Wooden Cities is both an ensemble and a collective of performers and composers seeking to help increase the performance and awareness of contemporary music in the Western New York area through unique concerts and educational presentations. Formed by director Brendan Fitzgerald in 2011 as a structured improv orchestra, the ensemble has since garnered a reputation for their dynamic performances of both improvised and notated works of new and experimental music from a wide variety of composers. In 2019, Wooden Cities released its first album, WORK, which features works by Cornelius Cardew, Julius Eastman, and Frederic Rzewski. 2020 saw the release of the eponymous documentary about the album, made by the Buffalo Documentary Project. They’ve just released their second album, PLAY, featuring whimsical chamber improvisations and absurdist sound poetry.
WORK
producers Buffalo Documentary Project and Wooden Cities
co-producer Morris Scholarship and Fellowship Fund
co-producer Infrasonic Press
sponsor UB Arts Collaboratory
director Mani Mehrvarz
animation Maryam Muliaee
music Wooden Cities
WORK documents the recording process of the first in a trilogy of albums by the Buffalo-based new music ensemble, Wooden Cities, grappling with issues of labor, environmental justice, and workplace democracy. The 56-minute documentary features footage captured during the ensemble’s summer 2018 recording sessions, as well as Mehrvarz’s interviews with the musicians and ensemble director Brendan Fitzgerald. The film also includes animations of two sections of the recorded premiere of Frederic Rzewski’s The Price of Oil, made using stop motion techniques and consisting of over 80,000 frames. Also featured are Cornelius Cardew’s Red Flag Prelude—an elegiac commemoration of the martyrs of the early labor movement—and Wooden Cities’ Chain Gang, a dynamic, structured improvisation.
More info can be found on the Buffalo Documentary Project‘s site.