Metropolis Ensemble Presents Biophony Pop-Up NYC 2023

Free Concerts Across New York City | June 10–24, 2023

“Biophony Pop-Up NYC 2023” is a series of free pop-up concerts by Metropolis Ensemble at dozens of pedestrian plazas, public parks, and open streets across New York City.

Metropolis artists perform at Biophony Pop-Up NYC 2022.

Metropolis artists perform at Biophony Pop-Up NYC 2021.

Metropolis artists perform at Biophony Pop-Up NYC 2022.

Metropolis artists perform at Biophony Pop-Up NYC 2021.

Metropolis artists perform at Biophony Pop-Up NYC 2022.

Metropolis artists perform at Biophony Pop-Up NYC 2021.

Metropolis artists perform at Biophony Pop-Up NYC 2022.

New York, New York— Metropolis Ensemble today announced "Biophony Pop-Up NYC 2023," a series of free pop-up concerts at dozens of pedestrian plazas, public parks, and open streets across New York City, presented with participation from NYC Department of Transportation, Make Music New York, and Trust for Governors Island.

The series will run from June 10–24, 2023. Specific concert locations will be announced in the days leading up to the series, both on the Metropolis site (biophony.metropolisensemble.org) and social media channels (@metroensemble).

Biophony celebrates the city's diverse neighborhoods, bringing expert independent artists to unexpected, locally-relevant spaces, and uniting neighbors, new music, and artists together.

Metropolis created Biophony in the spring of 2021 as a way to transition back to live events safely and re-catalyze the process of collaborative work following a year of pandemic isolation. The project will enter its third annual summer of outdoor pop-up events in bringing composers and performers together – and deliver this music through a series of 24 free pop-up concerts across NYC. To date, participating partners in the project include Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Make Music New York, Governors Island Trust, and NYC DOT who together have collaborated in bringing new music to new places, including dozens of plazas, open-streets, parks, and squares across all five boroughs.

For each pop-up event, Metropolis gathers diverse small groupings of independent musical artists from a variety of backgrounds, including members of the jazz, new classical, and experimental community, inviting them to collaborate using a self-organizing digital platform and present flexible musical works commissioned for open-score instrumentation. After a pandemic that took away opportunity and agency for so many, Biophony enables musicians to choose their playing partners, location/date/time, and which scores to perform.

The inaugural Biophony in 2021 involved an initial cohort of 75 composers who were commissioned to gather in small groups to collaborate and create 15-minute works for open-instrumentation. To date, 94 composers have been commissioned, creating 42 new works for the program, accessible to Metropolis artists via an online score repository.

Since 2021, the Biophony series of site-specific immersive experiences — which include both day-long festivals and pop-up concerts — has expanded community access to the arts: over 28,000 participants have visited world-class institutions (including a multi-year partnership with Metropolis Ensemble and Brooklyn Botanic Garden), public parks and open streets (with participation from NYC Department of Transportation) to hear a Biophony concert. To date, Metropolis has organized 6 citywide Biophony projects, employed 530 musicians and composers, commissioned 42 new original musical works, and produced 120 events across New York City.

More details about the project:
biophony.metropolisensemble.org

About Andrew Cyr

Grammy-nominated conductor and artistic director, Andrew Cyr, founded Metropolis in 2006 to create new platforms for outstanding composers and performing artists. He has led premieres at Brooklyn Academy of Music, Celebrate Brooklyn!, Radio City Music Hall, Kimmel Center Verizon Hall, Sounds from a Safe Harbour, New Victory Theatre, Cité de la Music, Paris, Hamer Hall, Melbourne, and The Tonight Show.

About Metropolis Ensemble

New York-based Metropolis Ensemble is a Grammy-nominated non-profit organization dedicated to commissioning and producing ambitious projects in contemporary music, and expanding opportunities for emerging professional musical creators and performers to collaborate and inspire new audiences. Metropolis has commissioned hundreds of new works and site-specific projects, gathering independent expert musicians in premiere performances at renowned venues such as Hollywood Bowl, BAM, Lincoln Center, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Learn more at metropolisensemble.org.