Listen on-demand to Metropolis artists on WQXR’s Young Artists Showcase hosted by Emi Ferguson, including excerpts from Matthew Evan Taylor's Life Returns.
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Matthew Evan Taylor
“Life Returns is a monumental work that melds free improvisation and through composition to celebrate resilience and triumph in the face of despair."
Resilience has been central to many of the projects supported by Ms. Arsht, including Life Returns , which reflected on the resilience of individuals in the face of unprecedented adversity.
What began as an attempt by Matthew Evan Taylor to collaborate with fellow musicians during the isolation of the pandemic ended up being a yearlong project that culminated in an evening performance at the Met.
Composer and saxophonist Matthew Evan Taylor's Life Returns is an evening-length composition that draws on African American, South Indian, and European musical practices.
Credits
Matthew Evan Taylor, composition and saxophone
David Adewumi, trumpet
Developed and produced by Metropolis Ensemble
Founder/Artistic Director
Andrew Cyr
Videography
Sam Kann (MN)
Phong Tran (NY)
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 12: February 2022
Blog Post — Postcard 12
Postcard 12 was filmed in Chesterfield, MA.
May 10,2021 and 1 Rivington / Candice Madey Gallery
February 6, 2022
Matthew Evan Taylor didn’t want to end the Postcard series by just fading away. He wanted to send it off with a statement. So, for the final Postcard, written for Dave Adewumi, he chose to explore a feeling of confidence: The piece grows from a soft, lyrical opening into a groove that has an assured tone. Taylor describes the music as akin to emerging from winter’s hibernation and in the music’s boisterous melodies, you can feel the excitement for the warm months to come.
The score is primarily text-based—a technique Taylor has used for a couple of other Postcards, like Postcard 3. He also gave Adewumi a few pitch cells to use for his improvisation. Adewumi had used pitch cells before, but it had been a while. Because of this technique, playing the Postcard got Adewumi out of his shell improvisationally and encouraged him to try playing in new ways. He recorded the work in a large art gallery space, where there was quite a bit of reverberation, after only having listened to Taylor’s recording a couple of times. He wanted to maintain the feeling of a live improvisation, where you’re doing everything on the spot, even though it was a virtual collaboration.
Though this is the last Postcard in Taylor’s series, the project isn’t quite done yet: There will be a live performance of the full work, Life Returns, that Taylor’s been composing throughout the year on March 24 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. And parts of the project will continue to live on in Taylor’s work: He’s continuing to use the techniques he explored through the series, like interlocking melodies and endurance, in new commissions.
Vanessa Ague
February 21, 2022
Program Notes
Postcard 12
To David –
Each day
we move
farther
away from the solstice,
the more the promise of light and life g r o w s.
It is our job to shake off the lethargy and introversion that served us well
~during the dark time~
and stroll confidently into the warmth, the green, and the cacophony of rebirth.
Featured
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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.
Featured
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Credits
Matthew Evan Taylor, composition and soprano saxophone
Utsav Lal, prepared piano
Developed and produced by Metropolis Ensemble
Andrew Cyr, Founder/Artistic Director
Videography: Sam Kann (Vermont), Ryan Streber (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 10: December 2021
Postcard 10 was filmed in Chesterfield, MA July 10, 2021 and Oktaven Audio, Mount Vernon, NY
Utsav Lal ventures into the inside of the piano as he plays Matthew Evan Taylor’s December Postcard. He opens the instrument’s lid, muting and plucking its strings and exploring waves of sound and silence while Taylor’s lines mingle in between. Lal and Taylor share an interest in these extended techniques for piano. Lal remembers first getting in-depth exposure to them as a student studying improvisation at the New England Conservatory; Taylor recalls teaching improvisation courses where he and his students would talk or yell into the piano’s body to hear how it would spit back a near-perfect replication of their voices. Both find joy in discovering how to transform the sound of such a familiar instrument.
This is Lal and Taylor’s first collaboration. Taylor first came across Lal’s work when he was listening to RAJAS albums, which is a group Lal plays in, and he quickly became excited to write for Lal. The first part of working together involved going through Taylor’s score—when Lal saw Taylor’s graphic and text notation, he wanted to pay close attention and learn every detail. Lal enjoyed the process, especially how the piece allowed him freedom within a rigorous set of limitations. He’s instructed to only play the bottom three notes of the piano, or to stay away from some notes, or to pluck or mute or otherwise manipulate the pitches. These guideposts give him structure and enough wiggle room to fit his part seamlessly with Taylor’s performance.
The Postcard takes its inspiration from the heightened resonance Taylor hears in wintertime. This winter, he’s finding himself soaking in the season’s minutiae—tiny changes in how the earth sounds, feels, and looks. As the ground freezes and hardens, sounds echo for a seemingly infinite amount of time. Taylor notices that he can hear neighbors talking down the street and when he steps on something and it snaps, its echo lasts for what feels like forever. He illustrates these phenomena through waves of resonance and muted piano tones, using the many different timbres of the instrument to explore the damped vibrations of winter.
Resonance also presents a duality: Endless echoes might make you feel like you’re surrounded by people, but they can also make you feel alone or isolated. Taylor’s December Postcard also explores this idea, teetering between fullness and solitude. It’s a reflection of the duality of how we live in winter, which brings holiday get-togethers as well as quiet moments. Lal and Taylor animate these ideas through meditative music that showcases both the stillness and fullness of wintertime.
Vanessa Ague
December, 2021
Score preview
Program Notes
To Utsav –
Outside my house, the ground is covered in snow.
The soil is frozen solid, like the ponds and lakes, and everything
Reflects.
The simple snap of a twig, reverberates down the street.
The echo is cold and strange
Strangely present.
Sometimes, the only evidence of life,
Is the breaths contained in the echoes.
Featured
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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.
Featured
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Credits
Matthew Evan Taylor, composition and saxophone
Adam O’Farrill, trumpet
Developed and produced by Metropolis Ensemble
Andrew Cyr, Founder/Artistic Director
Videography: Sam Kann (Vermont), Luke Marantz (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 8: October 2021
Postcard 8 was filmed in Middlebury, Vermont, May 7, 2021; and Prospect Park, October 15, 2021.
Composer and saxophonist Matthew Evan Taylor and composer and trumpeter Adam O’Farrill unite for the first time on Postcard 8, which weaves together the sound of fanfares and improvisation. The piece explores “the various ways we make sound and celebrate,” according to Taylor, using the trumpet’s regal sound as a jumping off point. Each of his Postcards center a different instrument and explore a different theme that’ll appear in the March 2022 premiere of his new work, Life Returns. As he composes, Taylor imagines each piece as a progression, a small capsule leading up to the big reveal.
Taylor and O’Farrill hadn’t met before working on Postcard 8, but their collaboration came naturally—Taylor also recalls that he was quite excited to get to work with O’Farrill. The two came together because O’Farrill is a member of RAJA, a group that’s collaborating with the Postcards series. O’Farrill has noticed that since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, he’s had far more opportunities to work with people he’s never met. Working on Postcard 8 was one of those opportunities, and it was also a chance to improvise in a digital setting. O’Farrill has presented many virtual and digital recordings throughout the COVID-19 pandemic—including a weekly big band series with his father, acclaimed jazz pianist Arturo O'Farrill—but few have been as improvisatory as Postcard 8, so playing the piece provided a new experience.
O’Farrill ventured to Well House Drive at Brooklyn’s Prospect Park to record the piece with his regular collaborator, Luke Marantz, who’s a pianist and videographer. He’s lived in Brooklyn his whole life, so recording a Postcard piece in Prospect Park felt like a way of “flipping the script,” he said. A postcard is often thought to be an idyllic picture of a lovely place you’ve visited—not your hometown. But here, O’Farrill had the opportunity to share a postcard from a place he knows like no other, allowing passersby to mill by the camera as they pleased. He hoped to capture home as it is—imperfections and all.
(Vanessa Ague, October 2021)
Score preview
Program Notes
To Adam –
Up here, nature proclaims life’s return in a spectacular fashion –
A world of white and brown bursts with infinite hues of green,
flecked with yellow,
framed by the blue sky
We hear the new cries of the young birds and see the baby mammals forage for the
First time
When all begins to go dormant, nature puts on an even more spectacular show
The din of the calls of migrating birds increases,
A fanfare of reds and yellows as they overtake the green from spring
There is true cacophony, nature’s own second line.
Shouldn’t we celebrate in a similar manner?
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Credits
Matthew Evan Taylor, composition and saxophone
Victor Cacesse, percussion
Terry Sweeny, percussion
Developed and produced by Metropolis Ensemble
Andrew Cyr, Founder/Artistic Director
Christopher Botta, Editor
Videography: Sam Kann (Vermont), Christopher Botta (New York)
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 7: September 2021
Postcard 7 was filmed in Chesterfield, MA, July 11, 2021 and Sunset Park, September 20, 2021 and One Rivington / Candice Madey Gallery, New York, NY, July 23, 2021.
Score preview
Program Notes
To Sandbox –
When you sit in silence and contemplation
The slightest variation becomes significant
Subtle and profound
Two pitches that can be identified as the same
Are suddenly worlds apart
The threshold between summer and fall/fall and winter/winter and spring/ spring and summer
Infinitesimally small
When looking up at the leaves on a tree against a blue sky
At what point do we cease perceiving green and then perceive blue
…and vice versa
Let’s keep staring and listening until we perceive the mountain ranges between atoms.
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Credits
Matthew Evan Taylor, composition and saxophone
Gavavya Dorisamy, voice and double bass
Developed and produced by Metropolis Ensemble
Andrew Cyr, Founder/Artistic Director
Christopher Botta, Editor
Videography: Sam Kann (Vermont), Christopher Botta (New York)
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 6: August 2021
Postcard 6 was filmed in Middlebury, VT, May 7, 2021 and One Rivington / Candice Madey Gallery, New York, NY, July 23, 2021.
Score preview
Program Notes
To Ganavya –
Root, stem, leaf –
Earth, air, sky…
Water moves through all, nourishes all –
We would do well to honor it:
in our breath,
in our movements
and in our
Souls
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Credits
Matthew Evan Taylor, composition and saxophone
Evan Runyon, double bass
Developed and produced by Metropolis Ensemble
Andrew Cyr, Founder/Artistic Director
Christopher Botta, Editor
Videography: Sam Kann
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 5: July 2021
Postcard 5 was filmed in Middlebury, VT, May 7, 2021 and Paradox Lake, NY, July 16, 2021.
Program Notes
Score Preview
To Evan –
We emerge from isolation into a world both familiar
And alien.
We work tirelessly to keep the demons at bay,
But still the damage is done.
The smoke from the west reaches the east, and makes the south more violent
The north less predictable.
One way out of this reality –
Stay grounded
Be attentive
Connect
And BREATHE
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Credits
Matthew Evan Taylor, composition and saxophone
Rajna Swaminathan, voice and mrudangam
Developed and produced by Metropolis Ensemble
Andrew Cyr, Founder/Artistic Director
Christopher Botta, Editor
Videography: Sam Kann (VT) and Ganavya Doraiswamy and David Jacobs-Strain (OR)
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 4: June 2021
Postcard 4 was filmed in Middlebury, VT, May 25, 2021 and Eugene, OR, May 13, 2021.
Program Notes
To Rajna –
Unless we listen to our hearts,
Time will pass imperceptibly.
Once we listen to our hearts
We vocalize the future we wish to see.
The challenge – to make our marks within the time we have
Score Preview
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Credits
Matthew Evan Taylor, composition and alto saxophone
Ayane Kozasa, viola and Paul Wiancko, cello
Developed and produced by Metropolis Ensemble
Andrew Cyr, Founder/Artistic Director
Sam Kann, Videography (Vermont)
Christopher Botta, Editor
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 3: May 2021
Postcard 3 was filmed in Weybridge, Vermont and Red Hook, Brooklyn April 24, 2021.
Program Notes
To Paul and Ayane –
It is easy to see the strategy of humans:
Build things that mimic nature in order to “conquer” nature
Our species continues to try to impose its will using alloys and electricity
But the rest of creation undermines us through water, wind, and fire
The reason that the cosmic joke works is its punchline:
We are as ephemeral as smoke from a newly extinguished candle.
And time marches on…
To Matthew –
Ephemeral, indeed.
Last night I dreamt of waking up –
eyes wide open and unshielded from
the blinding complexity of the system we were raiding;
mind awash with the panicked realization
that our own gossamer nest rested at its core.
I awoke craving a mountain,
but settled for a bagel.
Paul Wiancko
Score Preview
Program note artwork created by Ayane Kozasa, May 20, 2021
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Credits
Matthew Evan Taylor, composition and alto saxophone
María Grand, tenor saxophone
Developed and produced by Metropolis Ensemble
Andrew Cyr, Founder/Artistic Director
Sam Kann, Videography (Vermont)
Pedro de las Rosas, Videography (Mexico)
Christopher Botta, Editor
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 2: April 2021
Postcard 2 was filmed in Middlebury, Vermont, April 3, 2021; Río Cuchujaqui, Sierra de Álamos, Sonora, Mexico, April 5, 2021; and Álamos, Sonora, Mexico, April 7, 2021.
Program Notes
To Maria –
The meeting place is water. The first civilizations were innervated by tributaries and Streams of the Nile, the Tigris, the Amazon. The mysterious cenotes of the Yucatan promised to be pathways To the Great Beyond
Even now, though many societies seem to take it for granted, I admit an awe at how powerful and unknowable this substance Truly is... It's life-giving and life-taking.
Like Wildebeest or Zebra in the Serengeti, We underestimate water at our own peril...
Let's drink
Matthew Evan Taylor, April 7, 2021
—
Score Preview
I was surprised, intrigued, and honored that Matthew and Andrew asked me to do a Postcard.
Hearing Matthew’s music, I felt that there was a new direction there; so sincere, and so focused on breath. Each breath felt present.
And these days I struggle with presence. It seems that the omnipresence of technology is pulling me further and further away from simple presence. I steal moments to look at the sky, but the work of Zoom and screens is a bit like adding a level of illusion to a life already fraught with it.
Somehow, though, miraculously, hearing Matthew’s music through earbuds as I was standing on a rock, in a river, I felt a connection between technology, nature, and presence. This was a good way to let breath guide me, to let the music guide me. I’m grateful for this process, and grateful for this music so present; so clearly created by breath; so limpid.
María Grand, April 7, 2021
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Witness a yearlong time-lapse musical performance of an original work by composer and saxophonist Matthew Evan Taylor.
Postcard 1 for Matthew Evan Taylor’s “Postcards to The Met” video series was filmed in Middlebury, Vermont, and Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, March 12–14, 2021.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art / MetLiveArts and Metropolis Ensemble present a monthly video series featuring composer and performer Matthew Evan Taylor.
“Welcome to a new edition of the Neon Jazz interview series with Jazz Saxophonist, Composer & Educator Matthew Evan Taylor.”