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

  • IBTTA 2021 Toll Excellence winners: in full
    September 21, 2021
    MTA Bridges & Tunnels and Oklahoma Turnpike Authority were among six winners
    Read More
  • Cost benefit: Toronto retimings tame traffic trauma
    July 11, 2018
    Canada’s largest city reckons that it is saving its taxpayers’ money simply by altering the way traffic lights work. David Crawford reviews Toronto’s ambitious plans to ease congestion. Toronto, Canada’s largest metropolis (and the fourth largest in North America), has saved its residents CAN$53 (US$42.4) for every CAN$1 (US$0.80) spent over a 2012-2016 traffic signal retiming programme, according to figures released by its Transportation Services Division. The programme covered 1,275 signals (the city’s to
    Read More
  • Cost benefit: Toronto retimings tame traffic trauma
    July 19, 2018
    Canada’s largest city reckons that it is saving its taxpayers’ money simply by altering the way traffic lights work. David Crawford reviews Toronto’s ambitious plans to ease congestion Toronto, Canada’s largest metropolis (and the fourth largest in North America), has saved its residents CAN$53 (US$42.4) for every CAN$1 (US$0.80) spent over a 2012-2016 traffic signal retiming programme, according to figures released by its Transportation Services Division. The programme covered 1,275 signals (the city’s
    Read More
  • Frequency changes threaten vehicle safety applications
    January 24, 2012
    The use of frequency spectrum at 5.9GHz for vehicle safety applications is at risk because of two draft bills currently before Congress. Here, we look at why and what’s being done to address the issue. In the US, the right of cooperative infrastructure to use frequency at 5.9GHz is under threat as a result of the proposal of two bills in Congress. The chronology of spectrum allocation for Dedicated Short- Range Communications (DSRC)-based Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) and Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) safety a
    Read More

Highlighted Content