Dreamscapes Review: "A Powerhouse Rendition"

Joshua Kosman from the San Francisco Chronicle hails the new Metropolis Ensemble album, Dreamscapes, and its “welcome lyricism and grace.” Here’s an excerpt from his review:

“The year-old Violin Concerto that leads off the disc boasts a certain winsome charm, especially in the fluid performance of soloist Kristin Lee….the final Piano Concerto, in a powerhouse rendition featuring soloist Conor Hanick. Here at last is music of dramatic urgency and depth, in which Fung draws on ideas from gamelan while also adding plenty of her own original material – clangorous, dissonant harmonies, off-kilter rhythms and a sense of wild unpredictability.”

Read the complete review…

Celebrating the June Wu Artists Fund

[caption id=“attachment_861” align=“alignright” width=“150” caption=“June Wu, Metropolis board member and patron, at the Glimpses concert with Artistic Director Andrew Cyr.”][/caption] Last year, the June K. M. Wu Artists Fund was established to honor Metropolis Ensemble board member, June Wu, and her vision and passionate dedication to our young performing artists. The Fund helped Metropolis launch a new Resident Artist Series, supported two studio recordings at Tanglewood with NAXOS and Nonesuch Records, and continued our mission to emerge the next generation of outstanding composers and musicians. As Metropolis embarks on several exciting new projects supported by the Wu Artists Fund, including the creation of our own record label, launching new albums and concerts, and expanding the Resident Artist Series, we wanted to reflect on the past year through the eyes of some of the artists who benefited from these generous gifts. [caption id=“attachment_847” align=“alignright” width=“150” caption=“Timothy Andres - pianist and composer”][/caption] Timothy Andres: An Ambitious New Album

My work with Metropolis last year was a continuation of a scheme Andrew Cyr and I had been formulating since 2008. At first, it resulted in the concert Home Stretch in the spring of 2010; now it has evolved into the production of a CD. The album is centered around my piano concerto Home Stretch, bookended by my “re-composition” of Mozart’s Coronation concerto and my Paraphrase on Themes of Brian Eno, which were both Metropolis commissions. A recording is not just a concrete item to be sold, or a promotional tool, but an artifact of our musical culture at a specific time. These artifacts can be much more powerful than a one-off concert, which by nature has limited reach and duration. A recording is a commitment, a way of saying ‘this is what we feel most strongly about, and we need to share it as widely as possible’. The scope of this recording project is ambitious, especially for a group as young as Metropolis; recording an orchestra is simply a very time-consuming and expensive proposition. Such propositions are dependent on people like June Wu, who understands the importance of such projects, shares our ambitions, and helps both things come to fruition. I will always be grateful to June not just for helping me in my career, which is small in the scheme of things, but for helping my entire field.

[caption id=“attachment_848” align=“alignright” width=“150” caption=“Bridget Kibbey - harpist and composer”]

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Bridget Kibbey: One Woman Tour-de-Force

Over the course of three years, I conceived a project entitled Music Box in which composers - all born abroad and recent immigrants to the United States and mostly living in New York City - wrote solo works for the harp based on folk music from their native country. Metropolis presented the project in January. It was a powerful personal journey, because it allowed me to showcase some of my own arrangements and explore multiple genres of harp-writing in a single evening. What was most helpful was working alongside Metropolis to give this project the “kick-off” the composers deserved. Many in the audience at each sold-out concert had never heard a full solo harp program. It was incredibly satisfying to perform these new fun, eclectic works for such enthusiastic guests. I also walked away from the concerts with high-definition video and fabulous audio to show other interested presenters. I’m happy to say that I will be presenting the project next season in other venues in the United States as a result!

[caption id=“attachment_849” align=“alignright” width=“150” caption=“Kristin Lee - violinist”]

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Kristin Lee: From Bali to the Studio and Beyond

In 2010, I joined composer Vivian Fung on a trip to Bali to understand where her ideas came from in her music. It was remarkable to visit these communities filled with gamelan music and a tangible artistic energy. It gave me an entirely new perspective on living and breathing art every day. Vivian was inspired by our trip and wrote a new Violin Concerto that we premiered at Renderings last fall with Metropolis. From there, we recorded the work at Tanglewood with the extraordinary help of audio engineer Tim Martin and the whole Metropolis gang. Professionally it really means everything to have my first recording on a major label, NAXOS, which wouldn’t be possible without June’s help and the Fund. Premiering a concerto takes money to support the commission, book the beautiful concert space at Angel Orensanz Center, and bring in the audience. As a result, I performed Vivian’s cadenza on WQXR Cafe Concerts and Metropolis received a lot of publicity. It was a huge leap in every way. As a musician, this new work written specifically for me opened new doors for commission projects with other composers and the opportunity to build programs around innovative pieces. I’m looking forward to working with Andrew Cyr and Metropolis to produce new projects for the Resident Artist Series.

[caption id=“attachment_857” align=“alignright” width=“150” caption=“Conor Hanick - pianist”]

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Conor Hanick: Teamwork and Remarkable Opportunity

In the past year, I premiered Ray Lustig’s beautiful vocal work Compose Thyself from Renderings, recorded works by Ryan Francis with the superlative Kristin Lee, and, perhaps most significantly, participated not only in Timothy Andres’ new recording on Nonesuch, but also recorded world premiere recordings of Vivian Fung’s Glimpses for prepared piano and her titanic piano concerto called Dreamscapes, both supported by the Wu Fund. I’m indebted to June for her generous and unparalleled support of Metropolis. These remarkable projects simply wouldn’t happen without her, and it’s hard to adequately thank her for giving us such remarkable opportunities through the Fund. Metropolis Ensemble afforded me some of the most extraordinary and artistically rewarding experiences of my career. It’s touching to be offered opportunities like this and hard to overstate what a privilege its been to be associated with the ensemble. Vivian’s recording is a great example: it’s a professional boon to having a widely-released commercial recording of such high quality. I am humbled to be listed alongside Andrew, Vivian, Kristin, and others. These were experiences that for me will continue to inform my musical activities and serve as benchmarks for artistic quality.

Friday Afternoon Desktop Concert - Bach and Ryan Francis' Sillage

Bach and Ryan Francis: Sillage from Metropolis Ensemble on Vimeo.

Bach and Ryan Francis: Sillage, featuring Kristin Lee on violin and Conor Hanick on piano. Performed on February 14, 2010 at Le Poisson Rouge in New York City. This was part of Love Letter to Haiti, a Valentine’s Day benefit concert for Partners in Health, organized by Metropolis Ensemble and artistic director Andrew Cyr. Video by Gareth Paul Cox and Kyrie Cox; sound by Ryan Streber.

New Metropolis Recordings: Documenting the Process

[caption id=“attachment_724” align=“alignright” width=“300” caption=“Tanglewood’s Ozawa Hall”][/caption] Big news: Metropolis Ensemble is releasing two new albums—one for Nonesuch featuring works by Timothy Andres, and the other for Naxos with works by Vivian Fung. Both composers were presented in Metropolis’s latest Renderings concert at the Angel Orensanz Center on September 15. Musicians got together for an intensive week of rehearsals, followed by a weeklong recording marathon at the Tanglewood studios in Massachusetts. Timo played piano for his own pieces: Homestretch (concerto for piano and small orchestra), Paraphrase on Themes by Brian Eno (for chamber orchestra), and Piano Concerto No. 26, “Coronation” (an adaptation of Mozart’s incomplete concerto). Vivian’s pieces—Dreamscapes (for prepared piano and orchestra), Violin Concerto, and Glimpes (for solo prepared piano)—were performed by soloists Conor Hanick on piano, and Kristin Lee on violin. There are some pretty obvious factors that make recording sessions different from rehearsals and performances, but not all in ways that you might expect. Timo explains:

“Most of my job as composer was accomplished during rehearsals, where I talked about interpretation and mood. The recording session was about the fine details: balance, intonation, tempo. One thing that happens when you have different takes is you wind up with different tempos. It requires a level of precision that I find to be great for musicianship.”

Vivian had a much different rehearsal and recording experience than Timo, as she was hearing her pieces for the first time being played by musicians. “We were figuring out the kinks during rehearsal, like the tricky spots, tempo changes, coordination of Kristin’s part with everyone else,” Vivian explains. “It’s hard when you’re rehearsing the piece for the first time to get a handle on what it sounds like. You have to get familiar with the sound world.” During the recording process, Vivian was sitting in the control room making notes on what needed to be worked on, adjustments to the dynamics, marking which takes were best; she even rewrote orchestra parts to make some transitions smoother. Vivian remarks, “It would be different if it were for a performance, but this was going to be etched in a recording forever! I wanted it to sound exactly how I meant for it to be.” The whole process was a unique experience for the musicians to have the composers present for the rehearsals and recording session, offering minute-to-minute feedback and adjusting the piece as they played. Conor, who performed solo piano on Vivian’s

Dreamscapes

and

Glimpses

, commented on the experience:

“While we were rehearsing, Vivian sat next to me and wrote notes and suggestions. You definitely can’t cut any corners when a composer’s sitting next to you! It definitely ups the ante for playing the music as accurately and brilliantly as possible.”

Kristin, who played both the solo part of Vivian’s

Violin Concerto

and the orchestra part in other pieces, had to pace herself during the intense week. She compares her approach to the recording sessions and performance, which took place one week later:

“During the recording session, the priority was clarity of tone, exaggerated dynamics, clean playing—it was very focused on the technical aspects. The performance was more musical. I let loose and had a good time. I didn’t necessarily care if I missed a note, I really went over the top and was much more flexible with my interpretation.”

Despite the stressful rehearsal and recording process, Kristin comes out of it asserting, “It was really more fun than anything.” Conor also agrees that despite the grueling 9-hour recording sessions everyday, the group had an amazing time:

“The group was so positive and supportive that any time the attention span or enthusiasm dipped, there were people that brought us back. This was the smoothest sailing recording I’ve ever experience—it had a lot to do with Andrew Cyr being so organized, calm, levelheaded, and precise about what he wanted.”

The musicians and composers all agree that it was an exhausting, but totally rewarding process; Vivian shares a final reflection on the experience:

“I felt so good about the whole process because everyone was so invested in the project. For me, the pieces took on a life of their own; Conor and Kristin really owned the pieces. It’s like giving birth to a baby—it’s something that’s yours that grows into something that you share with other musicians.”

Be on the lookout for these two new Metropolis albums in 2012!