As musicians, we frequently talk about the process of composing music. Most often we discuss the various methods a composer goes through to realize his or her work. Yet there is another facet of such an undertaking that often isn’t discussed—the performer’s side of commissioning a large-scale work. On September 15th, six colleagues and I gave the world premiere of Rushes, a new 60-minute composition for seven bassoons by Michael Gordon…
On Saturday July 1 The Crossing Choir premieres Michael Gordon’s concert-length work, Anonymous Man. The text is drawn from Gordon’s experiences living in a changing neighborhood on a street called Desbrosses in Lower Manhattan, meeting Julia Wolfe (to whom he is married), raising a family, and especially encounters with two homeless men who lived across the street.
The piece reaches a surprising epiphany — after the bombing of the neighboring World Trade Center, and a few years later when one of the homeless men dies and Gordon watches the outpouring of sympathy from the community — that evokes Lincoln’s funeral train going through the streets of Manhattan, including Desbrosses St…
Michael Gordon’s music merges subtle rhythmic invention with incredible power embodying, in the words of The New Yorker‘s Alex Ross, “the fury of punk rock, the nervous brilliance of free jazz and the intransigence of classical modernism.”
Over the past 30 years, Gordon has produced a strikingly diverse body of work, ranging from large-scale pieces for high-energy ensembles to major orchestral commissions to works conceived specifically for the recording studio…