A tribute to Lou Reed took place on Saturday in New York, where performances were held, among others by Laurie Anderson, Anohni, Emily Haines, Mark Kozelek, Victoria Williams, John Cameron Mitchell and John Zorn.
The life and work of Lou Reed was celebrated with the day long memorial program The Bells: A Daylong Celebration of Lou Reed, curated by his wife and collaborator Laurie Anderson and his producer Hal Willner.
Actors and writes, among them Steve Buscemi, Willem Dafoe and Anne Waldman read Reeds poetry and lyrics, numerous films were shown, including Berlin, a documentary about Reeds concert that took place in Brooklyn in 2006., while at the Lincoln Center, the executive partner of the program, spectators had chance to see the installation Lou Reed DRONES with six of his guitars.
The final act of this day long memorial was the evening concert, which was opened by a joint performance of Laurie Anderson and John Zorn, the composer who is going to introduce the program John Zorn’s Bagatelles Marathon Sarajevo on 4 November at the Jazz Fest, where 12 ensembles will be performing a repertoire from his song book The Bagatelles.
Lou Reed died in October 2013 leaving an impressive opus behind him, consisting of 22 studio albums, 12 live albums, 15 compilations and music for 11 motion pictures as well as 15 films he played in, including numerous albums he released with the band The Velvet Undergound.
Many of the songs he wrote and performed have cult status, with Walk on the Wild Side being the most known of them. His albums Transformer and Berlin were included into Rolling Stone magazine’s list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.