Credits
Matthew Evan Taylor, composition and saxophone
Kallie Sugatski, viola
Laura Andrade, cello
Aaron Wolff, cello
Developed and produced by Metropolis Ensemble
Andrew Cyr, Founder/Artistic Director
Videography: Sam Kann
Editor: Christopher Botta
Juniper Creative LLC, Art
Commissioned and produced by The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Department of Live Arts
This program is made possible by the Adrienne Arsht Fund for Resilience through Art.
Matthew Evan Taylor: Postcards to The Met
Postcard 11: January 2022
Postcard 11 was filmed in Chesterfield, MA on May 10, 2021 and Pittsburgh, PA and New York, NY on January 22-24, 2022.
Each overlaid video featured in January’s Postcard shows a different environment: Matthew Evan Taylor plays saxophone at the edge of a busy creek, while Metropolis Ensemble cellists Laura Andrade and Aaron Wolff and violist Kallie Sugatski each play from cozy, indoor places. It’s a juxtaposition of the different parts of wintertime—indoor retreats, and creeks that still gurgle underneath their frozen shell.
This is the first Postcard Taylor wrote after completing Life Returns, his concert piece that will premiere in March at the Met. He brought a few ideas from Life Returns to write Postcard 11. In particular, he uses a simple rhythmic pattern from Life Returns that makes up the backbone of the postcard: It repeats and flips into different configurations throughout, interweaving each of the four parts into one lattice.
Taylor was thinking about the role of winter as a vital time, even though it’s one where things feel dormant, as he wrote Postcard 11. Every season is connected—Taylor notes that trees need summer to survive winter, and a cold winter with lots of snow on the ground leads to a fertile spring. Writing a year’s worth of Postcards has given him the chance to explore that connectivity and to highlight how the seasons all interact with each other. He illustrates these ideas in music that ranges from fast-paced brightness to desolate contemplations. Postcard 11 comes in the dead of winter, but in its meditative melodies there are still hints of life, much like the creek that still runs underneath a thick layer of ice.
Vanessa Ague
January 27, 2022
Program Notes
To Kallie, Laura, and Aaron;
At this juncture, we have seen the light at its dimmest.
The north is still and cold.
However, look just under the surface and vitality becomes evident.
A warm summer fortifies the tree for a frigid winter.
The snow preserved throughout the winter will melt
Nourishing vegetation and animals, new and old.
I sent my postcard to you from the banks of a raging river.
It’s covered in ice, but below, it still rages.
The cold has attenuated our activity,
But it has not ceased it.
Watch recent Postcards
