Stephanie Berger

Glenn Branca

Better than: Any 13-hour stretch of the Northside Festival.

It's not uncommon for a composer to introduce some colleague or another as one of history's greats. And so it was on Sunday night at the finale of 2011's 13-hour-long Bang On A Can Marathon, an annual festival celebrating music that "falls between the cracks" (as one is often told) of classical, rock, world, jazz and other genre definitions.

Just before 11 p.m., festival co-founder Michael Gordon testified to the crowd at the World Financial Center's indoor Winter Garden how Glenn Branca—the pioneering guitar symphonist who taught Lee Ranaldo and Thurston Moore how to de-tune and rock out in his bands dating from the late '70s—was one of his "favorite composers of all time." A few people whistled in agreement. But it was also late for many marathoners; even the most die-hard fans of "new music" get tired after half a day of sitting still and concentrating on sound while situated in the middle of a spacious, echoing mall expanse.

Branca decided the room needed a hype man.

© Stefan Cohen

Better than: The ritual, anniversary replay of news broadcasts from the morning of 9/11.

There is no other way to begin but by acknowledging that this review of a classical music concert from over the weekend was re-written after word spread, on Sunday night, of a successfully lethal military strike by U.S. forces against Osama bin Laden.

Your individual mileage may vary, in terms of whether you think that a mockable reality. Though even before news of bin Laden's death crossed social media wires, there had been a feeling that the window for critical commentary on Saturday night's concert at Carnegie Hall would need to be held open for some time--if only to accommodate reflection, let alone breaking news developments. The show was two things, at least: an evening-long celebration of New York musical eminence Steve Reich's 75th birthday this year; and the local premiere of his long-anticipated, only recently completed work about 9/11 and its aftermath.

Ignore the song titles. CREDIT.

The Bang on a Can Marathon
World Financial Center Winter Garden
Sunday, May 31

Verily, this fest has scaled back somewhat in recent years -- consider 2007's fairly insane 26-hour affair, wherein I emerged, groggy and disoriented, from the Winter Garden at around 4:30 a.m., just in time to see some dude nonchalantly pissing into the Hudson. This year's totally free, totally uninhibited carnival of new/classical/experimental music was a relatively demure 12 hours, noon to midnight. "How many of you have been here since noon today?" asked one of MCs at roundabouts 11:30 p.m., just before Tortoise took the stage. Way more whoops than I'd expected. Tired, frail whoops, but whoops nonetheless.