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Audio Heroes: Tonight’s orchestral tribute to David Bowie at MIT will be live-streamed

This weekend in Cambridge features two can’t-miss tributes to the late David Bowie. Tonight, Massachusetts Institute of Technology presents its MIT Music and Theater Arts’ “Orchestral Tribute to David Bowie”, a sold-out symphony performance of two Philip Glass compositions at Kresge Auditorium, and tomorrow night things go underground for the long-awaited Heroes dance party, “Ashes To Ashes”, with veteran DJ Chris Ewen at the Middle East Downstairs.

Now there is good news for those who know when to go out — and when to stay in.

In case you missed scoring tickets to tonight’s MIT performance, or if you don’t live in Massachusetts, fear not, as the event will be broadcast live on New York radio station WQXR.org. The Q2 stream goes live around 7 p.m.

At Kresge, an all-volunteer orchestra will perform the two Glass symphonies based around Bowie records, Symphony No. 1, “Low”, and Symphony No. 4, “Heroes”. Composer and MIT professor Evan Ziporyn leads the performance, and reports are that there will be a “Let’s Dance” arrangement to conclude the evening.

“This is a way for the musical community of Boston to channel our grief and express our gratitude to Bowie in a positive way,” says Ziporyn, who organized the event, via WQXR. “The generosity of these top-notch musicians has been incredible, putting their time and talent toward this project on extremely short notice. It took less than a day to put an entire orchestra together, and that’s a real testament, both to Bowie’s impact and to the spirit of our community.”

Writes Glass of his symphonic tributes to Bowie, which were created in the ’90s: “My approach was to treat the [Bowie and Eno] themes very much as if they were my own and allow their transformations to follow my own compositional bent when possible. In practice, however, Bowie and Eno’s music certainly influenced how I worked, leading me to sometimes surprising music conclusions. In the end I think I arrived at something of a real collaboration between my music and theirs.”

Proceeds from tonight’s event will go the Frontier Research Fund for cancer research at MIT.

An Orchestral Tribute to David Bowie:: Friday, January 29 at the Kresge Auditorium, 84 Massachusetts Ave. in Cambridge, MA :: 7 p.m., all ages, $15 :: Tickets :: Facebook event page :: Advance tickets