Project in Development

Recording Matthew Evan Taylor’s evening-length work at The Met

Coming 2024 on Parma Recordings, Metropolis and MetLiveArts are preparing the release of their co-commissioned work, Life Returns, from composer Matthew Evan Taylor. Life Returns premiered at our March 2022 concert at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the culminating performance from our Postcards to The Met video series in 2021-22.

The recording will feature a specially formed hybrid orchestra, including vocalist Ganavya, Rajna Swaminatan’s RAJAS Ensemble, and Metropolis artists.

WATCH: the digital premiere of “Life Returns” performed at The Met on February 14, 2023.

Matthew Evan Taylor

Composer and saxophonist Matthew Evan Taylor (1980) has been hailed as “a promising new voice” (Miami Herald) and a “risk taker” (Huffington Post) whose music is “insistent and defiant ... envelopingly hypnotic” (Lucid Culture). A southern kid who worshiped at the altar of Cannonball Adderly, Ornette Coleman, Carla Bley and Charles Mingus, Matthew’s music has been performed across the United States and Europe. His most recent project, New Century | New Voices, is a concert series in Middlebury, Vermont celebrating the continued contributions of women and composers of color to the classical music canon. The inaugural season, which began in January 2019, included collaborations with composers Carlos Simon, Marcos Balter, and Gabriela Lena Frank and the Vermont- based new music ensemble TURNmusic. Matthew is Assistant Professor of Music at Middlebury College in Vermont. More »