When “Ballet Mécanique” was given its world premiere in Paris in 1926, the onslaught of synchronized player pianos, airplane propellers, siren, electric bells, and percussion whipped the audience into an opening night frenzy. Some of the most prominent artists of the day began to throttle one another and rain fists upon their neighbors’ heads. Even in a city jaded by musical scandals (“The Rite of Spring” was unveiled there in 1913, sparking surely classical music’s most-discussed riot), “Ballet Mécanique” was something special.

The composer was George Antheil (pronounced “ANN-tile”), born in Trenton, New Jersey, in 1900. Antheil went on to pursue an unusually varied career, but he never could live down this masterpiece of the Machine Age. It is not for nothing that he titled his autobiography “Bad Boy of Music.”

This week, Trenton’s Bad Boy will make good, when he is embraced by his hometown orchestra, the New Jersey Capital Philharmonic Orchestra, under circumstances that will not soon be forgotten.

In a prime example of form following function, “Ballet Mécanique” will be the centerpiece of a kind of industrial vaudeville to be held at the Roebling Machine Shop, 675 South Clinton Avenue, in Trenton, on Saturday, April 20, at 7:30 p.m.

But that’s not all. There’s also John Cage, Lou Harrison, the Plenty Pepper Steel Band, and Trenton Circus Squad!

Read more about it in my article in this week’s U.S. 1 Newspaper – PrincetonInfo, available from local vending machines and at area business, or online, today.

https://www.communitynews.org/princetoninfo/artsandentertainment/george-antheil-and-a-marriage-of-music-industry/article_28e86b32-fbfb-11ee-ad9e-5f434e9d5447.html