The Brooklyn-Queens Expressway - so good, they wrote a symphony about it

Highways and driving feature heavily in popular song - from '60s surf groups to modern hip-hop - but how many roads get classical music written about them? Sufjan Stevens' The BQE is the honourable exception...
January 26, 2024

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.

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.

The BQE was called a "symphonic and cinematic exploration of New York City's infamous Brooklyn–Queens Expressway." 

The BQE was commissioned by the Brooklyn Academy of Music as part of their Next Wave Festival.

Related Content

  • Colorado DoT locates data-rich environment
    January 14, 2020
    Colorado DoT and Esri have been cooperating to unlock data’s potential. Jason Barnes finds out what that has to do with firing a howitzer at snowy mountains – and exactly why things that happened in the past point the way towards future proofing
    Read More
  • ITS America historic meeting welcomes industry leaders
    June 1, 2015
    Welcome to ITS America’s 25th Annual Meeting Anniversary in Pittsburgh! This historic silver anniversary brings together more than 2,000 of the nation’s top transportation and technology policymakers, business leaders, engineers, investors and researchers. The event’s theme – Bridges to Innovation – is appropriate in that the issues to be discussed and debated and the technologies on display are representative of how important ITS is to America’s – and the world’s – transportation future.
    Read More
  • Crash prevention systems improving rapidly says IIHS
    June 2, 2014
    According to its latest report, less than a year into a new Insurance |Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) ratings program for front crash prevention, auto manufacturers are making strides in adopting the most beneficial systems with automatic braking capabilities and are offering the features on a wider variety of models. Twenty-one of 24 cars and SUVs, all 2014 models unless noted, earn an advanced or higher rating in the latest round of IIHS evaluations. "We are already seeing improvements from automaker
    Read More
  • Taking the long term view to toll safety, adopting new technology
    July 17, 2012
    OmniAir's Tim McGuckin takes a look at what happens when a tolling authority makes safety its principal operating criterion. The bottom - line effects, he says, are not as onerous as one might think. Replacing an existing 915MHz-based Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) system with a new 915MHz system for toll collection is - from a technology standpoint - comparable to trading in your 1999 high-mileage Buick for another 1999 Buick with '0' on the odometer.
    Read More

Highlighted Content