Concert Highlights from The Rite: Remixed

We're pleased to share a new documentary video about Metropolis Ensemble's world premiere of The Rite Remixed, last summer's adventurous collaboration exploding the boundaries of live electro-classical music. Get a behind-the-scenes look at the three concerts and watch exclusive interviews with the performers and composers!

Update: You can also experience the concerts through our highlights page with streaming audio, photo gallery, interviews, and press.

Video produced by Gareth Paul Cox and Kyrié Cox. Audio engineering by Leo Leite.

Welcome Ray Lustig

Metropolis Ensemble welcomes its 2008-09 Youth Works composer, Ray Lustig. Over the next year, Ray will work with elementary students at PS11 in Manhattan to teach them about composition and music appreciation... which culminates in a concert featuring the students' work. Ray is a doctoral student at Julliard; his orchestral composition Unstuck won last year's prestigious Rudolf Nissim Prize from the ASCAP Foundation. Here are a few samples of his recent work:



Youth Works is made possible thanks to a generous grant from the van Otterloo Foundation.

Live from Prospect Park

Hear the Metropolis Ensemble and Deerhoof perform a concert from the Wordless Music Series, recorded live by WNYC at Prospect Park in Brooklyn, NY. Listen on NPR.org starting at 7:30pm EST. An hourlong special about the Wordless Music Series begins at 6:30pm. Tonight's webcast is produced by WNYC and hosted by David Garland.

Go to the broadcast now...

Wordless Music Series pairs Metropolis Ensemble led by Artistic Director/Conductor Andrew Cyr and indie sensation Deerhoof for a night of music under the stars. Experience The Rite: Remixed and Two-Part Belief with an expected audience of 10,000 at Celebrate Brooklyn. Featuring soprano Hila Plitmann.

Join us in Prospect Park - either in person or online - for a night of music under the stars!

Metropolis Ensemble on WNYC

Artistic Director/Conductor Andrew Cyr and Composer Ricardo Romaneiro will be on WNYC Soundcheck at 2pm EST today to discuss their new composition, The Rite: Remixed and share the secrets of setting Stravinsky's most famous work to keyboards, laptops, brass and drums.

Three ways to listen...

1. Tune into WNYC FM 93.9 Radio
2. Listen on iTunes
   • Click on Radio (top left)
   • Open the "Public" category
   • Click on WNYC-FM
3. Listen Online. Click on the "listen live" box on this page.

UPDATE: You can now listen to the broadcast online or as a podcast.

ASCAP Audio Portrait

The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers recently featured Avner Dorman in the ASCAP Audio Portraits series. The interview includes excerpts from the forthcoming studio album with Metropolis Ensemble performing the complete chamber orchestra concerti of Avner Dorman (from our Fall 2007 concert, On Record). The new album, produced by Grammy-winning David Frost, will be released this fall.

Listen to the interview...

A Work of Pure Whimsy

Metropolis Ensemble is pleased to offer a free download of Sports et Divertissements, recorded live at The Times Center in New York City on April 10, 2008. Erik Satie's twenty-one brilliant thumbnail sketches are presented in a delightful arrangement for chamber orchestra by David Bruce, and featuring our resident funny-man Mike Daisey.

Download Sports et Divertissements
(right-click to download the mp3, ctrl-click on a mac)

David and Mike had the opportunity to sit down and discuss Satie's work ahead of last month's concert. The conversation – ranging from challenges of composing and updating this work, to the serious (and not so serious) business of comedy – is available in the video archive. Be sure to also watch the Tennis excerpt and see conductor Andrew Cyr serve up a surprise finale.

And because there should never be lack of razor-sharp wit, Mike Daisey invites you to his latest performance: How Theater Failed America, running through June 22 at the Barrow Street Theatre. Dark, honest and hilarious, Daisey seeks answers to essential and dangerous questions about the art we're making, the legacy we leave to the future, and who it is we believe we're speaking to. An exclusive discount is available for Metropolis Ensemble members and fans!

Sports et Divertissements is commissioned for chamber orchestra by Metropolis Ensemble. Special thanks to audio engineer Ryan Streber, videographer Tim Bakland, and video editor Dan Hayek.

Piano Concerto Available for Free Download

Metropolis Ensemble and composer Ryan Francis are delighted to offer the complete live recording of Concerto for Piano and Chamber Orchestra during its world premiere performance at The Times Center in New York City on April 10, 2008. You can download it here, absolutely free.

Ryan Francis: Concerto for Piano and Chamber Orchestra:

• Movement 1
• Movement 2
• Movement 3
• Movement 4

(right-click to download the mp3s, ctrl-click on a mac)

You can also watch the entire Concerto, featuring pianist Anna Polonsky and the Metropolis Ensemble led by Artistic Director/Conductor Andrew Cyr on the Media Page, along with an extensive archive of performances and behind-the-scenes footage. Watch now...

Looking for more of Ryan Francis? Check out his MySpace, and get ready for this summer's world premiere of The Rite: Remixed. Ricardo Romaneiro joins forces with Ryan Francis and Leo Leite to re-conceptualize the most revolutionary work of the 20th Century, Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring, through the lens of the latest sounds and technology from electronica! Three opportunities to experience the revolution (July 16-18)! Complete details...

Concerto for Piano and Chamber Orchestra is co-commission from the Metropolis Ensemble and the American Composers Forum with funds provided by the Jerome Foundation. Metropolis Ensemble's Wet Ink and Youth Works programs are generously funded by the van Otterloo Foundation. Special thanks to audio engineer Ryan Streber, videographer Tim Bakland, and photographer Vern Kousky.

Wordless Music + Celebrate Brooklyn

Metropolis Ensemble will be opening for Deerhoof in Prospect Park on July 18, 2008, as part of the Wordless Music Series and Celebrate Brooklyn.

Metropolis Ensemble led by Artistic Director/Conductor Andrew Cyr and Wordless Music co-commissions The Rite: Remixed, a collaboration between three composers and live electronics producers, explodes the boundaries of live electro-classical music. Ryan Francis, Leo Leite, and Ricardo Romaneiro re-conceptualize the most revolutionary work of the 20th Century, Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring, through the lens of the latest sounds and technology from electronica. Combined with acoustic forces consisting of huge percussion and brass ensembles, 2 keyboards / 2 laptops, and electric bass, the remixed version will fuse a futuristic, rhythm-inspired sonic tableaux with a hyper-kinetic visual show.

The Metropolis Ensemble and The Rite: Remixed appears as part of the Wordless Music Series, which puts popular and classical artists together to tear down boundaries between performers and audiences of each. "At the moment, there is no more inventive music series in New York" (Alex Ross, The New Yorker).

The mercurial SF experimentalists Deerhoof, "the most creative band in indie rock today," (LA Weekly) forge a distinctive sound out of sophisticated improvisation, fierce dissonance, and weirdly catchy melodies.

Meet the Composer Gala

World-renowned soprano and leading new music muse Dawn Upshaw, and Meet the Composer Foundation have invited Metropolis Ensemble to perform the newly arranged Three Pieces from Piosenki by composer David Bruce at a gala dinner held in Upshaw's honor at the Manhattan Penthouse in New York City on May 28, 2008. The annual event organized by Meet the Composer honors a prominent American artist. The benefit committee includes Esa-Pekka Salonen, James Levine, Robert Spano, Osvaldo Golijov, John Adams, among others.

Upshaw was involved in the original Carnegie Hall commission of Piosenki, and has recently been championing Bruce's music, commissioning an opera from him for her students on the Graduate Vocal Arts Program at Bard College, NY and scheduling performances of Piosenki herself in the fall. Other pieces selected for the event are by John Harbison and Tania Leon, both of whom will be in attendance.

More details about the gala...

Listen and learn about Piosenki...

The Sound Recyclers

During the second semester of Youth Works, Metropolis Ensemble's 40-week education program teaching music composition and creativity to 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders at PS 11 School, Cristina Spinei has been concentrating our weekly lessons on rhythm. After learning about different rhythms and making our own percussion instruments, she thought it would be fun for the class to have a recording session.

Students performed rhythms that they composed and notated on instruments which they built themselves the week before. They constructed drums, shakers, and mallets out of everyday objects to better understand the various performance possibilities with percussion. One student even turned an ordinary drum into a maraca and added rubber bands to make it a "guitar." Everyone loved hearing their own music and performance on CD. At the end of the percussion solos, you will hear excerpts of The Sound Recyclers performing at their first "recording session."



Stay tuned for news about our year-end concert project this June at Youth Works, where Cristina will create an arrangement of the students' compositions to be premiered in a concert by the Metropolis Ensemble and offered to the entire PS 11 school community.

The Metropolis Ensemble would like to thank the van Otterloo Foundation for generously supporting our education initiatives, Youth Works and Wet Ink.

Ryan Francis: A Concerto Realized

This is part of our composer series on Ryan Francis. In this post, Ryan talks about his new piano concerto, the featured work in Metropolis Ensemble's upcoming concert Loop.

Composed concurrently to his Piano Etudes, Ryan Francis's Concerto for Piano and Chamber Orchestra brings together two creative directions that he has been pursuing in his music. One is a post-minimalistic style driven by rhythmic relationships within a simple, diatonic harmonic scheme, exemplified by Remix for violin and piano. Straights of Anian represents the other, post-spectralist style, evoked through coloristic texture and less concerned with metric rhythm. In the Concerto, the solo piano and chamber ensemble engage in an intimate and dynamic dialogue, as in Luciano Berio's Points on the Curve to Find.



Music credits: Luciano Berio, Concerto II (Echoing Curves), Andre Lucchesini piano, Luciano Berio, London Symphony Orchestra; Red Seal; B000003GAZ. Ryan Francis, Remix, Wayne Lee violin, Daniel Spiegel piano. Ryan Francis, Straights of Anian, Pacific Orchestra. Ryan Francis, Digital Sustain for Piano, (MIDI rendering). Special thanks to Ania Dabrowski.

Ryan Francis: Etudes for Piano

This is part of our composer series on Ryan Francis. In this post, Ryan discusses his new piano etudes, featured in Metropolis Ensemble's upcoming concert Digital Sustain.

Since Frédéric Chopin, the genre of piano etudes transformed from their intention as studies towards improving one's pianism to unfettered exemplars of imagination and virtuosity that pushed piano technique to the limits. In the last century, Conlon Nancarrow removed the performer from the form, composing the first pre-electronic pieces for player piano that are physically impossible for any human to perform. Ryan has used the current version of piano player rolls – MIDI maps – to expand human piano technique in his etudes.



Music credits: Frédéric Chopin, Etude #1 in C, Op. 10, Maurizio Pollini piano; Deutsche Grammophon: B000001G5H. Ryan Francis, "Digitial Sustain" for Piano, (MIDI rendering). Conlon Nancarrow's Etude No. 1; player piano. Ryan Francis, "Harlequin" for Piano, (MIDI rendering). Special thanks to Ania Dabrowski.

Ryan Francis: On Composing

This is part of our composer series on Ryan Francis. In this post, Ryan talks with Metropolis Ensemble's Artistic Director, Andrew Cyr, about his compositional background.

Conceptual inspiration abounds in the music of composer Ryan Francis. Although Maurice Ravel and Gyorgi Ligeti are not two names you normally hear uttered in the same breath together both share an intellectual playfulness and compositional intrepidity that Ryan identifies with.

An example of Ryan's playfulness and engagement with new materials and ideas is his orchestral White Deep Blue, which opens with an exact acoustical rearrangement of the '90s electronic hit Pearl's Girl by Underworld and continues into his own compositional flourish.

The visual arts also translate into Ryan's music on both abstract and more literal levels – one example being the reinterpretation of Joan Miro's canvas Woman Bird and Star into an eponymous musical piece.



Music credits: Maurice Ravel, Trois poèmes de Stéphane Mallarmé "Soupir", Dawn Upshaw, soprano; Nonesuch: B000005J0T. Gyorgy Ligeti, Violin Concerto, InterContemporain Ensemble, Saschko Gawriloff, violin, Pierre Boulez conductor; Deutsche Grammophon: B000001GLN. Underworld, "Pearl's Girl"; Tvt: B000003RJN. Ryan Francis "White Deep Blue", The Juilliard Orchestra. Ryan Francis "Woman Bird and Star", The Juilliard Orchestra. Special thanks to Ania Dabrowski.

Upcoming Concerts

Metropolis Ensemble and Artistic Director/Conductor Andrew Cyr are delighted to announce two new concerts for 2008:

LOOP
Thursday, April 10, 2008 (8pm)
The Times Center (620 8th Avenue at 41st Street)
Tickets: $20 online / $25 at the door
Buy tickets now...

The World Premiere performance of Piano Concerto by Wet Ink Composer Resident Ryan Francis featuring pianist Anna Polonsky. Also on the program, three 20th Century masterpieces: Ravel's Trois Poèmes de Stéphane Mallarmé, Salonen's Five Images from Sappho with soprano Kiera Duffy, and Satie's Sports et Divertissements, arranged by David Bruce. Wine reception during intermission.

Digital Sustain: Six Etudes for Piano by Ryan Francis
Saturday, March 8, 2008 (2pm)
Chelsea Art Museum (556 W 22nd Street)
Tickets: $20 online / at the door
Buy tickets now...

The World Premiere performance of ETUDES for Piano by Ryan Francis featuring pianists Vicky Chow, Michael Shinn, and Daniel Spiegel. Presented in tandem with etudes from Ligeti, Bolcom, Chopin, and Liszt. This special concert is a preview of Ryan Francis' spring concert premiere, Piano Concerto.

Ryan Francis: Piano Concerto

This is part of our composer series on Ryan Francis. In this post, Ryan offers his thoughts on his new Piano Concerto, the featured work in Metropolis Ensemble's spring concert, Loop.

This concerto feels like an arrival point for me artistically that has been in the works for the past four years. I've been exploring a lot of seemingly (to me, at least) disparate musical concepts, but this concerto is the crucible in which I'm forging them all together. On the one hand, I've written a good deal of music that deals more with textural as opposed to 'metric' rhythms, and I also have a parallel string of pieces that are concerned with electronic influence on acoustic music, which are much more metrically complex, while retaining more harmonic clarity.

My interest in electronics has influenced the concerto on both an aural level and a process level. While the concerto's orchestration is often designed to create 'electronic' tambors, I also decided to forego my traditional paper-and-pencil-exclusively method of composing, in favor of working with MIDI maps.

This new method of working allowed me to explore and develop textures that I probably would have never discovered were I simply working with my hands on a keyboard, and this influenced the soloist's part in particular. I would write with grids, unconcerned with playability, and would then transcribe them into mensural notation and revise and revise until they were completely idiomatic. The result has been that the piano writing is often utterly different than my previous work, which was my goal.

Each of the movements were developed out of piano etudes that I have been writing for the past year, and the form of each movement reflects the same sort of obsessive quality of an etude, although I allowed myself to be a little more expansive as well; this is a concerto, after all!

• The first movement could almost be a chorale, were it not for the sharp syncopated disjunctive melodic contours that cut through the texture.


• The second movement is a sort of musical jacob's ladder; constantly rising musical gestures that are also continuously falling.


• The third movement is more about color than the others, and less rhythmically driving as well, although there is a gentle repeated note pulse that runs through much of the movement.


• The final movement is comprised of two basic layers: a light, distant textural one, and a foreground built on constantly evolving loops of material.

Kids Bringing Music to Life

To say that Cristina Spinei's experience teaching for Metropolis Ensemble's Youth Works has been successful would be an understatement. Now halfway through this year's program at Public School 11 in Manhattan, Cristina wrote a report to capture some of the amazing progress her students are making.

Teaching at P.S. 11 for one semester has been exciting, challenging, and extremely rewarding. My students are imaginative and open to learning about music that they have had little exposure to. On the first day of class, I asked everyone to name a few composers. The responses I got were "Britney Spears, Jay-Z, Jennifer Lopez, 50 Cent, and Mozart." There was a lot of concern among the students that the music we were learning about would be written by "old dead guys" and would sound "old-fashioned." After the first month of lessons, the students were able to identify the music of Stravinsky, Tchaikovsky, Gershwin, Duke Ellington, Mozart, Vivaldi, and Wynton Marsalis.

From Brazilian percussion to Disney's Fantasia, Cristina has found some inventive and exciting ways to bring music and those "old dead guys" to life! At the end of the school year, Metropolis Ensemble will present a concert showcasing the students' work with Cristina. Read the full report (PDF)...

Sports et Divertissements

Metropolis Ensemble commissioned a new arrangement for chamber orchestra of Erik Satie's Sports et Divertissements from London-based composer David Bruce for our spring concert Loop.

Sports et Divertissements was originally written for piano and narrator in 1914 as a multi-media project of sorts. Satie provided piano music to drawings made by Charles Martin, a French illustrator from the Beaux Arts and Art Deco traditions. First published and performed in the early 1920s, Satie's twenty brilliant thumbnails sketches illuminate Martin's drawings with whimsical verbal and musical images of outdoor sports and amusements.

David Bruce offers his thoughts on creating a chamber orchestra arrangement:

Satie's Sports et Divertissements presents itself in such a deliberately humble, almost self-depricating manner that it's easy to overlook the quality of Satie's inventiveness. Indeed, I think I only really appreciated the true depth and subtlety of Satie's art once I began the process or orchestration.

From the instruments available, I tried to pick an orchestral palette which resonated with the subject matter of the individual pieces, (ranging as it does from circus clowns to and octopus in its cave) and in doing felt a sense of polishing up a tiny gem to reveal an extraordinary richness and strangeness. The tiniest of fragments which might whizz past in the piano piece and which might seem unremarkable, suddenly jumped into life... its true significance seeming stronger than ever.

Most notable were a wealth of connections with Satie's Parisian contemporaries, particularly Debussy and Stravinsky... connections which had only been marginally apparent to me in listening to the piano version. What we now think of as a Stravinskian orchestral sound is particularly evident in the pieces that evoke the circus or the comedia del'arte characters - the combination of 'earthy' circus music sounds with the particular kinds of harmony and repetitive patterns Satie uses bring out the Stravinsky connection especially strongly - and makes one reconsider the extent of the influence Satie exerted on the great Russian composer.

More about Erik Satie...