Erin Gee:
The music seeks an experiential non-language, containing the virtuosity of a native speaker.
Vivian Fung:
I am not an ethnomusicologist and am less concerned with replicating anything akin to an exact version of these works than with the way I have internalized the shimmering harmonies and interlocking rhythms of their traditions into my own original voice.
Cristina Spinei:
My interest in integrating percussion with orchestra comes from varying sources, each stemming from dance. I constantly immersed myself in sounds that shared one common principal: rhythm as the driving force of music that inspires and compels movement.
Jakub Ciupinski:
Avant garde composers were trying to find new solutions by rejecting the past. They were really trying to find something new. Whereas our generation is trying to find something new by incorporating elements that already existed. So this is an entirely new philosophy.
And some parting thoughts from Metropolis Ensemble Music Director Andrew Cyr on his curation of this concert of commissions and premieres:
In getting to know these composers and the nuances of their compositional styles in the process of developing these new commissions, I realized over time that they shared something in common that I found to be artistically fascinating and vital: an open and deep curiosity for exploring diverse source material and developing new and highly individual systems of compositional techniques to absorb these modes of representation.
Read more in the program notes...
