Interviews

Listen to an audio piece about how composer Michael Gordon and filmmaker Bill Morrison work together and what went into their 13th collaboration, inspired by the 100th anniversary of the city of Miami Beach.

The composer Michael Gordon and filmmaker Bill Morrison have been fusing their visions for upwards of 17 years …

Composer Michael Gordon and filmmaker Bill Morrison share their multimedia piece Lightning at Our Feet, inspired by the poetry of Emily Dickinson.

The WNYC Young People’s Radio Chorus shares their latest batch of cutting-edge commissioned works. An interview with two of those composers, Meredith Monk and Michael Gordon.

Listen to Michael Gordon’s ”Gotham,” a filmic symphony in collaboration with filmmaker Bill Morrison. For this program, these two artists discuss their ongoing collaboration of new music and old decaying silent film prints.

”Gotham,” brought to life by the team at the Ridge Theatre who put together Gordon’s 2001 multi-media experience ”Decasia,” is structured along the Decasia model with the city of New York as its subject and star. The live concert version incorporates projections (including an opening sequence with a sheep), re-edited archival film, multi-tiered sets, and musicians who sometimes seem actually to inhabit the projected environment…

Intentionally quiet and slow, this short video was made by simonettavespucci as an introduction to Decasia from stills and a radio interview with Morrison and Gordon.

Composed for the Concerto Köln­—one of today’s most respected Baroque ensembles—Lost Objects introduces the concept of an early-instrument modern orchestra (as opposed to a modern-instrument orchestra playing early music). The multimedia production features the direction by the celebrated filmmaker Francois Girard. Michael Gordon shares a preview.

Bill Morrison and Michael Gordon explore the art of decay with their current project, Decasia, at St. Ann’s Warehouse.

By Alan Baker

‘Being a maverick is being able to create something that everyone else acknowledges as being something that they haven’t heard before. Where people turn around and say, ”Wow, I haven’t heard that before,” or, ”That’s a new idea.” In a sense, you’ve created something or done something that’s entered the world and is new, which is an amazing thing to do.

To read the entire interview, please download the pdf…

Yale School of Music and Library

Oral History of American Music (OHAM) is the only ongoing project in the field of music dedicated to the collection and preservation of oral and video memoirs in the voices of the creative musicians of our century.

You can listen to a copy of this interview in the Yale School of Music Library, please refer to contact information here.