Grand Stage deals with the timelessness of the main or “grand” concourse within the terminal. The appearance of the room has changed little over the past 100 years and the same can be said of it’s passengers. Although today’s travelers are imbued with new technologies and a different sense of fashion (the days of fancy hats are behind us), they still possess the same fundamental desire for social interaction as their ancestors. Without a doubt, the same handshakes, kisses, arguments, miscommunications, and flirtatious glances have occurred over and over again throughout the terminal’s history.

In order to capture this sentiment, I am using footage my wife Elisa Ferrari and I captured of the grand concourse in action. But, to create the “more things change, the more they stay the same” mood, I decided to convert the footage to black and white and speed it up 8x faster. Fascinating patterns emerge as the people become ants on a hill and the perception of time escapes us. Here is a short snippet of what the projected video will look like:

In a sense, time ceases to exist and I’ve decided to compose slow and static music as a counterpoint to the fast images. But were does this music come from?

From 1913 of course! Grand Central Terminal was opened to the general public on February 2, 1913. In that same year the popular song “Last Night Was the End of the World” written by Harry Von Tilzer spent 22 weeks at the top of the charts. The subject of the song is unrequited love, and the lyrics make poetic use of stars and moonlight (not unlike the Mediterranean Sky painted on the grand concourse’s ceiling).

Here is the 1913 recording sung by Henry Burr:

Last Night Was the End of the World

The first seven notes of the song’s punch-line towards the end (“My dream is o’er, to live no more, last”) are B, D, D-sharp, F-sharp, E, C, and A. Taking this recording (or making my own based on whatever the copyright laws permit!), I will digitally augment these notes (“time stretch”) and use them as a slow reoccurring melodic span throughout the movement. To make things blend with the ensemble, I plan on pairing this “fixed-media” idée fixe with the horn at the unison.

At the same time, the chords that support this fragment of the tune (Gmaj, Bdom7, Cmaj, Amin) will also make an appearance, but spaced so sporadically as to obscure the original progression.

Oh, and interweaved with all of that will be my original music, inspired of course by my experiences at Grand Central. The original music itself features short rhythmic gestures crudely derived from the architectural design of the grand concourse…so make way for triplets and quintuplets!

OK, well that about sums it up for now, thanks for reading!

My wife Elisa Ferrari and I were able to visit Grand Central last month, shortly before Xmas.  Elisa is a gifted musician and photographer, so I figured it would be a good idea to utilize her talents in my project!  We captured some great photos and videos while in New York.  In fact, I think I have more than enough multi-media material to work with!

Here’s an outline of the five movements:

I. Solari di Udine – Using video we captured of a departure flap board in Newark Penn Station (I’ll post some videos later on), I plan on “rhythmatizing” the board to create distinct pulses.  The ensemble will interact with the resulting texture, in ways that I will certainly need to experiment with.  I’d like to control the video playback using a live input feeding into Max/Msp/Jitter…we’ll see.  For those of you wondering, Solari di Udine is the name of the company that manufactures most departure boards.  Many analog boards are now long gone (except in Newark!) as digital interfaces become more commonplace.

II. Whisper – Next to the famous Oyster Bar, the Whisper Wall is a peculiar area where the acoustics of low ceramic arches cause a whisper to sound like a shout.  I can certainly verify that this is true, and quite strange.  This movement will prominently feature a delayed flute accompanied by a small subset of the ensemble.  As the movement progresses, the delay time will become shorter and shorter as sort of a representation of two lovers (or friends?) talking to each other from across the room.

III. Grand Stage – This will be the slow movement of the piece, and it will use footage we captured of the Grand Concourse.  I’ll go into more detail about my plan later, but essentially the concept revolves around a quote I read describing Grand Central: ”And then Grrrand Centrrral Staaation—crossroad of a million private lives, gigantic stage on which are played a thousand dramas, daily.”  When looking out at the thousands of people who walk through the Grand Concourse everyday, it certainly does appear to be a giant theater.  I also plan on incorporating a popular song from 1913 (the year GCT was opened to the public) into the melodic/harmonic structure…more on that later.

IV. Track Sixty-One – Very few people know the secret location of Track 61.  Used by president FDR as a way of getting into NYC without being subjected to a media circus (and also to hide his polio condition from the public), the underground track has an elevator that leads directly up to the Waldorf Astoria Hotel.  Over the years, the area has been used for different functions, including a party hosted by Andy Warhol in the ’60′s.  At the moment, I think this will be a strings only movement featuring some Max/Msp processing.

V. Iron Horse – A work about Grand Central isn’t complete without trains. Using melodic material derived from the name Grand Central (I’ll explain later!), this will be a fast movement that features projected imagines of…you guessed it, trains!

Over the next several months I will be working on my dissertation, which is a piece for chamber orchestra, live audio processing, and video projections.  Yes, it is as daunting as it sounds.  I’m starting this blog to share my progress, process, productivity, and whatever other p-words I can come up with along the way.

Lucky for me, my dissertation comes in the form of a commission from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, my undergraduate alma mater.  Every year, the Conservatory awards the Hoefer Prize to a SFCM alumnus and I received the 2012 prize.  Besides a commission from the SFCM New Music Ensemble, I’ll get to spend a week in San Francisco during the premiere in March of 2013.  I’ll work with the students, attend rehearsals, and make sure my Max/Msp patch isn’t ripping the fabric of time.

I hope you enjoy my posts, thanks for reading!