Steve Reich's 2x5 receives its US premiere at Strathmore Hall outside of Washington, DC, tonight. The piece will be performed as part of an all-Reich program by the Bang on a Can All-Stars. Bang on a Can gave 2x5 its world premiere at the Manchester International Festival last summer, on a double bill with Kraftwerk, and can be heard on the first recording of the piece, released on Nonesuch this past September with Reich's Pulitzer Prize-winning piece, Double Sextet. The latter will be on tonight's program as well, along with Music for Pieces of Wood, Electric Counterpoint, and New York Counterpoint, which Bang on a Can recorded for a 2000 Nonesuch album.

"Clearly 2x5 is not rock and roll, but uses the same instruments," Reich has said. "It’s an example of the essential difference between ‘classical music’ and ‘popular music.’ And that essential difference is: one is notated, and the other is not notated. I had to find musicians who (A), could read, and (B), had a genuine rock feeling, and there Bang on a Can excels." Gramophone calls it "Reich’s smartest, most sonically nourishing recording for years."

Bang on a Can's David Lang, speaking with the Washington Post's Express Night Out about tonight's concert, says the composer has "been a beacon for us, because he's really an example of someone who dedicated his life to experimentation and who has lived to see the world eventually embrace it."

Bang on a Can All-Stars will give an encore performance of tonight's program at American Hall in Hampton, Virginia, tomorrow night, and will give the New York premiere of 2x5 in an all-Reich program at Carnegie Hall next April with Kronos Quartet, So Percussion, and eighth blackbird, which performs Double Sextet. For more on Bang on a Can's upcoming performance schedule, including additional performances of Reich's work and a number of concerts with Glenn Kotche, visit bangonacan.org.

For more on 2x5 and Double Sextet and to pick up a copy of the album with high-quality, 320 kbps MP3s included at checkout, head to the Nonesuch Store.

For a different take on 2x5, check out the more than 250 remixes that were submitted as part of the call for collaborators at Indaba Music. Remixers were given the stems from the original Bang on a Can recording of the third movement from 2x5 and have come back with a broad range of variations on the piece. To hear the results and vote for your favorite, go to indabamusic.com.