The Bridge Music installation begins its fifth season April 1 as a public sound-art installation. Its sister project in Paris, Tower Music on the Eiffel Tower, is in the composition stage and will be ready by the end of 2014.
Launched during the 400th anniversary celebrations in 2009 of Henry Hudson’s voyage up the Hudson River, Bridge Music was created by recording the sounds of bridge’s surfaces (guard rails, girders, etc.) with various mallets and using those sounds to compose new works, making the Mid Hudson Bridge the largest percussion instrument in the world. These performances of the bridge’s sounds are what one hears at the Listening Stations and on the park radios, transmitting at 95.3FM. The music contains no other tones than those of the bridge itself.
Photo c 2009 Blue Wings Press
Photo c 2010 Ed Thompson