“Give these young performers points for novelty. “

What makes “Brownstone,” as an evening-long event and as an individual piece of music, different is “that individual audience members have near total control over how they experience and hear the work,”

“Give these young performers points for novelty. “

“It’s not about gimmicks, it’s about feeling allowed to break with convention and enjoy the music as you like.”

“A sensory overload in an Upper East Side mansion.”

“This week, a day before he graduated, the economics and sociology major cooked up his experimental cuisine.”

What would a house sound like if it could sing?
May 16, 2016

“The Phillips Collection had an artsy, New York vibe on Sunday when the Metropolis Ensemble took over the place, literally.”

Jonah Reider is the culinary half of the duo behind “Brownstone,” a food- and music-based pop-up billed as “an experiential treasure-hunt of sound, taste and color.”

In the Upper East Side townhouse that the American Irish Historical Society calls home, a violinist ambled down the stairs while tuning her instrument and a harpist improvised with electronic sounds that came from the walls.

American Irish Historical Society
January 23, 2015

In the Upper East Side townhouse that the American Irish Historical Society calls home, a violinist ambled down the stairs while tuning her instrument and a harpist improvised with electronic sounds that came from the walls.

This site-specific electro-acoustic composition living art installation by Jakub Ciupinski will not only be performed this weekend, but it will be performed by Metropolis Ensemble through the historic, Victorian-era Kimball House at the Capitol Center for the Arts.

Northeast Tour
October 2014

The New York-based ensemble, with roots in Maine, will perform at the Portland mansion on Oct. 3.

“With its performers dispersed throughout the Olin Arts Center at Bates College, Metropolis presents the innovative site-specific piece 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.

Audience members get a front-row seat to performances by Metropolis artists at Brownstone in Clinton Hill.

At moments like this, new music sheds its academic strictures and finds its way back to the era of dinnertime entertainments.

Music may feed the soul, but it still goes best with a drink.