Music

It was already going to be a year of transformation for the beloved Bang on a Can Marathon. A New York new-music institution since 1987, the annual event was set to expand into a new three-day festival, Long Play, spread over several Brooklyn performance spaces.Then came the coronavirus pandemic. With Long Play canceled, the Bang on a Can collective’s founders and leaders — the composers David Lang, Michael Gordon and Julia Wolfe — opted to try another first, if in a more familiar format: a six-hour livestreamed marathon, starting at 3 p.m. Eastern on Sunday, at marathon2020.bangonacan.org.Jazz figures like Vijay Iyer and Mary Halvorson will share a digital space with experimental-music veterans like Meredith Monk and George Lewis. Younger composers have had new pieces commissioned. The production values will be unpolished, but the marathon — which has varied in venue and length over the years — has never been too fancy. The emphasis on Sunday aims to be, as it always has been, on free-spirited variety, representation across musical generations and the intermingling of genres and artistic scenes.In a joint phone interview, the three Bang on a Can founders — Mr. Gordon and Ms. Wolfe, who are married, spoke from just outside New York at a friend’s house, and Mr. Lang from Houston — talked about the rejiggered marathon, some highlights they’re anticipating and their plans to organize more performance epics during the lockdown. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.How long did it take to reset the plans for this year?DAVID LANG It took us a while to reorient ourselves. We had this gigantic idea of how to expand the marathon into Long Play. I’m sure we’ll do that again, should the world ever get back to normal. But we have these people who depend on us, who have no money. We have young people who are looking for opportunities. There are so many people who are in need of a venue.JULIA WOLFE It really came after a lot of discussion and soul-searching about what is important. Everyone’s getting compensated. We talked about a lot of different approaches — and came back to what we do. We started with a marathon in 1987. Over the years we’ve had so many amazing soloists; the Bang on a Can All-Stars [the collective’s resident ensemble] is made up of people who appeared as soloists. So we’re very oriented toward spectacular individual players. More

This month Fiona Apple released her fifth album, “Fetch the Bolt Cutters,” an event that was received with significant awe and rapturous praise. Apple often takes her time between records — her previous one, “The Idler Wheel …,” was released in 2012 — but the greeting she received was about much more than a long absence.Early in her career, following the wild success of her 1996 debut “Tidal,” Apple was vivid and intense in her choice of subject matter, and vocal about her pop-star reluctance. She was often met with resistance in the male-dominated music press. But in the decades that have passed, Apple’s singular vision has remained firm, and she’s become a role model for generations of artists in her wake.On this week’s Popcast, a conversation about Apple’s career, and about the music on “Fetch the Bolt Cutters,” which is uninhibited, flexible and free.Guests:Jenn Pelly, who writes about music for Pitchfork and othersLindsay Zoladz, who writes about music for The New York Times and others More