Frederic Rzewski Archives - Infrasonic Press

Wooden Cities’ WORK featured in Bandcamp Daily

July 29, 2021 by infrasonicpress

Bandcamp, Frederic Rzewski, Wooden Cities, WORK

Wooden Cities‘ recording of The Price of Oil has been featured in Bandcamp Daily!⁠
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Writer George Grella profiles a number of recordings of works by the recently-deceased composer, Frederic Rzewski, saying of Wooden Cities’ recording:⁠
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“Rzewski never wrote an opera, though his catalogue includes two pieces described as “stage” works. He used text and spoken word so frequently, though, along with his fundamental sensibility for expressive—even narrative—music, that much of his work can be read as musical drama. The Price of Oil might be the nearest he came to straight drama, telling a narrative story through different characters. Written for two speakers and an open number of instruments, this piece tells the story of an oil rig disaster from 1980. Rzewski put together the libretto from newspaper stories and interviews with people involved. In this Harry Partch-esque performance from new music group Wooden Cities, one hears the hammering of mechanization driving home the real price of oil, which has less to do with dollars per barrel than the amount of money a company will pay to the family of a worker killed by drowning, explosion, or some other industrial means. Wooden Cities also recorded Julius Eastman’s wonderful Stay On It for this album, a perfect follow-up to Rzewski’s call to arms.”⁠

Check out the rest of the article for profiles on more recordings.

WORK Free Online Screening

October 23, 2020 by infrasonicpress

Film, News, Wooden Cities

Buffalo Documentary Project, Cornelius Cardew, Frederic Rzewski, Mani Mehrvarz, Maryam Muliaee, Wooden Cities, WORK

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 director Mani 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.

WORK is now publicly screening for free online at the Buffalo Documentary Project’s website.

produced by Buffalo Documentary Project and Wooden Cities
co-producer Morris Scholarship and Fellowship Fund
sponsored by UB Arts Collaboratory
director Mani Mehrvarz
music Wooden Cities
animation Maryam Muliaee
featuring Brendan Fitzgerald, Megan Kyle, Ethan Hayden, Nicholas Emmanuel, Evan Courtin & Katie Weissman

WORK release

April 19, 2019 by infrasonicpress

New Releases, News, Wooden Cities

Cornelius Cardew, Frederic Rzewski, Julius Eastman, Wooden Cities, WORK

After 8 years of performing, touring, and experimenting, Buffalo-based new music collective Wooden Cities has released their first album, WORK. Formed 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.

Their debut album grapples with issues of labor, justice, and workplace democracy, and features pieces by composers associated with Buffalo’s Center of the Creative and Performing Arts in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The record opens with Cornelius Cardew’s Red Flag Prelude, an elegiac commemoration of the martyrs of the early 20th century labor movement.

The album’s centerpiece is Frederic Rzewski’s The Price of Oil, inspired by a 1980 disaster in which an oil drilling platform in the North Sea capsized, leading to the deaths of 139 people. The quasi-theatrical piece, performed by a dozen musicians playing a battery of homemade percussion instruments, features two speaking characters (the “dealer” and the “worker”), each of whom comment on the tragedy from their own opposing perspectives.

Closing out the record is Julius Eastman’s Stay On It, a fusion of Afro-Carribean dance rhythms and 1970s minimalism which grants ensemble members significant freedom to improvise and to choose when / how the piece will move forward. As a fundamentally multi-cultural and participatory piece, Stay On It potentially offers a glimpse at a more egalitarian, democratic approach to work.

WORK is the first in a trilogy of albums (WORK/PLAY/REST) Wooden Cities will release over the coming years. We are also eagerly anticipating the premiere of the eponymous film about the recording process made by Mani Mehrvarz of the Buffalo Documentary Project.