Here are a few highlights from our concerts in 2009, edited and produced by Gareth Paul Cox. Groanbox on January 28, 2009, featuring the works of David Bruce, Michael Ward-Bergeman, and John Adams. Glimpses on May 6, 2009, featuring the works of Vivian Fung, Jakub Ciupinski, and Cristina Spinei. New Music 101 on September 16, 2009, featuring the interactive works of Jakub Ciupinski. Reverb on November 19-20, 2009, featuring the works of Jakub Ciupinski, Vivian Fung, Erin Gee, and Cristina Spinei.
Show your support for Metropolis Ensemble and experience inspiring musical performances! If you become a member today, you'll be invited to attend a private concert hosted by June Wu at her Upper West Side apartment (Friday, December 11 at 7pm). The concert will feature the popular "Composing and Cocktails" and "Music from Air" programs from our New Music 101 concert with composer Jakub Ciupinski and Metropolis Ensemble musicians.
You can help sustain the future of Metropolis Ensemble and the vitality of classical and contemporary music in our society by becoming a member today! Contributions are tax deductible and benefit the ensemble throughout the upcoming year.
This post was written by Timo Andres, one of Metropolis Ensemble's featured composers in Spring 2010, for the upcoming Reverb concerts at (Le) Poisson Rouge.
The title of this concert, Reverb, seems especially meaningful to composer Jakub Ciupinski. "I absolutely love churches for their long reverb. Very often in my music I use a thin, hocket-like texture full of single, short notes that almost never overlap. Harmonic structures can only emerge through reverb or the listener's memory." Jakub favorite musical space is an abandoned salt mine near Cracow, in his native Poland, where "irregular shapes create the most smooth and perfect reverb I've ever heard."
Le Poisson Rouge is also underground, but seems better suited toward one of Jakub's other obsessions: electronics. Many of his recent works are written for acoustic instruments augmented and supported by electronic textures ("like the back row of an orchestra"). His approach to writing this kind of music is architectural, focusing on soundscapes, timescales, and overall continuum rather than the details of a notated score.
Electronica provides more than just a backing track - it also informs content and structure. Jakub's music is built on "loops": short musical phrases that repeat, layer, and evolve - and, like electronic dance music, it often has a very strong groove. This tended to be a source of discord with his composition teachers when he was studying at Juilliard. "For traditionally-oriented composers, having a regular 'beat' seems too casual, [like a] profanation of high art." On the other hand, he appreciates New York's artistic pragmatism, which is refreshing. In Poland, he says, artists are more appreciated for being "original and sometimes weird."
Jakub's art testifies to his easygoing demeanor. He's been straddling musical cultures for several years now, and perhaps realizes it's just as well not quite fitting into any of them. Instead, he strives for "acoustic experiences. I try not to think or analyze." That's not to say he has no time for craft; quite the contrary. "Writing quasi-minimal music... is about finding these little unique jewels with potential so great that even after many repetitions they sound equally fresh... they can resist the destructive power of time."
With four completely different voices, the composers in our fall concert, REVERB, have summed up their thoughts on what new music can express. Here's some excerpts from the program notes.
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.
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.
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.
Photo and video highlights from New Music 101: Intro to Electronica are now live on the site, including behind-the-scenes photos from Le Poisson Rouge and full-length videos of the world premiere performance of Street Prayer, Jenny Lin's encore performance of Morning Tale, and Jakub Ciupinski's demonstration series Music from Air, his gesture-controlled system built out of two theremins and a laptop. Here's one of the demos:
You can also explore our archived concerts in our new photo and video galleries... an endless supply of inspiring musical works from the past three years!
One of the highlights of our upcoming concert, New Music 101, is a segment we're calling "Composing and Cocktails." Here's how it works. Music "waiters" (composer Jakub Ciupinksi and conductor Andrew Cyr) will greet you with an iPhone that serves as a real-time composition system, networking wirelessly to Metropolis Ensemble musicians on laptops.
Jakub elaborates:
They can suggest certain choices from the "menu" of melodies, textures, dynamics, and the audience can choose whatever they would like to hear from the live musicians in any given moment.
Interested in a preview? We invite you to download the music menu and get a sneak-peak at our selections. The possibilities are truly endless!
To celebrate our upcoming concert, New Music 101: Intro to Electronica, Metropolis Ensemble and composer Jakub Ciupinski are delighted to offer the mp3 of an inspiring electro-acoustic work by Jakub. "The Architect's Brother" premiered in 2006 at the Juilliard School's Peter Jay Sharp Theatre accompanying the choreography of Adam Weinert. You can download it here, absolutely free, for a limited time.
The Architect's Brother as performed by Vassilis Varvaresos (piano), Marko Pavlovic (celesta), Rachel Brandwein (harp), and Eugene Lifschitz (cello).
Metropolis Ensemble is dedicated to sharing artistic connections between emerging composers and performers with audiences in settings meant to inspire a new generation of music lovers. Learn more...
