Symphony No. 12 (Tonal Sexus)" + "The Light (For David)" (for 10 Guitars, Drums and Conductor) 5. "Symphonies No. 8 & 10 (The Mysteries)" in 4 Movements (For 10 Guitars, Drums and Conductor) In Progress: 6. "Psychopathological Beast" (5 pieces for electro-acoustic Chamber Ensemble, 7 Musicians and Conductor) 7. 1. I quit thee from my thought, My part is ended on thy stage.
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| Releases on SYSTEMS NEUTRALIZERS | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
GLENN BRANCA - THE ASCENSION: THE SEQUEL
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GLENN BRANCA -SYMPHONY NO. 7 (for orchestra) LIVE IN GRAZ |
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| AVAILABLE ON BANDCAMP (CLICK COVER TO LINK) |
AVAILABLE ON EBAY (CLICK COVER TO LINK) |
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THE PARANOID CRITICAL REVOLUTION - CRIMSON CANVAS
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| AVAILABLE ON BANDCAMP | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
REG BLOOR - |
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| PERFORMANCES OF "SYMPHONY NO. 13 (HALLUCINATION CITY)" for 100 guitars | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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1. NEW YORK CITY. Premiere of first version in one movement on June 13, 2001 at the former World Trade Center, as part of "Evening Stars" sponsored by The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. Originally commissioned by The Mission For The Year 2000, Paris.
Link to five articles by Glenn Branca on New York Times blog 2007-2009: Link to Glenn Branca Video Interview: Link to short film interview:
Branca: List of Major Works 1972 ALBUM DISCOGRAPHY LESSON #1 - 99 Records, Acute Records
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"Symphony No. 16 (Orgasm)" for 100 guitars, basses and drums written and conducted by Glenn Branca 
"False World, Good Night!" a symphony in seven movements for 100 violins and orchestral percussion, written and conducted by Glenn Branca.
