“With its performers dispersed throughout the Olin Arts Center at Bates College, Metropolis presents the innovative site-specific piece Brownstone.”
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Concert Coverage
Cecelia Porter from The Washington Post reviewed Metropolis Ensemble’s performance at The Phillips Collection with the Phillips Camerata, Bridget Kibbey, and Quartet Senza Misura.
The Washington premiere Sunday of a bold new harp concerto capped an engaging and powerful performance of recent music by members of the Phillips Camerata, the resident ensemble of Washington’s Phillips Collection; the Quartet Senza Misura; and musicians from the New York-based Metropolis Ensemble.
Sunday’s combination of forces was a fortunate grouping of young musicians dedicated to contemporary music and sharing a truly visionary outlook. (We clearly need another way to distinguish between avant-garde compositions of the 1950s, still called “contemporary,” and today’s “contemporary” music hot off the press.)
The forceful collaboration was conducted by Grammy-nominee Andrew Cyr, a prominent influence in the world of newly emerging music. The afternoon opened with the Washington premiere of Christopher Cerrone’s “High Windows,” for solo string quartet and string ensemble. It is an imaginative work in a personal minimalist fashion calling for powerfully lunging bows, sighing harmonics and perky half-tone statements. Cyr led the players with tasteful panache, emphasizing the fluidity of the music. One of the lush moments in the ever-changing texture of the Cerrone echoed Samuel Barber’s elegiac temperament.
Cyr then led his players with driven, but elegant force in Steve Reich’s “Duet for Two Violins and Strings” and Elliott Carter’s Bariolage for solo harp. Both Reich and Carter’s music reflected an earlier version of Reich’s minimalist style of continually overlapping processes and Carter’s ever-fluctuating ideas. For the Reich, the players tackled insistent syncopations and interlocking motifs with seeming ease. In the Carter, harpist Bridget Kibbey, at once confident and delicate, displayed her instrument’s wide-ranging vocabulary for music, revealing ever-fluctuating tempos, lightning-fast leaps and the chordal richness of the piece.
Joined by a string quartet, Kibbey gave nuanced voice to the black atmosphere of Nathan Shields’ brooding “Tenebrae,” underlining its snatches of elusive luminance. In Vivian Fung’s Concerto for Harp, which was commissioned by the Phillips and other musical organizations, Kibbey’s bravura and sensitivity, especially in her cadenza, outlined the music’s intriguing mix of timbres, thorny sonorities, wailing glissandos and chirping pizzicatos echoed in the strings. In between, amusing parodies of a waltz and tango lightened up the texture. The drums and other percussion joined in, giving zest and a shade of violence to the composition.
Three of Sunday’s compositions were Washington premieres: Cerrone’s “High Windows,” Shields’ “Tenebrae” and Fung’s Concerto for Harp. Both Cerrone and Shields were on hand to explain their compositions. The concert’s end brought enthusiastic applause and cheering, concluding the Phillips’ Sunday musical 2013-2014 season.
The Washington premiere Sunday of a bold new harp concerto capped an engaging and powerful performance of recent music by members of the Phillips Camerata, the resident ensemble of Washington’s Phillips Collection; the Quartet Senza Misura; and musicians from the New York-based Metropolis Ensemble.
Jon Pareles from The New York Times reviewed The Roots performance at The Public Theater on May 13, 2014, featuring Metropolis Ensemble conducted by Andrew Cyr, D.D. Jackson, Jeremy Ellis, Craig Harris, Rahzel, and Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson. Here are a few excerpts from the article:
“Conundrum, provocation, history lesson, ritual, chamber recital, jazz concert, elegy — the Roots’ performance at the Public Theater on Tuesday night was decidedly not a standard kickoff for a hip-hop album. That was clear when, near the beginning of the show, balloon animals were dropped onto the stage, covering it knee-deep; for the rest of the performance, each entrance and exit was accompanied by balloons popping underfoot like gunshots. Dozens of nooses also hung overhead.
The musicians weren’t the same Roots band seen regularly on NBC’s “Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.” They included the Metropolis Ensemble — the conductor Andrew Cyr, a string quartet and four singers — and the jazz pianist D. D. Jackson, who wrote dramatic, somberly dissonant arrangements for the ensemble. Mr. Jackson also hurled crashing free-jazz clusters and tremolos in a duet with Questlove on drums. Jeremy Ellis tapped out some two-handed workouts from a sampler, and near the beginning of the concert, there was a primordial drone from Craig Harris on didgeridoo, joined by the percussive vocals of Rahzel, a pioneering beatboxer. Two male dancers also appeared, break dancing amid the balloons.
It was a miscellany of grim tidings and stubborn determination, of sounds both earthy and avant-garde, of bitter realities and electronic hallucinations… This performance wasn’t the rollout of a consumer product; it was joining a cultural continuum."
One of New York's scrappiest contemporary music groups is turning to opera. Beginning Friday and running through May 12 at the New Victory Theater on 42nd Street, the Metropolis Ensemble will accompany "The Firework-Maker's Daughter," a new opera by David Bruce, the promising 2012-2013 composer-in-residence at London's Royal Opera House.
[caption id=“attachment_1154” align=“alignnone” width=“500”] Soprano Mary Bevan (Lila) performs with James Laing (Hamlet) in The Firework Maker’s Daughter. Photo courtesy of Robert Workman.[/caption] The press are lavishing praise on David Bruce’s new opera, The Firework Maker’s Daughter, in a production created by The Opera Group and Opera North. The family-friendly show based on the novel by Philip Pullman is currently on tour in the UK and comes to New York in collaboration with Metropolis Ensemble this May. The Telegraph’s Michael White marvels that the new production is “a relentless spectacle” that left him smiling:
“At last: a first-rank children’s opera, all the better for its low-tech magic… the most utterly endearing, joyous and delightful show I’ve seen in ages… it has the makings of a real hot-ticket. During May it turns up in Bury St Edmunds, Buxton, Oxford and Newcastle. And if you can’t make any of those but have some air miles, it’s also playing in New York. Go.” Read more…
Alfred Hickling calls David Bruce “a composer who enjoys playing with fire” in this week’s performance at Hull Truck theatre in Kingston.
“Bruce’s vividly coloured chamber score skims the Pacific rim for influences, combining gamelan crashes and plunky pentatonics with the incongruous wheeze of an accordion to create a beguiling, imaginary hybrid of Indo-European folk music. The cast are all engaging comic performers as well as fine singers: Mary Bevan’s Lila has a gung-ho tendency to leap before she looks; Andrew Slater is delightful as the hapless Rambashi, whose career plans as a pirate and caterer come to nought; James Laing’s ethereal countertenor seems curiously suited to the plight of a pining white elephant.” Read more…
Ron Simpson for
says “The Firework Maker’s Daughter is a wonderful entertainment: how often can we say that of a new opera?”
“It’s full of magic and themes of growing up and responsibility, with plenty of ingeniously improvised spectacle, but there are abundant unforced laughs… David Bruce’s score is a constant delight, from a cappella anthems to exotic percussion effects. He borrows freely from many sources, with a generic Orientalism showing especially in the writing for flute, and tunefulness keeps breaking in.” Read more…
Samira Ahmed on
, a radio program on BBC World Service, sat down with David Bruce and librettist Glyn Maxwell to discuss sparks, fantasy, opera clichés, and painting fireworks with music.
(Interview begins at the 10-minute mark.) Ruth Puckering for
raves: “It’s a visual feast of shapes, colour, light and sound as the singing, music, acting and storytelling all wind seamlessly together around a cast who are uniformly excellent.”
Fuse: Questlove’s Electrifying ‘Shuffle Culture’ Concert
“Questlove spent most of the 75-minute set sitting quietly behind his drum set, a pick sticking out of his Afro as his head swayed to the strings of the Metropolis Ensemble… the highlights were uniquely electrifying. Deerhoof’s fanciful noise-rock paired surprisingly well with orchestral strings.”
Village Voice: Questlove Puts The World On Shuffle At BAM
“On one level, the premise was anticipatory, predicting a future where concertgoers won’t have the time or patience for a low-concept, single-band show. On the other, one could see the evening’s roots: in the mixtape, the DJ set, the all-star benefit concert, the R&B revue. And it was this marriage of old and new—analog and digital—that permeated the night, a constant reminder that, as Q-Tip famously told his daddy, things go in cycles.”
Brooklyn Vegan: Questlove brought 'Shuffle Culture’ to BAM
“For all of the pre-show talk about iPods, much of the vibe seemed to echo the beginning of the previous century. Metropolis Ensemble and Jeremy Ellis, the two acts that did most of the heavy lifting, focused on material that captured the pop of a record needle, the static of the AM radio band and the warbly tempos of an antique turntable.”
Capital: Questlove’s Post-iPod Humanism Brings Brilliant Cross-Genre Shuffling to the Concert Hall
“Meantime, a double string quartet pulled from the ranks of the Metropolis Ensemble - whose contributions had been mostly marooned from the other musicians during the night, truly shuffled off to the side—draped some gorgeous pizzicato playing of few simple arpeggios over the top. The arrangement wasn’t overcrowded; everything felt magically in balance - and yet there was a sense of group improvisation at work.”
NY Daily News: Brooklyn Shuffle
“We wanted to take some of the old and some of the new music and create a unique experience. It’s always interesting to take musicians with different backgrounds and have them play music none of them are really familiar with.”
Wall Street Journal: Questlove Shuffles to Brooklyn
“Questlove will join a genre-busting assortment of his favorite performers to offer a kaleidoscopic peek at his own aesthetic shuffle mode: from Rahzel ("the human beatbox”) to indie-rock wild card Deerhoof, to actress/industrial rocker/former porn star Sasha Grey—all tied together by the strings of the Metropolis Ensemble.“
Village Voice: Questlove’s Quest
"To Questlove, the concept of Shuffle Culture is something to be both celebrated and critiqued. It’s an approach to life that allows us to consume more information than ever before but at a rate that doesn’t always provide us the time to appreciate that knowledge.”
Additional mentions:
A review of Metropolis Ensemble’s performance at The Armory Show on March 7, 2012 by Art in America’s Paul David Young:
The program got off to a firm start on Wednesday at the VIP preview with an unusual composition by Icelandic artist Örn Alexander Ámundason, “Kreppa: A symphonic poem about the financial situation in Iceland,” superbly performed by the Metropolis Ensemble, a New York chamber orchestra that specializes in new music and contemporary composition. The result strangely and rather convincingly resembled a piece of early 12-tone music of the Viennese variety, perhaps because the human voice is naturally serial, repeating tonal patterns within a restricted range. Despite the method of its composition, the music held its own and seemed to tell a story, perhaps at least as intelligible as the verbal ones in circulation among most commentators. Ámundason chose his instruments with an ear for music and some humor. The double bass at the beginning, representing a controversial Icelandic politician, gave way to a succession of instruments, often playing at the same time though by no means the same notes. The chronological sequence ended with a ukulele, standing in for the openly lesbian prime minister elected in 2009, after the fall of the laissez-faire conservative government that had presided over the spectacular collapse of Iceland’s banks and financial system. The protestors, who came out in Iceland in force well before the Occupiers, are heard as a marimba, intoning with the clarity of bells the voices of the people in the streets. Artistic Director Andrew Cyr conducted the extremely able musicians of the Metropolis Ensemble.
Metropolis Ensemble features first class performers and Bridget Kibbey is no exception. It was such a treat not only to hear her play, but to get an insight into her sources of inspiration and her creative/collaborative process.
David Patrick Stearns from the Philadelphia Inquirer highlighted Metropolis artist Kristin Lee and her performance with Astral Artists with pianist Alexandre Moutouzkine on November 6, 2011. The glowing review of their concert at Trinity Center for Urban Life in Philadelphia called it a “breakthrough” and “inspiring”:
“No pairing since violinist Soovin Kim and pianist Jeremy Denk has exhibited the kind of synergy with which the two both supported and competed with each other in the best possible way. Often, they seemed bent on topping each other, not with sparkle and brilliance (though such qualities were certainly there) but with specificity of insight and of characterization in a big, varied program of Poulenc, Adams, Ysaye, Messiaen, and Brahms.”
Metropolis Ensemble, a talented freelance orchestra, responded with skill and exuberance to Mr. Tan’s thrusting arms and clutching fingers.
Metropolis Ensemble transformed the house into a concert hall. A string quartet and a harpist were stationed in the parlor, percussion and vibraphone could be heard on the second floor, and a violin and a woodwind trio occupied the third floor.
Metropolis composer and pianist Timothy Andres plays a live set for Hammered! on WQXR’s online station, Q2, hosted by Metropolis artist Conor Hanick.
“There’s something irresistibly raw and unpredictable about live performance, and when they’re of the caliber we’ll hear this week, few musical experiences can compare. Kicking off the week is a collection of pieces taken from three concerts. Pianist / composer Timothy Andres pairs one of his own works, Everything Is An Onion, with a movement from Charles Ives’ Concord Sonata in a live performance taken from the Ecstatic Music Festival Marathon.”
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WQXR host Nadia Sirota previews an upcoming Q2 Live Concert at the 2011 MATA Festival.
“The 2011 MATA Festival residency at (Le) Poisson Rouge spans three nights… Metropolis Ensemble closes out the festival on May 12 with works ranging from Brad Balliett and Elliot Cole’s hip-hopera, The Rake, to pieces from Chilean-born, 20-year old Remmy Canedo and New York’s own Ryan Carter.”
What impressed most was the diversity of approaches that the composers involved took to stretching a more or less conventional chamber ensemble’s sound through electronic legerdemain.
People who came out to the Metropolis Brownstone event last Thursday crossed over the threshold of a beautiful three-story Brooklyn apartment into a different sonic universe.
We hope you will join us to experience the BBC Nature Sound Effects Library in this site-specific composition.
“Pro Sound Effects is participating in a unique, location-specific music concert called Brownstone, conceived by the New York City-based chamber orchestra Metropolis Ensemble.”
Metropolis was really an umbrella group that brought together instrumental soloists, chamber ensembles, singers and a few composers for a benefit performance for Partners in Health.