by Michael Gordon I started writing Van Gogh because of my total love and obsession with the letters Vincent Van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo. I made trips to Holland and Southern France, Arles and St. Remy, to explore and get the vibe of the area. I started working on these songs in the late 1980s. I wrote Borinage first and used to sing it myself. The piece developed into a theater work and a collaboration with a video artist, and the early presentations of the piece were called "Van Gogh Video Opera."There were two complete original performances of the piece with video, one in Vienna and one in New York. There was a long lag between the early performances in the 1990s and Fall 2003, when the Crash Ensemble did it in Dublin without the video part, which I had eliminated. I re-orchestrated the piece for that performance, adding 3 instruments (cello, bass, piano). Alarm Will Sound played that version of the piece in New York in April 2005 at...