The new opera “In A Grove” may seem familiar, but in the hands of Christopher Cerrone and Stephanie Fleischmann the story that inspired "Rashomon" will definitely be different.
Travel back in time to experience any Flame Keeper's work. The most recent artists are at the bottom of this page.
About the Artist
New York-born Nashvillian Kaitlyn Raitz grew up surrounded by a wide array of musical genres, finding each one more exciting than the next. These curiosities have led her to a career as a multi-style cellist, composer, and songwriter. In October, she released her debut album “Me, Myself, Myself, and I,” an album of classical-crossover cello quartets and quintets. She is also the cellist for country singer-songwriter Brandy Clark, one half of her own folk/Americana duo Oliver the Crow, and the cellist and creative director for the Atwood Quartet. Kaitlyn holds a Bachelor of Music degree and a Performer’s Certificate from Purchase College, State University of New York where she studied with Julia Lichten and a Master of Music degree from McGill University where she studied with Matt Haimovitz. More »
Travel back in time to experience any Flame Keeper's work. The most recent artists are at the bottom of this page.
About the Artist
Eli Greenhoe (b. 1994) is a composer, songwriter, and guitarist hailing from Brooklyn, New York. His works have been commissioned and performed by such artists and ensembles as loadbang, Bergamot Quartet, Aki Takahashi, S.E.M. Ensemble, and George Manahan, among others. His music has been programmed at the Bang on a Can, Chatter, Yellow Barn, Ostrava Days (CZ), and Tokyo to New York (JP) festivals. In 2018 he was awarded a Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Recently, he was selected as a finalist in the Beth Morrison Projects “Next Generation” program. As a performer, Greenhoe has led bands in New York City and elsewhere nearly his entire life. Currently he performs as a solo artist, as well as with his duo Airborne Charlie (with Hans Bilger), and his cabaret act Bergman & Bloustein (with Natasha Thweatt). He is also active in interdisciplinary collaboration: his film music has been featured in Vogue Magazine and the 2020 Maryland Film Festival. Greenhoe is currently a doctoral candidate at the Yale School of Music, where he completed his M.M. in 2018. More »
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About the Artist
Pianist, composer, producer and improviser Theo Walentiny grew up in an artistic home. His world of influences includes Cecil Taylor, Charles Mingus, Toru Takemitsu and Henri Dutilleux. Along with performing across top venues in New York City, Theo has performed globally including places such as Israel, Switzerland and China. He is an alumnus The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music and The Banff International Jazz Workshop. He released his debut album “Looking Glass” (a collection of solo piano improvisations) in April of 2021, to critical acclaim. Theo is currently developing an electronic-oriented project for a subsequent album release. More »
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.
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About the Artist
Marisa Tornello is a composer, vocalist, performance artist, mover, and maker from and based on Staten Island. From bodypaint to projection art, Tornello cultivates a platform for dialogue around the human psyche through the dual lens of trauma and healing. Their works have been shown at Roulette, the Tank, Jack, La MaMa ETC, Snug Harbor Cultural Center, Vital Joint, Invisible Dog Arts Center, and Judson Church, and have been featured in the Exponential Festival and Ladyfest at the Tank. Tornello recently received a Jerome Commission at Roulette Intermedium for Spring 2022 and is a member of ECHO Ensemble. More »
Travel back in time to experience any Flame Keeper's work. The most recent artists are at the bottom of this page.
About the Artist
Charlotte Greve is a Brooklyn-based alto saxophonist, composer, and singer originally from Germany. She has released eight albums as a leader, two of which received the ECHO Jazz Prize (German equivalent of a GRAMMY). Charlotte’s Brooklyn-based indie-pop influenced band Wood River released their Debut LP in 2015 and released their second full length album “More Than I Can See” on Yellowbird Records in 2020. Her large scale multi genre piece “Sediments We Move” was released on New Amsterdam and Figureight Records in October 2021 and received significant attention. More »
Travel back in time to experience any Flame Keeper's work. The most recent artists are at the bottom of this page.
About the Artist
Topu Lyo is a Brooklyn based multi-disciplinary electronic and acoustic experimental cellist. He has performed/recorded with artists such as: Emily Wells, Caroline Polachek, Ruth B, and performed at venues such as MOMA, LA Natural History Museum amongst many others. His band Live Footage has composed and produced many tracks for: HBO, BMW, VICE and most currently a 3 part documentary on Kanye West called Jeen-Yuhs set to be released on Netflix in February. They have also held a 10 year residency in Chinatown’s Apotheke. More »
Travel back in time to experience any Flame Keeper's work. The most recent artists are at the bottom of this page.
About the Artist
Kristina Teuschler performs classical music, makes electronic music, and creates spaces for contemporary music. With clarinet and bass clarinet as her primary instruments, she joined the West Point Band full-time in 2019. She is also an active freelancer, performing with professional orchestras, contemporary ensembles, and indie bands in New York. She co-directs Madison New Music Festival, a weekend-long event in her hometown of Madison, Wisconsin, and curates the Wisconsin Composers Project. Kristina’s original music combines clarinets, found sounds, vocals and synthesizers. Her debut album is currently in production, which combines original works with electroacoustic works for clarinet by others, including a commission by Morgan Henderson (Fleet Foxes, Blood Brothers, Cave Singers). More »
Han Chen speaks with composer, improviser, and pianist Jonah Haven about the process of writing a new solo piano work co-commissioned by Han Chen and Metropolis Ensemble.
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.
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About the Artist
Shara Lunon is the product of the evolution of Black American musical traditions. As a poet, vocalist, composer, and improviser, her art finds the ethereal in the chaotic. With voice as the foundation, Shara’s music is an exploration of text and sound that seamlessly weaves through the ceaseless relationship of struggle, resilience, hope, and resolution. She has performed with leading improvisers including Darius Jones, and the International Contemporary Ensemble. Shara’s work has been featured in The Gothamist, and can be heard in collaboration with Marisa Tornello in the spring of 2021 at Roulette Intermedium. More »
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About the Artist
Euro-Caribbean artist Marc Alberto (they/them) is a musical polyglot whose work seems to escape categorisation.
Besides developing a personal language as a saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist, as well as composing, improvising and performing electro-acoustic chamber music – they have been working in a continuous carrousel of interdisciplinary collaborations as a sound artist, lyricist, arranger, producer, director and performer. Marc is currently based in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. More »
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About the Artist
Ledah Finck is a violinist, violist, improviser, and composer who currently resides in NYC. A passionate creator, performer, and curator of contemporary classical music, she is a member of the contemporary-music string quartet Bergamot Quartet, currently the Graduate String Quartet in Residence at the New School where the group is mentored by the JACK Quartet. Her pursuit of contemporary music is strongly supplemented by performing and collaborating in other genres such as jazz manouche, Appalachian and Celtic folk, and experimental music. Compositional projects include commissions by Imani Winds, Alarm Will Sound/Now Hear This, the Bridge Ensemble, The Peabody Community Chorus, and a work for the Bergamot Quartet and percussionist Terry Sweeney, which received a New Music USA grant. She released her first solo album, Mayfly, in 2020 and is at work on her second. More »
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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Travel back in time to experience any Flame Keeper's work. The most recent artists are at the bottom of this page.
About the Artist
Born and raised in Brooklyn, NY, Raquel Acevedo Klein is an active conductor, vocalist, composer, and instrumentalist. Raquel has performed at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Radio City Music Hall, Town Hall, BAM, St. Ann’s Warehouse, Celebrate Brooklyn!, the Guggenheim, Rockefeller Center, The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, WNYC, and elsewhere.
Recently, Raquel was commissioned by Little Island to premiere Polyphonic Interlace: a surround-sound music experience she composed using 40 layers of her own singing voice. Polyphonic Interlace went on to be performed by American Composers Orchestra in their first concert since the pandemic. As part of NY PopsUp, Raquel curated the four-week festival entitled NYC FREE, to celebrate the opening of Little Island. Her performances and curations have caught the attention of publications including The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The New Yorker, and Time Out New York.
Raquel conducts for the Grammy Award-winning Brooklyn Youth Chorus and New Jersey Symphony Orchestra among other projects. She has premiered works and operas by Philip Glass, Caroline Shaw, John Adams, Nico Muhly, Paola Prestini, Bryce Dessner, and George Lewis to name a few. She has recorded and performed with artists including Glen Hansard, Arcade Fire, Bon Iver, The National, Grizzly Bear, Cory Smythe, Sufjan Stevens, The Knights, NY Philharmonic, and International Contemporary Ensemble among others. More »
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About the Artist
ÉMU aka Maria Takeuchi creates sonic and visual poems, merging organismic soundscapes with generative art and illuminating objects inspired by nature. Using piezo microphones attached to wood bark wound or bamboo with guitar strings and porcelain bowls carefully tuned with water measurements, Maria plays and conducts the sound objects with a delicate yet intentional focus. The subtle sound textures created solely with touches by hand, stones, leaves, sandpaper, and shells on the handmade instruments, processed for added aesthetic atmosphere. More »
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About the Artist
Sam Torres (he/him) is a musician and audio engineer based in Troy, NY. He is also a founding director of Organ Colossal, a nonprofit presenting music in the New York Capital Region. He grew up in the Bronx listening to and playing salsa, jazz, and Bach, and then received degrees in jazz performance and computer music composition. All of these musical interests continue to live and evolve through his own work, which is itself striving to be as honest and simple as possible. His debut full length album of music for saxophone and live electronics will be released sometime in the next several years. More »
Travel back in time to experience any Flame Keeper's work. The most recent artists are at the bottom of this page.
About the Artist
Alicia Enstrom is a classically trained violinist, composer, producer and reformed circus runaway (Cirque du Soleil) who plays high and loud, tinkers with tech, and loves to use music to stir the pot of your subconscious. She is a unique artist who’s work spans that of classical, orchestral, pop and ambient electronic.
Alicia has performed on stages throughout the world as a soloist, for blockbuster movie soundtracks and video games (Call of Duty, Madden NFL, Harriet), alongside Billboard 100 artists (Willie Nelson, Paul McCartney, Dolly Parton), on TV awards shows and with the most recognized symphonies in the world. More »
For anyone old enough to remember the birth of the internet, the room in the house where that endearing, bulky desktop computer lived had a certain allure.