Andrew Cyr — Metropolis Ensemble

Founder / Artistic Director

GRAMMY-nominated conductor Andrew Cyr is a leader in the rapidly growing contemporary music scene. His enthusiasm for connecting the outstanding musicians and composers of the new generation to today's audiences led him to create Metropolis Ensemble in 2006. Through passionate performances, innovative programming, the fostering, commissioning, and advocacy of emerging composers and performers, and leading a wide variety of community engagement and education initiatives, Cyr displays the scope and potential of today's freshest voices in composition and performance to attract and inspire new and diverse audiences.

Under Cyr's leadership, Metropolis Ensemble has become one of NYC's most prolific incubators of new talent, commissioning over 450 works—primarily by early-career composers—and establishing itself as a nationally recognized model for artist-driven innovation. The ensemble has garnered prestigious GRAMMY recognition with two nominations—Best Solo Instrumental Performance (2010) for Avner Dorman: Mandolin Concerto featuring Avi Avital under Cyr's baton, and Best Engineered Album, Classical (2025) for Timo Andres: The Blind Banister—plus inclusion in David Frost's Producer of the Year GRAMMY win (2014) for Timo Andres' Home Stretch.

Recent critical acclaim includes The New York Times naming Christopher Cerrone's "In a Grove" (co-presented with Prototype Festival) as "the highlight of this year's Prototype Festival," praising "Metropolis Ensemble's shimmering performance" in their Best Classical Music of 2025, So Far. The ensemble's discography continues earning prestigious recognition—The Blind Banister (2024) appeared on Best of the Year lists from The New York Times, NPR Music, and Gramophone, while In a Grove was named one of The New York Times' Best Classical Recordings of 2023.

Cyr's work as conductor has been described by Esa-Pekka Salonen (Conductor, London Philharmonia) as "...precise, rhythmically incisive and fluid. He made complex new pieces sound natural and organic. What a pleasure it is to hear new music played with the same kind of panache and bravura we usually experience only in performances of standard repertoire." The Washington Post has praised Cyr as "a prominent influence in the world of newly emerging music," noting that he "led the players with tasteful panache, emphasizing the fluidity of the music" and conducted "with driven, but elegant force."

Cyr has led Metropolis Ensemble in performances at BAM's Howard Gilman Opera House (in collaboration with Questlove and The Roots), Radio City Music Hall, Carnegie Hall's Weill Music Institute, The New Victory Theatre (42nd and Broadway), and made his debut with the Wordless Music Series in 2008, sharing the stage with indie-rock sensation Deerhoof and conducting a remix of The Rite of Spring to a live audience of 10,000 people in Brooklyn's Prospect Park, broadcast live on National Public Radio. Under his direction, Metropolis has been featured three times at BAM's Next Wave, including the internationally acclaimed Bangsokol: A Requiem for Cambodia, which toured to Paris, Melbourne, Cambodia, Taiwan, Boston, and Montreal. For the Montreal premiere at Place des Arts, Cyr conducted members of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, with Le Petit Journal praising his "fine listening and artistic humility," noting how "under his sober but assured gestures, these universes linked without clashing" and describing his direction as achieving "true cohabitation" where "musical fusion became spiritual fusion."

Cyr's pioneering cross-genre collaborations include the 2025 World Premiere of iconic jazz innovator Roscoe Mitchell's Metropolis Trilogy at Houston's DACAMERA, featuring Emi Ferguson, Immanuel Wilkins Quartet, and Ruckus. His commitment to long-term artist development is exemplified by the decade-long incubation of Christopher Cerrone's acclaimed In a Grove, shepherding the work through workshops, recordings, and residencies at 1 Rivington, Mass MoCA, ALT, and Morgan Library to its celebrated premiere.

Guest appearances have included his debut conducting the Colorado Symphony in January of 2013 and in 2011, Cyr made his Kimmel Center Verizon Hall debut as part of Philadelphia's International Festival of the Arts, appearing with Questlove from The Roots. In the spring of 2013, Cyr made his professional opera debut conducting David Bruce's new score, The Firework Maker's Daughter, at New Victory Theatre. In 2017, Cyr made his Australian debut at Melbourne's Hamer Hall, and in 2018, his European debut at Cité de la Musique, Paris, France. In 2019, he conducted at Cork, Ireland's Sounds from a Safe Harbour Festival. Other notable appearances include Radio City Music Hall and Montreal's Place des Arts.

In response to the pandemic, Cyr launched Biophony (in partnership with NYC DOT), transforming crisis response into permanent infrastructure for musical equity. This community-centered initiative has grown into an annual citywide festival that has commissioned 55 new works, employed over 650 NYC musicians, and reached 30,000+ audience members through 125+ free performances in plazas and public spaces—bringing professional-quality concerts to historically underserved neighborhoods while reimagining civic space as cultural space.

Cyr's first album with Metropolis Ensemble earned him a GRAMMY nomination in 2010 (53rd Annual Grammy Awards), along with mandolinist Avi Avital (soloist) for Avner Dorman's Mandolin Concerto, released on the NAXOS label in collaboration with GRAMMY-winner "Classical Producer of the Year" David Frost. His album Dreamscapes, featuring the music of Canadian-born composer Vivian Fung, garnered Canada's prestigious JUNO Award in spring of 2013 for Best Classical Composition (Violin Concerto, Kristin Lee, soloist). Their critically acclaimed discography now spans prestigious labels Nonesuch, New Amsterdam, Naxos, and Merge.

Cyr has been an early champion and advocate for many now-rising stars and recent award winners in the composition world including Timothy Andres, David Bruce, Vivian Fung, Anna Clyne, Du Yun, Avner Dorman, Erin Gee, Kati Agocs, Enrico Chapela, Caroline Shaw, Jakub Ciupinski, Elliot Cole, Ryan Francis, Gity Razaz, Ricardo Romaneiro, Cristina Spinei, Sarah Kirkland Snider, Matthew Evan Taylor, Tyondai Braxton, and many others.

Cyr has collaborated with a number of major international performing artists who defy classification, including Oscar and GRAMMY-winning composer, artist, and conductor Tan Dun, Questlove and The Roots, Oscar-nominated filmmaker Rithy Pahn, indie-rock sensations Emily Wells, David Babin (BabX), San Fermin, Deerhoof, Caroline Rose, and Wye Oak, 6-time GRAMMY-winner Silas Brown, 3-time GRAMMY-winning Producer of the Year David Frost, jazz artists Immanuel Wilkins and Matthew Evan Taylor, Berlin-based mandolinist Avi Avital, sopranos Hila Plitmann, Kiera Duffy, Kate Lindsay, and Mikaela Bennett, creative musicians Erik Hall and Roscoe Mitchell, and Icelandic performance artist Ragnar Kjartansson.

Cyr is a native of Fort Kent, Maine, and has attended Bates College (Ethnomusicology/French), the French National Conservatory in Nantes, France (Etudes Supérieures, trumpet), and Westminster Choir College (Choral Conducting and Organ Performance). A pipe organist by training, Cyr has held positions at Saint Thomas More, NY, NY (associate organist) and Our Lady of Grace Church, Hoboken, NJ (organist). His primary musical mentors include Dr. Joseph Flummerfelt, Kenneth Kiesler, Pierre Grandmaison, Stefan Engels, Marion Anderson, Harvey Burgett, and Kynan Johns.