Nickell’s Bag

For a town its size, Missoula boasts a pretty thriving arts community. It’s also a bike-friendly place to live. So an event that celebrates bikes through art sounds right up our alley.

Actually, it sounds like it’s coming right down the street, this Saturday.

That’s when the Missoula Art Museum will host a moving performance (pun intended) of Arizona composer Richard Lerman’s “Travelon Gamelan: Performance for Amplified Bicycles.” Organized in conjunction with Missoula’s Festival of Cycles and the kickoff of Bike Walk Week, the performance will feature six cyclists playing an elaborate composition that employs functioning bicycles as instruments.

“It’s a piece that explores some of the playfulness that can exist in contemporary experimental music,” said Lerman, who arrived in Missoula earlier this week to organize and rehearse the small orchestra of cyclists. “Having performed this piece many times, I’ve seen that it really helps to set the table for people to be able to get into more kinds of experimental music that might otherwise seem inaccessible.”

Indeed, if the number of performances is any reflection of the music’s true appeal, “Travelon Gamelan” could be the most notable piece of avant-garde music in American history. The music, written in 1978, has been heard around the world, in places as far-flung as Germany, Belgium, and New Zealand. In one festival alone – Canada’s Expo 86 – more than 250 performances were held.

“It’s basically my way of trying to bring contemporary music into a wider group, and get it out of the concert hall,” said Lerman. “It’s pretty exciting how many times it has ended up being performed.”

In fact, so successful was the original composition – which calls for six players to perform on three bicycles that are turned upside-down – that Lerman wrote a traveling version of the piece, to be performed while riding. Here’s an excerpt, from a performance in Germany:

Both versions of “Travelon Gamelan” will be performed in Missoula this weekend. At 10:30 Saturday morning, riders will depart from the Missoula Art Museum (335 N. Pattee) for a processional performance that will travel via a winding path to Bonner Park. At the park, the six musical riders will perform the concert version of the piece. (Those who wish to hear the traveling portion of the performance are encouraged to either ride along from the MAM – helmets are required — or keep an ear out at Bernice’s Bakery, where the procession will stop briefly to help celebrate the bakery’s 30^th anniversary.)

Though playful at heart, “Travelon Gamelan” is hardly just a goofy stunt. Lerman created his own specialized amplification devices to allow listeners to hear the various bicycle parts as they are plucked, bowed, or whacked. The music is written out in score form, and Lerman said it is not easy to play.

“In the first section of the piece, each player goes through a rhythmic solo section,” explained Lerman. “Then there’s a middle section that explores the other sounds on a bike — plucking a brake cable, banging on a tire — there’s all these other sounds explored. That section is very improvisatory, and then it ends with the bicycle spokes being played with a violin bow. In the final section, all the bikes play together; it’s very polyrhythmic, and the piece ends with the wheels being spun very quickly, like the end of a race.”

While such music would seem to fit perfectly with Missoula’s quirky cultural character, Lerman himself is the reason why “Travelon Gamelan” is here this weekend. During a visit to Missoula last summer, he noticed an exhibit at Fort Missoula about the famed 25th Infantry Bicycle Corps.

“I thought, how cool is that?” Lerman said. “It just seemed to make perfect sense to do the piece in a place where bicycles are such an interesting part of the local history.”

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