Michael Gordon

A meditation on the human quest to transcend physicality, constructed from decaying archival footage and set to an original symphonic score.

Drawing from a passage from the Rosh Hashana Service, “Who shall live, who shall die… who by water, who by fire,” this short film deals with that which has been preordained—a future history that will in time unfold before us as the faces of passengers on a ship forces us to contemplate our own fate.

The film The Unchanging Sea (2018) was inspired by the discovery of a decaying print of DW Griffith's The Unchanging Sea (1910) in the nitrate vaults of the Library of Congress. Taking this ancient title as its point of departure, a new narrative was re-assembled from a variety of similarly ancient films about going off to, and returning from, the Sea. The characters in these old films appear to be emerging from the roiling oceans of Time, having floated like messages in bottles for over one hundred years, and now having washed up on our shores to tell us their stories.

A self-explanatory film by Bill Morrison, with music by Michael Gordon, performed by the Young People’s Chorus of New York City.

A scene from The Bells (1926) is optically reprinted and edited to Michael Gordon's 7 minute composition. A meditation on the fleeting nature of life and love, as seen through the roiling emulsion of a film.

An early Bill Morrison short, in this work he traverses an urban landscape utilizing high contrast black and white footage. The bustling nature of the setting is complimented by the energetic music by Michael Gordon.

Divided into three sections, Bill Morrison's The Highwater Trilogy examines our relationship to the threat of natural disaster by combining archival footage of icebergs, hurricanes, and floods with a soundtrack by David Lang and Michael Gordon.

A brief overview and focus on composers Philip Glass, Julia Wolfe, John Cage, Steve Reich, Elliott Carter and their contemporaries.