Centre Bridge (dark river)

Centre bridge (dark river) was commissioned by the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra for a concert of chamber music by women composers in March, 2001. The tape part is dominated by the recorded sounds of the Delaware River, while the strings play sustained tones.

Paul M. Somers, in his review of the orchestral version of the piece, described it as "gently spiritual. The effect is that of an American Arvo Pärt: angelic string sounds, repetitions with direction, 'bells' in the air, and the evocation of a mystical landscape."

A recording of Centre Bridge (dark river) is available on my CD Centre Bridge from Mode Records

Site for Centre bridge (dark river) at the AMC Online Library (includes an audio excerpt and and excerpt of the score)

Centre Bridge is one of several bridges that cross the Delaware river, connecting New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Its ends are located in Stockton, NJ, and Solebury Township, PA. The surface of the bridge is a metal grating, and as cars move across it, they generate singing tones that rise and fall.

Centre Bridge (dark river) is the second piece that I've written about this bridge. In both pieces, I made recordings of the traffic on it, and then used what I heard to shape the pitches and timing of the music. In Centre Bridge (dark river), I particularly wanted to address the transforming power of the bridge. When you're walking across it, you really are transported to a different world: not on land, or in the air, on in the water, but a place suspended between all of these different realities. The bridge transforms the sound of traffic into a kind of music: into something beautiful and almost sentient. And when you are back on land, your hearing is changed: when cars pass by on the street, you still hear in their sounds the singing of the cars on the bridge.

The "dark river" of the title is, of course, the Delaware. When I went to make the recordings for this piece, it was just after a series of heavy rains. The river was very high and forceful, and this made it seem dark and even frightening. Still, to me, there is something in its presence that is always deeply comforting.

Centre Bridge (dark river) was commissioned by the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra.

An excerpt of the piece is available for download at the AMC Online Library here.

An excerpt of the score is also available in PDF format at the AMC Online Library here.

On Mode Records: Centre Bridge.