Credits
Matthew Evan Taylor, composition and soprano saxophone
Mark Dover, bass clarinet
Developed and produced by Metropolis Ensemble
Andrew Cyr, Founder/Artistic Director
Videography: Sam Kann (Vermont), Christopher Botta (New York)
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 9: November 2021
Postcard 9 was filmed in Chesterfield, Massachusetts, July 10, 2021; and One Rivington / Candice Madey Gallery, New York City, November 23, 2021.
In Matthew Evan Taylor’s ninth Postcard, he presents a virtual collaboration with clarinetist Mark Dover. The two each recorded their parts separately, with Dover recording at Metropolis Ensemble’s 1 Rivington Space in New York and Taylor recording in Massachusetts. To put the final version of the piece together, Dover sent Taylor a couple takes of himself playing his contemplative line of music on bass clarinet, and Taylor improvised on top of it. The experience allowed Taylor to become engrossed in Dover’s playing as he watched and rewatched his various recordings.
This is Dover and Taylor’s first collaboration, though they’ve known each other for a few years. The two musicians originally connected through Imani Winds, a group that Dover joined in 2016 and Taylor has been connected to since 2011. They’ve both mutually admired each other’s work, so finally getting to play together—even through a remote collaboration like this one—was exciting.
Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, virtual collaborations have become much more commonplace, and are sometimes the only way musicians can safely play together. They aren’t the same as in-person performance, but there’s some exciting new paths to take. Dover has embraced these new directions, settling into the uncertainty of virtual collaboration: With the other person missing, there’s a new challenge to bringing two musical voices together. He sees beauty in this kind of work, as it offers new opportunities for exploration.
The piece Dover and Taylor play is inspired by winter’s stillness in northern states. Taylor grew up in Alabama, where there was a certain rhythm to winter—it was a little colder, a little darker—but there wasn’t the same kind of stillness he’s felt in places like Vermont. In Vermont, he feels a duality in time: the earth is a pristine tundra, until a squirrel or a chipmunk will unexpectedly dart across a field searching for the last acorn. As he wrote this Postcard, he was imagining a freshly snowed plain, with tiny animals scurrying across it. This is reflected in the music, which features moments of sporadic energy on top of meditative stillness.
Score preview
Program Notes
To Mark –
Stillness
Waits
Wind
In the snow.
Once the colors give way to whiteness
Time grinds to a halt, and the world
The world, save for the tiniest among us
Foraging and evading
Egged on by the ever-increasing sharpness of the unforgiving
Their frantic feet leave a faint and fleeting trace
Once the colors give way to whiteness
Stillness
Time grinds to a halt, and the world
Waits
The world, save for the tiniest among us
Foraging and evading
Egged on by the ever-increasing sharpness of the unforgiving
Wind
Their frantic feet leave a faint and fleeting trace
In the snow.
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