Sufjan Stevens's symphony for New York

THE BROOKLYN-QUEENS EXPRESSWAY is a miserable stretch of road. The BQE, as New Yorkers call it, has narrow lanes, no hard shoulder, countless potholes, and is usually one long traffic jam. As sources of artistic inspiration go, it's an unlikely one; but when eccentric singer-songwriter Sufjan Stevens was commissioned by the Brooklyn Academy of Music to write a symphony about the city he calls home, he immediately turned to this crumbling concrete flyover.