Alan Pierson, Brooklyn Village
Brooklyn Village is a multimedia performance event created by Alan Pierson connecting the earliest days of Brooklyn to the present moment. Inspired by Francis Guy’s 1820 painting “Winter Scene in Brooklyn,” the concert juxtaposes music by Beethoven and Copland, with new commissioned by Brooklyn composers Matt Mehlan, Sufjan Stevens, and David T. Little.
ReviewsNEW YORK TIMES - Steve Smith
"...“Brooklyn Village” was irresistible, suffused with conviction and ennobling warmth. To witness it was to feel a part of it." "“Brooklyn Village,” ... is not only the orchestra’s most ambitious step toward those goals, but also its most visionary undertaking in recent memory." THE BROOKLYN RAIL - George Grella "However hard it might have been for conductor Alan Pierson and the orchestra to find the particular meaning in each piece of music on the program and stitch them together into a coherent whole, the directness and clarity of each gesture made it seem the simplest thing in the world, and made the concert into a transformative event, far beyond what other orchestras have imagined." |
Winter in Brooklyn
Francis Guy 
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Notable Performances
Roulette Intermedium, Brooklyn, NY
2012
2012
From the Creator
Wherever I’ve lived, I’ve been fascinated by the connection between past and present, and the ways in which people and structures long gone shape the modern city. As such, I was mesmerized by my first encounter with Francis Guy’s 1820 painting, Winter Scene in Brooklyn, at the Brooklyn Museum. Through his studio window at 11 Front Street, Guy painted his neighborhood and his neighbors: Abiel Titus, feeding his chickens by his barnyard; butcher Jacob Patchen, strolling with a leg of mutton; carpenter Benjamin Meeker standing with his tools… But while the streets in the painting were familiar, every person and building in the painting was long gone, this entire quaint riverside village demolished to make way for the Brooklyn Bridge and the vast interconnected metropolis we live in today.
This gulf between Francis Guy’s Brooklyn and the modern borough whose orchestra I led was the inspiration for Brooklyn Village, a time-travelling theatrical concert for the Brooklyn Philharmonic, combining storytelling with new and existing music by Brooklyn’s great composers of all stripes: Aaron Copland, David T. Little, Sufjan Stevens, Sarah Kirkland Snider, and Matthew Mehlan.
Collaborating with librettist Royce Vavrek, I created an immersive, participatory event, which places the audience at a 19th century town meeting in a church from Francis Guy’s Brooklyn, about to be torn down to make way for the great bridge. Feelings run high, and the audience joins in for some communal hymn singing, led by the Brooklyn Youth Chorus. Walt Whitman, whose iconic “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” poem imagines a conversation between Brooklynites across the generations, becomes our tour guide; and Francis Guy’s painting comes to life, finding itself uncomfortably out of place in our modern moment. The event ends in a haunting chant from the David T. Little work commissioned for the occasion: “an intersection of times.”
This gulf between Francis Guy’s Brooklyn and the modern borough whose orchestra I led was the inspiration for Brooklyn Village, a time-travelling theatrical concert for the Brooklyn Philharmonic, combining storytelling with new and existing music by Brooklyn’s great composers of all stripes: Aaron Copland, David T. Little, Sufjan Stevens, Sarah Kirkland Snider, and Matthew Mehlan.
Collaborating with librettist Royce Vavrek, I created an immersive, participatory event, which places the audience at a 19th century town meeting in a church from Francis Guy’s Brooklyn, about to be torn down to make way for the great bridge. Feelings run high, and the audience joins in for some communal hymn singing, led by the Brooklyn Youth Chorus. Walt Whitman, whose iconic “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” poem imagines a conversation between Brooklynites across the generations, becomes our tour guide; and Francis Guy’s painting comes to life, finding itself uncomfortably out of place in our modern moment. The event ends in a haunting chant from the David T. Little work commissioned for the occasion: “an intersection of times.”
Credits
composers Matt Mehlan, David T. Little, Sufjan Stevens
Aaron Copland, Ludwig van Beethoven, Sarah Kirkland Snider
ensembles Brooklyn Philharmonic & Brooklyn Youth Chorus
director & creator Alan Pierson
producer Beth Morrison Projects
director Ted Sperling
performed by Brooklyn Philharmonic
Aaron Copland, Ludwig van Beethoven, Sarah Kirkland Snider
ensembles Brooklyn Philharmonic & Brooklyn Youth Chorus
director & creator Alan Pierson
producer Beth Morrison Projects
director Ted Sperling
performed by Brooklyn Philharmonic