Your host is Paul D. Lehrman
 Updated:
December 26, 2020

NOW ON THE WEB FOR 21 years!

  Another robotic Ballet mécanique, in Austria
A completely new robotic orchestra performing Ballet mécanique, designed and programmed by Winfried Ritsch, was exhibited at the Kunsthaus Museum in Graz, Austria, from June 27 through October 20, 2019.
Through the use of custom Vorsetzers and percussion robots, Ritsch was able to perform
the piece at a tempo close to Antheil's theoretical speed of 155 beats per minute!
Click here for more…
 
 

BALLET MECANIQUE at the MOVIES!

 
 

Now available on DVD, Blu-Ray, and your favorite streaming platform!

This award-winning "American Masters" film by Alexandra Dean tells the story of how George Antheil and Hedy Lamarr invented "frequency hopping," a concept that is basis of cellphone, WiFi, and Bluetooth!


Hedy Lamarr, the glamour icon whose ravishing visage was the inspiration for Snow White and Cat Woman, was a technological trailblazer who perfected a radio system to throw Nazi torpedoes off course during WWII.

Weaving interviews and clips with never-before-heard audio tapes of Hedy speaking on the record about her incredible life—from her beginnings as an Austrian Jewish emigre to her scandalous nude scene in the 1933 film Ecstasy to her glittering Hollywood life to her ground-breaking, but completely uncredited inventions, to her latter years when she became a recluse, impoverished and almost forgotten — BOMBSHELL: THE HEDY LAMARR STORY from Zeitgeist Films brings to light the story of an unusual and accomplished woman, spurned as too beautiful to be smart, but a role model to this day.

Watch the trailer…

 
 
Telly Bronze award

Film Fest New Haven
First prize


Int'l Festival
of Films on Science,
Budapest


the award-winning documentary film by Paul Lehrman & Ron Frank
Featured on
Now streaming on Amazon Direct Video!

•••Read the review from the late, lamented Boston •••
"A TERRIFIC FILM, perhaps the most original and interesting
independent documentary I have screened this year."
—WETA-TV
"A must-have for any music lover into off-the-beaten-track music."—Audiophile Audition
"A compelling look at a fascinating man—ESSENTIAL VIEWING for lovers of 20th-century music and a great introduction for those of us whose tastes are less noisily inclined." —NEFilm.com
"OUTSTANDING. Absolutely fascinating."The Boston Phoenix
"Stimulating, informative, TOTALLY ENTERTAINING. A well-made documentary which everyone interested in music must see."—The Audio Engineering Society
"DON'T MISS IT!"The Independent Film Monthly

Don't know what the Ballet mécanique is? Click here
or follow the hand for a tour of the history of this
INCREDIBLE
piece of musical multimedia…
This way...

Two award-winning film collections featuring the Ballet mécanique
Unseen Cinema & NEW! Masterworks of American Avant-Garde Experimental Film
"One of the major monuments of the DVD medium!"

"The must-have release of the year!"- FILM COMMENT
Winner, LOS ANGELES FILM CRITICS Special Citation

“This disc is certain to become a party record for technophiles, but just about everyone else will have fun too!”
says . Read the entire review

“If Holst's Mars was the bringer of war,
then Ballet Mécanique sounds like war itself.
says (UK). Read the entire review

“A hell of a racket, exciting and brutal at the same time.”
says ClassicalCDreview.com. Read the entire review

Now available! The CD of Ballet mécanique and Antheil's Jazz Symphonyfrom the Boston Modern Orchestra Project,
conducted by Gil Rose

reviewed in the November 2017 issue of Gramophone
(although they spelled his name wrong)
March 6-7, 2017
A mini-Festival @ Tufts University, Medford MA
featuring the US Premiere of a new arrangement
of the
legendary Ballet mécanique
for solo piano and acousmonium*…
*a stage full of loudspeakers

with a new 2K print of the Léger/Murphy film
Ballet mécanique


Download the poster and full program!

Second US Performance: March 9, 2017 @ Brown University, Providence, RI
Grant Recital Hall, Orwig Music Building

The North American premiere was on
April 21, 2016 at the Big Apple Jam! by the


Salle Pierre-Mercure / Centre Pierre-Péladeau
Montreal, Québec

But we bombed (so to speak) in Germany!!!
The world premiere of this new version was scheduled for October 24, 2013 at the SinusTon Festival, in Magdeburg, Germany
…but had to be postponed due to the discovery of a

1000-pound unexploded bomb
dropped by the Americans in World War II in the center of Magdeburg! Local authorities disarmed the bomb, and there were no injuries or damage.

The Festival's opening concert took place October 26.
Videos here and here
More about the bomb here…


More recent 
performances:
March 16-17, 2018
MECHANICAL BALLET
at the
New Zealand Festival
Wellington, March 16-17
November 26 , 2013 • Oporto, Portugal Drumming—Grupo de Percussào
live performance with the Léger/Murphy film
"It was a great adventure and pleasure to perform this work."
April 7, 2013 • Nashville, TN • VORTEX
live performance with the Léger/Murphy film
"Thunderous standing ovation!"
December 7, 2012 & March 13, 2013 • Brussels
in concert, and with the Léger/Murphy film
"Huge success! Beauty, purity and fun!"

Don't know what the Ballet mécanique is? Click here
or follow the hand for a tour of the history of this
INCREDIBLE
piece of musical multimedia…
This way...
Two award-winning film collections featuring the Ballet mécanique
Unseen Cinema & NEW! Masterworks of American Avant-Garde Experimental Film
"One of the major monuments of the DVD medium!"
-
"The must-have release of the year!"- FILM COMMENT
Winner, LOS ANGELES FILM CRITICS Special Citation
   

in England…
 
November 22, 2009
Antheil's rarely-heard 1925 Ballet mécanique—the single-pianola version—was performed by Anglia Sinfonia at Anglia Ruskin University's West Road Concert Hall, in Cambridge. The pianola soloist was the estimable Rex Lawson, and the conductor was Paul Jackson. Watch it on

in Buenos Aires…

November 18, 2009
The South American premiere of
Ballet mécanique
(the 1953 version) at the
Sala Casacuberta del Teatro San Martin

in Chicago…


Dada Machinations, at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance
"Termites running the asylum!…a spectacle hard to forget…giving the performance a primal intensity…Clutched the audience and didn't let go!"Chicago Sun-Times

THE BALLET MECANIQUE AUTOMATED ORCHESTRA!
with robots by the League of Electronic Musical Urban Robots

"A HAPPY RIOT" in WASHINGTON, DC…

In 2006, in conjunction with a huge exhibit on Dadaist art, the National Gallery of Art hosted the premiere of the Ballet mécanique Automated Orchestra, performing what the critics called "The best 10 minutes of free fun in Washington!"

WATCH THE VIDEO! plus PICTURES from the National Gallery



…Mécanique in MIAMI

The Ballet mécanique Automated Orchestra was again in residence in December 2007 at the Museum of Florida International University and was the smash hit of the world-famous ArtBasel Festival!

said: "This outrageous work is best experienced in unsafe mode, where its mechanistic ferocity and riotous noise can make full, deafening impact…"

• Read the great press coverage
• Watch videos from Miami's PBS Channel 2





…and New York: Frequency Hopping, a play by Elyse Singer about Hedy Lamarr and George Antheil
featuring The Ballet mécanique Automated Orchestra, playing an original score by Joshua Fried
along with selections from the Ballet mécanique • May-June 2008 at 3-Legged Dog Art & Technology Center in downtown Manhattan.

"Vivid…Inventive…Keenly intelligent!"
Ballet mécanique
was "a musical and visual treat. The combined craziness elicited an ecstatic ovation from the audience who packed the place, eager for this rare opportunity!"


"Stunning…gorgeous…one of the most technologically sophisticated theatre experiences one could imagine…snappy, spirited performances!"

MORE from …              


Everything's Relative



Spread Spectrum

More stars in the George Antheil universe…

Pianist extraordinaire Guy Livingston has released a CD on Wergo of George Antheil's "Lost Sonatas" featuring three world premieres! Here's an interview with Guy on 's Weekend Edition.

The TRUE story of the amazing "invention", by composer George Antheil and Hollywood legend Hedy Lamarr, of "spread-spectrum" technology—the basis of all wireless technology today!!
That and more science myths explored and exploded in this terrific book from Tony Rothman,
"Everything's Relative". Listen to a great interview with Tony on
's Weekend Edition.

A delightful new children's book, "George Antheil Gives a Concert, and the audience…" by Maine Artist Robert Lockwood

"Hedy's Folly" by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Rhodes, also tells the story of the Antheil/Lamarr collaboration.
A good read, but not well researched: despite what the book says, Antheil was not able to synchronize four pianolas at his 1927 Carnegie Hall concert!

The Del Sol String Quartet has released Antheil's complete string quartets, remarkable pieces from 1922 to 1948. Learn more from Other Minds.

Lisa Perkins's ongoing film project about Hedy Lamarr and George Antheil gets a wonderful behind-the-scenes write-up by Rob Walters in Writers in Oxford. And read Walters's book "Spread Spectrum" on Hedy and George.


"Ballet Mécanique: A Spread-Spectrum Ecstacy":
a multimedia poem/play
"Automystifstical Plaice" by John Matthias


Britannica We have received an Award from the Encyclopedia Britannica

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