Alvin Curran performing
TransDadaExpress: The Brooklyn Bridge


Photo by Diana Chester

World premiere

Alvin Curran
TransDadaExpress:
The Brooklyn Bridge


Saturday, October 18, 8pm
Judson Church
55 Washington Square South
$15 / $10 students, seniors, EMF Subscribers

EMF commissioned six New York-based composers to create works for New York Soundscape. The goal in the commissions was to create a body of examples for others, not necessarily professionals, to follow. Alvin Curran's TransDadaExpress: The Brooklyn Bridge, a live evening-length performance of mixing and selecting from a multitude of New York sounds recorded during a period of more than 20 years, was the sixth and final commission to be presented in the festival.

< Back to the festival index

↓ Concert program

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Alvin Curran
Alvin Curran is an internationally renowned composer and performer of experimental music. His music has been played bt the Kronos Quartet, Ursula Oppens, Eve Egoyan, Bang On A Can All-Stars, Kathy Supove, and California EAR Unit, among many others. He has received awards and prizes from National Endowment for the Arts, Fromm Foundation, Meet the Composer, and others. He has held the Darius Milhaud Chair in composition at Mills College in Oakland, California.

ABOUT THE MUSIC

"Guaranteed New Yawk!" says Alvin Curran.

"So how did the piece come about?" asks Joel Chadabe, driving from West 4th Street to 110th Street in Manhattan, with Curran in the car.

Curran answers: "The beginning of the project ..."



Passing West 10th Street

And adds: "I'm using convoluted recordings I made of the Brooklyn Bridge with a Yiddish speaking 'dadaist' named Victor Packer. And there will be other transdada hijinx, with the futurist Marinetti, a madman yodler from Zurich, and Frank Sinatra singing a love song about the Brooklyn Bridge. And many other sounds of  New York, like John Cage's loft elevator, his floor boards, and his laughter as well as the sounds of feet only of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company."

Forgetful, Chadabe asks: "Tell me, what does the Brooklyn Bridge sound like?" And Curran answers: "I told you. It sounds like ..."



Passing West 70th Street

Closing down the interview:



Turning left on West 104th Street

Period.


< Back to the festival index