William Tyler: "Corduroy Roads"

Duke Performances has commissioned the exceptional solo guitarist William Tyler -- who occupies the musical intersection of John Fahey and Bill Frisell -- to make a new performance that reflects on the lingering legacy of the Civil War. In the piece, Corduroy Roads, Tyler creates a soundtrack to accompany extraordinary photographs of the Civil War taken by George Barnard and Alexander Gardner, 150-year-old artifacts that have recently been acquired by Duke University Libraries. Tyler's piece offers a contemporary narrative on the distant past, as Barnard and Gardner's photographs are joined with images of the South through the Great Depression and into the present day.Corduroy Roads will be performed for an intimate audience at the new Shadowbox in Durham's Golden Belt District. Join us for the premiere of this important new project by Tyler, whose debut solo release Behold the Spirit was lauded by Pitchfork as "the most vital, energized album by an American solo guitarist in a decade or more."