New York Times: In Streaming Age, Classical Music Gets Lost in the Metadata
For contemporary classical artists, metadata is not just an abstract consideration.
New York Times: In Visible Roads Festival
These three concerts in this collaborative group’s In Visible Roads festival all look at the piano in one way or another. On Friday there’s a glimpse at composers who are either synesthetic or take an avowedly coloristic approach to composing.
New York Times: A Room-Size Painting Becomes a Cello Concerto About Versailles
Timo Andres’ piece, which features the cellist Inbal Segev performing with the Metropolis Ensemble, is based on John Vanderlyn’s “Panoramic View of the Palace and Gardens of Versailles” (1818-19), a massive painting on nearly 2,000 square feet of canvas that requires its own circular gallery in the Met’s American Wing.
New York Times: Al-Quds Jerusalem
Mohammed Fairouz, a prolific and inventive young composer, has written a new oratorio seeking to capture some of Jerusalem’s complex dynamics and sounds.
New York Times: Review: David Kaplan Riffs on Schumann’s Spirit
Mr. Kaplan played “New Dances of the League of David,” a 60-minute suite that incorporates new miniatures by this 21st-century band of composers into Schumann’s “Davidsbündlertänze,” a project commissioned by Lyrica Chamber Music and Metropolis Ensemble.
New York Times: Lending Mozart a Left Hand
The composer and pianist Timo Andres’s take on the “Coronation” (otherwise known as the Piano Concerto No. 26 in D) felt necessary — not a lark but a surprisingly moving dazzler.
New York Times: A Haunting History Lesson With Your Hip-Hop
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.
New York Times: Evoking Forbidden Love and Flying Ancient Armies
Metropolis Ensemble, a talented freelance orchestra, responded with skill and exuberance to Mr. Tan’s thrusting arms and clutching fingers.
New York Times: Adopted by a Brownstone
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.
New York Times: A Composer Not Afraid to Mash Things Up
Avner Dorman’s music works its magic by melding far-flung influences and making them sound natural together.
New York Times: A Night of Acoustic and Electronic Exploits
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.
New York Times: Avner Dorman "Concertos"
Avner Dorman writes with an omnivorous eclecticism that makes his music on Concertos both accessible and impossible to pigeonhole.
New York Times: 26 Works, New and Old, to Aid Relief in Haiti
“All told, twenty-six works of various lengths were performed, most contemporary and eclectic.”
New York Times: 26 Works, New and Old, to Aid Relief in Haiti
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.