Released October 20, 2009 Label Rough Trade Records | Length 40:16 Release date 20 October 2009 | |
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The BQE(2009) All Delighted People EP(2010) Genres Indie folk, Classical music Similar Sufjan Stevens albums, Indie folk albums, Other albums | ||
The bqe a film by sufjan stevens
The BQE is a mixed-medium artistic exploration of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway by Sufjan Stevens. The project originally manifested in the form of a live show, performed on November 1–3, 2007. The show consisted of an original film, directed and written by Stevens, accompanied by an orchestra performing a live soundtrack.
Contents
The album recording was made after the rehearsals for the show. It was recorded live during a one-day session in Legacy Studios' A509 orchestral suite (since closed and demolished) with most of the group in the same large room together.
A multimedia package of The BQE was released on October 20, 2009. The set consists of a CD of the show's soundtrack, a DVD of Brooklyn-Queen Expressway footage that accompanied the original performance (not a film of the performance itself), a 40-page booklet with liner notes and photos, and a stereoscopic 3D View-Master reel. There is also a limited edition version that features the soundtrack on 180-gram vinyl and a 40-page BQE-themed comic book starring the show's hula-hooping wonder women, The Hooper Heroes.
Regarding The BQE, Stevens said:
I intended to create a non-personal, non-narrative piece. I tried to reduce my own personal investment as much as possible, and I refused to incorporate one of my strengths, which is the song. I was relinquishing my greatest weapon.
Sufjan stevens movement iii the bqe
Personnel
Ballet
BQE is the basis of the San Francisco Ballet's In the Countenance of Kings choreographed by Justin Peck which premiered April 12, 2016.