George Lewis

float, sting

In his prefatory remarks at its premiere at the Bang on a Can All-Stars' 2018 People's Commissioning Fund concert, George Lewis described his sextet float, sting as "nine minutes of noisy stuff." The title invokes Muhammad Ali's celebrated epigram, "Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee / His hands can't hit what his eyes can't see", and the playful violence of the exotic sonorities called for in the score allows the heterogeneous lineup of instruments (clarinet, electric guitar, piano, cello, contrabass, drum set) to spar on equal terms. float, sting is part of the Peters Contemporary Chamber Series.