Metropolis Ensemble Announces 2017-18 Season

Grammy-nominated Metropolis Ensemble looks forward to a prototypical season in 2017-18. This fall, Metropolis presents a five-concert piano mini-series at its loft (a former art gallery) in lower Manhattan in collaboration with long-time Metropolis associate, pianist David Kaplan. In December, the ensemble accompanies the film Bangsokol: A Requiem for Cambodia as part of BAM's Next Wave Festival. And early in 2018, Metropolis performs major new works by Timo Andres and Caroline Shaw (at the Met Museum) and William Brittelle (at Symphony Space). This formula of collaborative involvement from the earliest stages, when just the bare root of the ideas are being planted, to final culmination of the project (in collaboration with some of country's most prestigious presenters) has become a trademark of the organization.

Since January Metropolis has presented over 20 innovative events at its "pop-up" venue at 1 Rivington on Manhattan's Lower East Side. Metropolis' core artists and composers have showcased a wide variety of formats and experimental combinations. This fall, Metropolis presents and hosts a mini-series devoted to pianists at the vanguard of New York's new music scene, curated in collaboration with pianist David Kaplan. Pianists include Timo Andres, Erika Dohi, Jeremy Jordan, Imri Talgam, Taka Kigawa, Andrew Hsu, Conor Hanick, Guy Mintus, and Mika Emily Sasaki.

Metropolis makes its third appearance at BAM's Next Wave Festival on December 15-16 as part Bangsokol: A Requiem for Cambodia, in which two survivors of the Khmer Rouge-composer Him Sophy and Academy-Award nominated filmmaker Rithy Panh-attempt to return dignity to their country's dead with this musical ritual remembering the Cambodian genocide.

On February 16 Metropolis teams with Brooklyn Youth Chorus and Wye Oak in a performance of William Brittelle's Spiritual America at Symphony Space. And on April 21, they pair with early music ensemble TENET in a performance of Charpentier's Les Plaisirs de Versailles, a world premiere of a new work by Timo Andres for orchestra and cello (performed by Inbal Segev), and the world premiere of a new work by Caroline S

SEASON 11 HIGHLIGHTS / @ 1 RIVINGTON

1 Rivington Street / 2nd Floor (Buzzer #1) / NYC
TICKETS: $10-35
www.metropolisensemble.org

5 Nights, 11 Pianists:
A piano mini-series curated in collaboration with David Kaplan

Sept. 17
Piano Philharmonic (Timo Andres, David Kaplan, Andrew Hsu, & Mika Emily Sasaki)
Timo Andres, David Kaplan, Andrew Hsu and Mika Emily Sasaki pile onto the piano bench to perform music originally for orchestra. We begin in the opera house, with Benjamin Britten's "Sea Interludes" from Peter Grimes, and Thomas Ades' Powder Her Face Paraphrase, along with music by composer/pianist Andrew Hsu. Brahms' first Symphony for four-hands completes the program.

Oct. 4
Piano Counterpoints (Taka Kigawa & Han Chen)
Taka Kigawa performs his own 'mixtape' Bach's Art of the Fugue. Han Chen opens with Steve Reich's Piano Counterpoint for piano and electronics.

Oct. 9
Piano Storytellers (David Kaplan & Jeremy Jordan, with actor Sherman Howard)
David Kaplan and Jeremy Jordan collaborate with actor Sherman Howard for an evening of piano and narrator. Improvisations and poetry are followed by Strauss' rarely performed masterwork, Enoch Arden, based on the epic poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson.

Oct. 18
Piano Off-Book (Erika Dohi & Guy Mintus)
Erika Dohi and jazz pianist Guy Mintus explore the boundary between composition and improvisation, with a mix of aleatoric music, compositions, originals, and live extemporizations. Selections include music by Boulez, Feldman, Monk, Wadada Smith, Anthony Davis, Ligeti, Cage, and Rzewski.

Oct. 22
Piano Soundscapes (Conor Hanick & Imri Talgam )
Conor Hanick and Imri Talgam craft an evening celebrating the piano as noise maker, extracting poetry from the most extreme sonic possibilities the instrument offers. Accompanied by a visual synthesizer (visuals by composers Elliot Cole and Ryan Francis), Morton Feldman's Triadic Memories is the evening's epic centerpiece, as a beguiling series of slowly-evolving images coordinate with the music in realtime. The concert opens with Stockhausen's wild Klavierstu?ck X.

SEASON 11 HIGHLIGHTS / PREMIERES & COLLABORATIONS

Sept. 25
Interactive Theater: Vladimir Nabokov's The Waltz Invention
Caveat / 21 Clinton St., NYC / Info
A performance-party where audience-members get to play a part in re-enacting Nabokov's oddly prescient 1938 drama of a demagogue holding the world hostage, all set to live original incidental music composed by Brad and Doug Balliett. After being the first orchestra to perform at LPR in 2008, Metropolis is excited to debut in NYC's new venue -- Caveat.

Dec. 15-16
Bangsokol: A Requiem for Cambodia
BAM Howard Gilman Opera House / Brooklyn, NY 2017
Next Wave Festival / Info
Two survivors of the Khmer Rouge-composer Him Sophy and filmmaker Rithy Panh (The Missing Picture)-attempt to return dignity to their country's dead with this musical ritual remembering the Cambodian genocide. Against cinematic evocations of this bruised history, Bangsokol: A Requiem for Cambodia recruits the Metropolis Ensemble, the Taipei Philharmonic Chamber Choir, and traditional Khmer vocalists and instruments to mourn the nearly two million forgotten souls.

Feb 16
William Brittelle's Spiritual America
Symphony Space / NYC / Info
Spiritual America is a series of electro-acoustic orchestral art songs that explores issues of secular spirituality in American culture. The project is co-commissioned by the Alabama Symphony, the North Carolina Symphony, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra's Liquid Music Series/Walker Art Center, the Palm Springs Art Museum, the Baltimore Symphony, and Symphony Space. At its core, Spiritual America is a collaboration between William Brittelle (all text and music) and indie rock duo Wye Oak, who contribute vocals and percussion throughout. The project is slated for full premiere and recording on New Amsterdam Records in early 2018 - Metropolis Ensemble, Brooklyn Youth Chorus, and Wye Oak will comprise the ensemble.

Apr. 21
(Time) Travelers to Versailles
The Met Museum / NYC
Metropolis Ensemble and early-music ensemble TENET collaborate with The Met in this playful program presenting musical responses inspired by Versailles's famous "mixture of work and play, splendor and filth, piety and license" (Pierre Goubert). In addition to Charpentier's delightful comedy, Les Plaisirs de Versailles, there will be two world premieres highlighting the hold that Versailles has on the creative imagination: a new work for cello solo (Inbal Segev, cello) and chamber orchestra by composer Timo Andres; and in a colorful twist, Pulitzer-Prize winning composer Caroline Shaw will write a new piece combining voices with both period and modern instruments, using texts from 17th century travel diaries of visitors to France. The work will explore the world of Louis XIV's Versailles, with its constant flow of people, legendary opulence,

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