Here are a few highlights from our concerts in 2009, edited and produced by Gareth Paul Cox. Groanbox on January 28, 2009, featuring the works of David Bruce, Michael Ward-Bergeman, and John Adams. Glimpses on May 6, 2009, featuring the works of Vivian Fung, Jakub Ciupinski, and Cristina Spinei. New Music 101 on September 16, 2009, featuring the interactive works of Jakub Ciupinski. Reverb on November 19-20, 2009, featuring the works of Jakub Ciupinski, Vivian Fung, Erin Gee, and Cristina Spinei.
This post was written by Timo Andres, one of Metropolis Ensemble's featured composers in Spring 2010, for the upcoming Reverb concerts at (Le) Poisson Rouge.
For Cristina Spinei, writing music is inextricably linked to dance, her study of Brazilian folk music, and, at times, the sounds and rhythms of her commute on Metro-North railway ("Does that make me sound too much like a dorky composer?" she wonders aloud). Dork or not, Cristina hardly conforms to the stereotypically cloistered life of a composer. She's more likely to be found salsa dancing at the Copacabana or Sounds of Brazil, covertly taking notes on the bands she hears. "For me, the best way to learn about music is to participate in it."
Cristina studied composition at Juilliard, beginning when she was a teenager. She grew up listening not just to Latin dance music, but also to Italian opera; her favorite composer was Rossini (she attributes both tastes to a flair for the dramatic). Though her pieces exist as fully notated scores, she's refreshingly unconcerned about the details. "I'd rather the musicians be freed from the exact notation... and learn how to better embody the feel of it." This is contrary to much conservatory training. "Classically-trained musicians... aren't used to making something 'swing' or adding a certain amount of groove... they are so bound by wanting to execute precisely what the composer wants."
Perhaps for this reason, Cristina is happy to pick and chose from different worlds when she chooses musicians to write for. She befriended the members of Ogans, the Sounds of Brazil's house band, and has written for Meia Noite, who plays berimbau (a tall, single-stringed instrument resembling a bow and arrow with a resonating chamber). Malian kora player Toumani Diabate is another favorite. "I'd love to write a concerto around him... it's better to let the traditional player perform what they know and compose a piece around what they're playing."
Despite her conservatory training, Cristina's music shares more of the fundamental structure of jazz. Jolt, which she originally wrote for a small band of piano, percussion, bass, and traditional Brazilian instruments, moves along briskly in groove-based sections, including improvisatory episodes highlighting individual players' virtuosity. A new version, which will be premiered on Reverb, augments the band with strings and winds, creating a more concerto-like setting for the percussion and piano parts. But it's still far more salsa band than Rachmaninoff.
A teacher once voiced concern that Cristina's music was "always moving, it never sits still for a moment," imploring her to write something "calm, suspended." But staying in one place doesn't seem to come naturally; "So far," she says, "that hasn't happened."
With four completely different voices, the composers in our fall concert, REVERB, have summed up their thoughts on what new music can express. Here's some excerpts from the program notes.
I am not an ethnomusicologist and am less concerned with replicating anything akin to an exact version of these works than with the way I have internalized the shimmering harmonies and interlocking rhythms of their traditions into my own original voice.
My interest in integrating percussion with orchestra comes from varying sources, each stemming from dance. I constantly immersed myself in sounds that shared one common principal: rhythm as the driving force of music that inspires and compels movement.
Avant garde composers were trying to find new solutions by rejecting the past. They were really trying to find something new. Whereas our generation is trying to find something new by incorporating elements that already existed. So this is an entirely new philosophy.
And some parting thoughts from Metropolis Ensemble Music Director Andrew Cyr on his curation of this concert of commissions and premieres:
In getting to know these composers and the nuances of their compositional styles in the process of developing these new commissions, I realized over time that they shared something in common that I found to be artistically fascinating and vital: an open and deep curiosity for exploring diverse source material and developing new and highly individual systems of compositional techniques to absorb these modes of representation.
During the second semester of Youth Works, Metropolis Ensemble's 40-week education program teaching music composition and creativity to 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders at PS 11 School, Cristina Spinei has been concentrating our weekly lessons on rhythm. After learning about different rhythms and making our own percussion instruments, she thought it would be fun for the class to have a recording session.
Students performed rhythms that they composed and notated on instruments which they built themselves the week before. They constructed drums, shakers, and mallets out of everyday objects to better understand the various performance possibilities with percussion. One student even turned an ordinary drum into a maraca and added rubber bands to make it a "guitar." Everyone loved hearing their own music and performance on CD. At the end of the percussion solos, you will hear excerpts of The Sound Recyclers performing at their first "recording session."
Stay tuned for news about our year-end concert project this June at Youth Works, where Cristina will create an arrangement of the students' compositions to be premiered in a concert by the Metropolis Ensemble and offered to the entire PS 11 school community.
The Metropolis Ensemble would like to thank the van Otterloo Foundation for generously supporting our education initiatives, Youth Works and Wet Ink.
To say that Cristina Spinei's experience teaching for Metropolis Ensemble's Youth Works has been successful would be an understatement. Now halfway through this year's program at Public School 11 in Manhattan, Cristina wrote a report to capture some of the amazing progress her students are making.
Teaching at P.S. 11 for one semester has been exciting, challenging, and extremely rewarding. My students are imaginative and open to learning about music that they have had little exposure to. On the first day of class, I asked everyone to name a few composers. The responses I got were "Britney Spears, Jay-Z, Jennifer Lopez, 50 Cent, and Mozart." There was a lot of concern among the students that the music we were learning about would be written by "old dead guys" and would sound "old-fashioned." After the first month of lessons, the students were able to identify the music of Stravinsky, Tchaikovsky, Gershwin, Duke Ellington, Mozart, Vivaldi, and Wynton Marsalis.
From Brazilian percussion to Disney's Fantasia, Cristina has found some inventive and exciting ways to bring music and those "old dead guys" to life! At the end of the school year, Metropolis Ensemble will present a concert showcasing the students' work with Cristina. Read the full report (PDF)...
Metropolis Ensemble welcomes its 2007-08 Youth Works composer, Cristina Spinei. A Julliard masters student, Cristina will guide students at Manhattan's PS11 in our exciting composition class, culminating in a concert that showcases the students' work. Meet Cristina...
Metropolis Ensemble is dedicated to sharing artistic connections between emerging composers and performers with audiences in settings meant to inspire a new generation of music lovers. Learn more...
