music for voice CYCLES, MASHUPS, AND MACHINIC RHAPSODIES

Andrew Cyr — Artistic Director/Conductor October 21 & 23, 2012 | (le) Poisson Rouge metropolisensemble.org ON THE PROGRAM

Hector Berlioz: Les Nuits d’Ete** six re-imaginations for chamber ensemble, electronics (V), and voice — world premiere featuring soprano Kiera Duffy I: Villanelle (Vivian Fung) II: Le Spectre de la Rose (Ryan Francis) III: Sur les Lagunes (Caroline Shaw) IV: Absence (Brad Balliett) V: Air: Morbidly Tender (Au Cimetière) (Nicholas Britell) VI: L’Ile Inconnue (Sayo Kosugi)

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David Babin (arr. Clovis Labarrière): Why Birds** selected rhapsodies from an opera-in-progress — world premiere featuring David Babin and BabX

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Mohammed Fairouz: Audenesque* for mezzo-soprano and chamber orchestra — world premiere featuring mezzo-soprano Kate Lindsey I. In Memory of W.B. Yeats II. III. IV. Audenesque

* Commission by ROKI for Kate Lindsey and Metropolis Ensemble ** Metropolis Ensemble commissions

Generous support for Music for Voice has been provided by The June K Wu Artist Fund, Meet the Composer, NYSCA, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, The Blanchette Hooker Rockefeller Foundation, and The Aaron Copland Fund for Music. The commission for Mohammed Fairouz’s Audenesque was made possible through the generous support of Reach Out Kansas Inc. (James Zakoura, General Director; Anissa Gardner Walz, Managing Director). “Renderings” concert at Orensanz Center in September 2011 WELCOME TO MUSIC FOR VOICE from Andrew Cyr, Artistic Director

Welcome to what is our 15th concert appearance here at (le) Poisson Rouge!! Metropolis Ensemble first performed here in the summer of 2008 prior to their official opening and since that time, (le) Poisson Rouge has provided our emerging organization a place to call home. In addition to being one of the most innovative, artist-friendly venues in the country, (le) Poisson Rouge is also a meeting-point for music-lovers of many genre to co-mingle and as such, is the perfect setting for tonight’s program. I hope you enjoy the show and thank you for all your support!

ABOUT METROPOLIS ENSEMBLE

Metropolis Ensemble is a professional chamber orchestra and ensemble dedicated to making classical music in its most contemporary forms. Founded and led by Grammy-nominated conductor Andrew Cyr, Metropolis Ensemble gathers today’s most outstanding emerging composers and young performing artists to produce innovative concert experiences. Founded in 2006, Metropolis Ensemble has commissioned and premiered 90 works of music from a dynamic mix of composers and has appeared at Lincoln Center’s Out of Doors Festival, The Wordless Music Series, Celebrate Brooklyn, Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute, (Le) Poisson Rouge, and The Brooklyn Academy of Music. In 2011, Metropolis Ensemble’s first studio album featuring the music of Avner Dorman was awarded a Grammy nomination. Their second studio album, featuring the music of Vivian Fung with soloists Kristin Lee and Conor Hanick, was recorded at Tanglewood’s Ozawa Hall and was released on Naxos’ newest imprint Canadian Classics this October. Later this season, Metropolis Ensemble will perform its first opera in a full-scale production of David Bruce’s new “The Firework-Maker’s Daughter” based on the Philip Pullman novel in collaboration with Royal Opera House of London II, The Opera Group, Opera North, and The New Victory Theatre here in New York. Recognizing that New York City’s cultural organizations have the enormous potential to make a special contribution to the quality of life of the city’s school children, Metropolis Ensemble is equally devoted to educating a new generation of composers, musicians and listeners, through its innovated education-outreach program, Youth Works, currently working throughout our season at 4 sites across Manhattan, Brooklyn, and The Bronx.

Join the community at metropolisensemble.org PROGRAM NOTES

Hector Berlioz: Les Nuits d’Ete Notes by John Mangum, Los Angeles Philharmonic

For somebody who wrote so much about his own and others’ music, Berlioz had surprisingly little to say about Les nuits d’Ete. There is no mention of it, for example, in his Memoirs, nor does his correspondence refer to the songs. Only one of the songs is dated - “Villanelle,” March 23, 1840. Two of them, “Absence” and “Le spectre de la rose,” were part of a concert program advertised for November 1840, but the performance never took place. The six songs were published in their original version, for high voice and piano, during the summer of 1841. Berlioz orchestrated “Absence” in 1843, planning to include it on his concert programs in Germany, and did the same with “Le spectre de la rose” for a concert in Gotha in February 1856. A Swiss music publisher who happened to be at that concert asked Berlioz, through an intermediary (Peter Cornelius, the composer of the opera The Barber of Baghdad and one of Berlioz’ most ardent champions in Germany), to orchestrate the remaining songs; the composer agreed and the songs were published, in a version for soloists and orchestra, before the end of the year.

So that’s what we know about Les nuits d’Ete. The fact that the songs emerged from their composer at a moment when so many conflicting trajectories in both his personal and professional life collided makes his silence about them all the more frustrating. By 1840, it had become apparent to both Berlioz and his wife, the actress Harriet Smithson, that their marriage had come, in David Cairns’ words, to a “symbolic end.” Smithson’s physical and emotional state had been sinking ever-downward since her marriage to Berlioz in 1833 - she was often ill, hardly ever went out, had few friends, and could not speak French well enough to fully participate in her husband’s social world of composers, writers, and artists. The assuredness and self-reliance of the woman who had conquered Paris with her Shakespeare performances more than a decade earlier had been replaced by the depression and isolation of a wife frustrated by the sacrifices that she had made for her marriage. Berlioz continued to love her, but not with the love of a man inflamed with passion for his muse. As his letters, especially those to his sisters, make clear, he had come to feel sorry for her more than anything else.

It was at this nadir of marital bliss that Berlioz probably met his future wife, Marie Recio. A soprano herself, Recio appeared frequently with Berlioz at his concerts, and one of her favorites was “Absence,” which she sang for the first time during his tour of Germany in 1843, first in its version for piano and voice, and then in Berlioz’ orchestration. She became his regular compan- ion, and, as a result of this affair with Marie, Berlioz separated from Harriet in 1844; their marriage ended with Harriet’s death in 1854, which left the composer free to marry Marie.

The final bit of context that helps illuminate Les nuits d’Ete comes not from Berlioz’s personal, but from his professional, life. His critics continually lambasted him for the extravagance of his performing forces; the critic Paul Scudo wrote, for example, “M. Berlioz hardly ever writes for anything less than huge vocal or instrumental forces; he aims at the grand effect; he un- leashes every piercing sound at the same time because he doesn’t know how to prepare or control an idea, or how to bring it to a conclusion. The orchestra that Beethoven used is not enough for him; to display itself in all its power, his genius not only requires all known musical instruments - the ones that have been invented for 50 years - but also has to get its hands on all these ill-formed experiments which the music industry turns out every day, and with which they try to revive our blunted senses.”

This explains, to some extent, why Berlioz might have been enthusiastic about preparing an orchestral version of Les nuits d’Ete. With their gentle, intimate musical language, the songs lend themselves to the nuanced sort of large-scale chamber mu- sic Berlioz produced in the orchestral version, itself the perfect rejoinder to detractors such as Scudo. In addition, Berlioz had little knowledge of the piano (he played the guitar), and the piano part for the songs in their original version is not among the most natural ever composed. In Les nuits d’Ete, Berlioz selected six poems from the volume La comedie de la mort (The com- edy of death) by his close friend Theophile Gautier (1811-72). The poems consider love from different angles, but loss of love permeates them all. When performed as a cycle, the songs convey this loss all the more strongly, not just as individual compo- sitions touched by melancholy, but as a coherent conception, one where the longed-for “always” of the first song, “Villanelle,” becomes unattainable in the last one, “L’ile inconnue.” Berlioz’ rapturous, idealistic love for Harriet had faded - the breeze had blown his ship on a course far from one leading to the “always” of his youthful dreams.

Vivian Fung: Villanelle NOTES BY VIVIAN FUNG

Villanelle is divided into three verses, and Berlioz composed very similar music for each of them. I considered the repeats as an opportunity to vary the orchestration, beginning modestly and then interjecting more contemporary reactions, including clusters, wrong-key arpeggios, and a slight minimalist tinge to repeated chords. In all cases, I kept the arrangement light to aid the singer, as well as to retain the sprightly nature of the poem.

Ryan Francis: Le Spectre de la Rose NOTES BY RYAN FRANCIS

When Metropolis Ensemble approached me about re-imagining one of the songs from Berlioz’s Les Nuits D’ete, I immediately jumped at the opportunity, as I felt that such a project was very much in line with some of the concepts I have been exploring for the past several years, and particular, the idea of intertextuality in music. I ultimately decided to remove all traces of the original score other than the vocal line, and simply tried to create my own interpretation of the text, however the simple presence of the vocal line really does an incredible job of drawing you into a shape similar to the original song. Eventually, having felt guided by Berlioz’s hand through the vocal line, I eventually ended up adding some of the other original material back into my interpretation, albeit in subtly altered ways. The surprising result (at least to me) is that the new piece is felt in three perceivable and transparent layers: the original vocal line, my new scoring, and finally, some original but altered elements.

Caroline Shaw: Sur les Lagunes NOTES BY CAROLINE SHAW

One of the most salient features of Sur les lagunes is the gut-wrenching phrase that’s repeated at the end of each stanza, “Ah! sans amour s’en aller sur la mer!” It’s about eight cents too melodramatic for me, but I love it every time. This moment is reorchestrated for Kiera Duffy and Metropolis in three different ways, with the most dramatic perhaps being the voice alone, flanked by silence.

Brad Balliett: Absence NOTES BY BRAD BALLIETT

I listened to a lot of LPs growing up, and quickly learned that it is difficult to keep a record in pristine condition (at least for a seven- to ten-year-old). However, when a record was damaged, a whole new kind of listening experience would emerge - a warped experience, one that almost seemed underwater. Somehow the music seemed both closer and more immediate, but also infinitely distant. It is this kind of experience - like listening to Berlioz through a thick fog - that inspired my new version of ‘Absence’. Nicholas Britell: Air - Morbidly Tender (Inspired by Berlioz’ song “Au Cimetiere” from Les Nuits d’Ete) NOTES BY Nicholas Britell

I was particularly inspired by Théophile Gautier’s dark and poignant lyrics within the Berlioz song “Au Cimetière.” The imagery of “a pale dove” singing its song, “an air morbidly tender,” brought to my mind a dreamscape where ideas and memories flow freely about. I structured this piece in an attempt to recreate the feeling of the way in which memories and thoughts actually occur in the mind’s eye. Far from being a rational and sensible process, memories and ideas are fluid and dynamic, constantly changing, and imperfect. This piece tries to give a semblance of that feeling.

Sayo Kosugi: L’île inconnue NOTES BY Sayo Kosugi

This chance to reinterpret Berlioz’s “L’ile inconnue” gave me the opportunity not only to appreciate Berlioz’s ingenious presen- tation, but to also explore possibilities of building upon that pre-existing frame of reference. In reinterpreting, I chose to express my feelings for the story being told by the poem while respecting Berlioz’s wonderful contours, rhythm, and melody for the text. It is a privilege to realize these ideas with the finesse and colors of Metropolis Ensemble.

Mohammed Fairouz: Audenesque NOTES BY Mohammed Fairouz

Auden’s In Memory of W.B. Yeats is a poem celebrated with good reason. It’s an emotionally searing, intellectually substantive and formally acute piece of work that has all the trademarks of Auden’s brilliant wit. Above all the poem allows us to experience the transformative journey from the cold, despondent, mourning of the dead with which it opens to its opulent and reaffirming closing statements. The three parts of In Memory of W.B. Yeats have a musical architecture inherent to them. At the very opening of the poem, Auden sets a scene that brings us to the dead of winter, to a time when nations are likened to barking dogs, locked and frozen against one another. The world is at war and, to add insult to injury, an artistic titan, William Yeats, dies on January 28th 1939 together with his much needed poetic voice.

Auden famously said that “Art is our chief means of breaking bread with the dead” and In Memory of W.B. Yeats is a great example of such a work of art. It opened the way for Joseph Brodsky, with his known admiration for Auden, to adapt the form of Auden’s poem in his Verses on the Death of T.S Eliot. When Brodsky himself died in the dead of winter on January 28th 1996 at his New York City apartment it moved Seamus Heaney to call the same day that had claimed both Yeats and Brodsky a “Double-crossed and death-marched date” in a masterful poem that adapts Auden’s four-beat quatrain to memorialize Brodsky. Seamus and I first spoke about his poem when we were discussing poetry for a different collaboration and it became clear to me that setting his poem with Auden’s in a cyclical form would present an irresistible arch of influence; a conversation linking Yeats, Eliot, Brodsky and Heaney. I decided to set Auden’s elegy as a cycle of three songs, followed by a fourth, Heaney’s tribute.

Audenesque begins with a catastrophe: the death of an artistic giant. With utter bleakness, Auden describes the mercury sinking, the airports deserted, and a cold world. When it is proclaimed twice, with great intensity, “What instruments we have agree /The day of his death was a dark cold day”, it is clear that he is talking about a coldness, as Heaney later points out, “in the poet and the word”.

The stormy first song of Audenesque gives way to the setting of the second part of Auden’s elegy. This song highlights the strings and celeste. In this intimate setting, Auden addresses Yeats for the first time. Here, poetry’s triumph is its survival in a place “where executives would never want to tamper” rather than achieving any heroic transfiguration. Without pause, the third song begins, setting the final, metered section of Auden’s Elegy. Here, I mark the score “austere and measured” and the metered chimes ring allegorically as Auden intones for the first time the name of William Yeats. After recapping the status quo and reaching its lowest point, the music starts to heat up. It’s at the end of this poem that the miraculous transfiguration of traditional elegies happens for Auden as it did for poets of the past:

Follow, poet, follow right To the bottom of the night, With your unconstraining voice Still persuade us to rejoice;

With the farming of a verse Make a vineyard of the curse, Sing of human unsuccess In a rapture of distress.

The poet becomes a messianic hero who can descend to “Dante’s deep hell” (as Heaney puts it) and return to farm a verse that inspires us to our highest heights.

The final song sets Seamus Heaney’s Audenesque, a poem that brings the dialogue of these poets to the present day and is also the most poignant analysis of Auden’s poem. At the opening of his poem, Heaney calls both Joseph Brodsky and Wystan Auden by name. The music of this song reflects on dialogue, remembrance, a train ride that Heaney shared with Brodsky, “politically incorrect jokes involving sex and sect”; it is warm, humorous and visceral. The end of this setting brings us back to Auden’s miraculous transformation, achieved again by Seamus Heaney within the same constrained quatrains. In the last two stanzas Heaney speaks directly to the spirit of Brodsky in one of the most beautiful examples of the power of what, in Heaney’s words, “good poets do” and what good poets are capable of doing.

TEXTS AND TRANSLATIONS

Oh ! viens donc sur [le] banc de Villanelle Hector Berlioz: mousse Les Nuits d’Ete Pour parler de nos beaux amours, When verdant spring again approaches, Et dis-moi de ta voix si douce: When winter’s chills have disappeared,

Villanelle «Toujours !» Through the woods we shall stroll, my darling,

Quand viendra la saison nouvelle, Loin, bien loin égarant nos courses, The fair primrose to cull at will. Quand auront disparu les froids, Faisons fuir le lapin caché, The trembling bright pearls that are Tous les deux, nous irons, ma belle, Et le daim au miroir des sources shining, Pour cueillir le muguet aux bois; Admirant son grand bois penché ; Each morning we shall brush aside; Sous nos pieds égrénant les perles Puis chez nous tout [joyeux] , tout We shall go to hear the gay thrushes Que l’on voit, au matin trembler, aises, Singing. Nous irons écouter les merles En paniers, enlaçant nos doigts, Siffler. Revenons rapportant des fraises The flowers are abloom, my darling, Le printemps est venu, ma belle; Des bois. Of happy lovers ‘tis the month; C’est le mois des amants béni; And the bird his soft wing englossing, Et l’oiseau, satinant son aile, Sings [carols sweet] within his nest. Dit [des] vers au rebord du nid. Come with me on the mossy bank, The ghost of the rose Pleure et songe à l’absent; Where we’ll talk of nothing else but love, Mon âme pleure et sent And whisper with thy voice so tender: Open your closed eyelid Qu’elle est dépareillée. Always! Which is gently brushed by a virginal Que mon sort est amer! dream! Ah! sans amour, s’en aller sur la mer! Far, far off let our footsteps wander, I am the ghost of the rose Fright’ning the hiding hare away, That you wore last night at the ball. Sur moi la nuit immense While the deer at the spring is gazing, You took me when I was still sprinkled [S’étend] comme un linceul; Admiring his reflected horns. with pearls Je chante ma romance Of silvery tears from the watering-can, Que le ciel entend seul. Then back home, with our hearts And, among the sparkling festivities, Ah! comme elle était belle, rejoicing, You carried me the entire night. [Et comme] je l’aimais! And fondly our fingers entwined, O you, who caused my death: Je n’aimerai jamais Lets return, let’s return bringing fresh Without the power to chase it away, Une femme autant qu’elle. wild berries You will be visited every night by my Que mon sort est amer! Wood-grown. ghost, Ah! sans amour, s’en aller sur la mer! Which will dance at your bedside. But fear nothing; I demand Le spectre de la rose Neither Mass nor De Profundis; My beautiful love is dead This mild perfume is my soul, Soulêve ta paupière close And I’ve come from Paradise. My beautiful love is dead, Qu’effleure un songe virginal; I shall weep always; Je suis le spectre d’une rose My destiny is worthy of envy; Into the tomb, she has taken Que tu portais hier au bal. And to have a fate so fine, My soul and my love. Tu me pris encore emperlée More than one would give his life Without waiting for me, Des pleurs d’argent de l’arrosoir, For on your breast I have my tomb, She has returned to heaven. Et, parmi la fête étoilée, And on the alabaster where I rest, The angel which took her there Tu me promenas tout le soir. A poet with a kiss Did not want to take me. Wrote: “Here lies a rose, How bitter is my fate! Ô toi qui de ma mort fus cause, Of which all kings may be jealous.” Ah! without love, to go to sea! Sans que tu puisses le chasser, [Toute la nuit] mon spectre rose The white creature À ton chevet viendra danser. Sur les lagunes / Lamento ‑ La Is lying in the coffin; Mais ne crains rien, je ne réclame chanson du pêcheur How all in Nature Ni messe ni De Profundis; Seems bereaved to me! Ce léger parfum est mon äme, Ma belle amie est morte: The forgotten dove Et j’arrive du du paradis. Je pleurerai toujours; Weeps and dreams of the one who is [Sous] la tombe elle emporte absent; Mon destin fut digne d’envie, Mon âme et mes amours. My soul cries and feels [Pour avoir un trépas] si beau, Dans le ciel, sans m’attendre, That it has been abandoned. Plus d’un aurait donné sa vie, Elle s’en retourna; How bitter is my fate, [Car j’ai ta gorge pour] tombeau, L’ange qui l’emmena Ah! without love, to go to sea! Et sur l’albâtre où je repose Ne voulut pas me prendre. Un poëte avec un baiser Que mon sort es amer! Above me the immense night Écrivit: “Ci-gît une rose Ah! sans amour, s’en aller sur la mer! Spreads itself like a shroud; Que tous les rois vont jalouser.” I sing my romanza La blanche créature That heaven alone hears. Est couchée au cercueil. Comme dans la nature Ah! how beautiful she was, Tout me paraît en deuil! And how I loved her! La colombe oubliée I will never love Another woman as much as I loved Absence her; On dirait que l’âme éveillée How bitter is my fate! Come back, come back, my dearest Pleure sous terre à l’unisson ah! without love, to go to sea! love! De la chanson, To go to sea! Like a flower far from the sun, Et du malheur d’être oubliée The flower of my life has drooped, Se plaint dans un roucoulement removed from the charm of your smile. Bien doucement. Absence Between our hearts how long a Sur les ailes de la musique Reviens, reviens, ma bien-aimée ! distance! On sent lentement revenir Comme une fleur loin du soleil, What a wide space our kisses divide! Un souvenir; La fleur de ma vie est fermée, O bitter fate! O cruel absence! Une [ombre de forme] angélique, Loin de ton sourire vermeil. O longing vain, unsatisfied! Passe dans un rayon tremblant, En voile blanc. Entre nos coeurs [tant de] distance ! To that far land where dwells my love, Tant d’espace entre nos baisers ! Alas! if I could only go! Les belles-de-nuit demi-closes, Ô sort amer! ô dure absence ! If wings were tied to my body, Jettent leur parfum faible et doux Ô grands désirs inapaisés ! As to my soul, then I would fly! Autour de vous, Et le fantôme aux molles poses D’ici là-bas que de campagnes, Far away, above the green hill tops, Murmure en vous tendant les bras: Que de villes et de hameaux, The lofty mountains with peaks of blue, « Tu reviendras ? » Que de vallons et de montagnes, The meadows gay, the babbling rivers, À lasser le pied des chevaux ! With quick, sure wing I’d take my flight! Oh! jamais plus, près de la tombe, Je n’irai, quand descend le soir Au pays qui me prend ma belle, The body can’t keep up with thought! Au manteau noir, Hélas! si je pouvais aller ; With me the spirit goes ahead, Écouter la pâle colombe Et si mon corps avait une aile Just like a poor dove that is wounded Chanter sur la [branche] de l’if Comme mon âme pour voler ! And lights on the roof of his cot. Son chant plaintif !

Par-dessus [les] vertes collines, And say, my soul, to my sweetheart: Les montagnes au front d’azur, O my own dove! fly with all swiftness, Lament Les champs rayés et les ravines, Back to the nest hallowed with love! J’irais d’un vol rapide et sûr. You know well that he counts the days! Do you know the white tomb Where floats with plaintive sound, Le corps ne suit pas la pensée; The shadow of a yew? Pour moi, mon âme, va tout droit, Au cimetière / Lamento On the yew a pale dove, Comme une colombe blessée, Sad and alone under the setting sun, [S’abattre] au rebord de son toit. Connaissez-vous la blanche tombe, Sings its song: Où flotte avec un son plaintif Descends dans sa gorge divine, L’ombre d’un if ? An air sickly tender, Blonde et fauve comme de l’or, Sur l’if une pâle colombe, At the same time charming and Douce comme un duvet d’hermine, Triste et seule au soleil couchant, ominous, Sa gorge, mon royal trésor ; Chante son chant : Which makes you feel agony Yet which you wish to hear always; Et dis, mon âme, à cette belle : Un air maladivement tendre, An air like a sigh from the heavens «[Tu sais bien qu’il compte les jours!] À la fois charmant et fatal, of a love-lorn angel. Ô ma colombe! à tire d’aile, Qui vous fait mal, Retourne au nid de nos amours.» Et qu’on voudrait toujours entendre ; One would say that an awakened soul Un air, comme en soupire aux cieux Is weeping under the earth in unison L’ange amoureux. With this song, And from the misfortune of being Ou bien [dans la] Norwége, This shore, my darling, forgotten, Cueillir la fleur de neige, We hardly know at all Moans its sorrow in a cooing Ou la fleur d’Angsoka ? In the land of Love. Quite soft. Dites, la jeune belle, On the wings of the music Où voulez-vous aller? One feels the slow return [La voile ouvre son aile, Mohammed Of a memory. La brise va souffler!] Fairouz: A shadow, a form angelic, Menez-moi, dit la belle, Passes in a trembling ray of light, À la rive fidèle Audenesque In a white veil. Où l’on aime toujours. Cette rive, ma chère, I. The beautiful flowers of the night, On ne la connaît guère half-closed, Au pays des amours. He disappeared in the dead of winter: Send their perfume, faint and sweet, The brooks were frozen, the airports Around you, almost deserted, And the phantom of soft form Say, young beauty, where do And snow disfigured the public statues; Murmurs, reaching to you her arms: you wish to go? The mercury sank in the mouth of the You will return! dying day. Say, young beauty, What instruments we have agree Oh! never again near the tomb Where do you wish to go? The day of his death was a dark cold Shall I go, when night lets fall The sail swells, day. Its black mantle, The breeze will blow. To hear the pale dove Far from his illness Sing on the limb of the yew The oar is made of ivory, The wolves ran on through the ever- Its plaintive song! The flag is of silk, green forests, The helm is of fine gold; The peasant river was untempted by I have for ballast an orange, the fashionable quays; L’Île Inconnue / Barcarolle For a sail, the wing of an angel, By mourning tongues For a deck boy, a seraph. The death of the poet was kept from Dites, la jeune belle, his poems. Où voulez-vous aller ? Say, young beauty, La voile [ouvre] son aile, Where do you wish to go? But for him it was his last afternoon La brise va souffler ! The sail swells, as himself, The breeze will blow. An afternoon of nurses and rumours; L’aviron est d’ivoire, The provinces of his body revolted, Le pavillon de moire, Is it to the Baltic? The squares of his mind were empty, Le gouvernail d’or fin ; To the Pacific Ocean? Silence invaded the suburbs, J’ai pour lest une orange, To the island of Java? The current of his feeling failed; he Pour voile une aile d’ange, Or is it well to Norway, became his admirers. Pour mousse un séraphin. To gather the flower of the snow, Or the flower of Angsoka? Now he is scattered among a hundred Dites, la jeune belle ! Say, young beauty, cities Où voulez-vous aller? Where do you wish to go? And wholly given over to unfamiliar La voile [ouvre] son aile, The sail swells, affections, La brise va souffler ! The breeze will blow. To find his happiness in another kind of wood Est-ce dans la Baltique, Lead me, says the beauty, And be punished under a foreign code [Sur] la mer Pacifique, To the faithful shore of conscience. Dans l’île de Java ? Where one loves always! The words of a dead man Are modified in the guts of the living. In the nightmare of the dark Repetition, too, of cold All the dogs of Europe bark, In the poet and the world, But in the importance and noise of And the living nations wait, Dublin Airport locked in frost, to-morrow Each sequestered in its hate; Rigor mortis in your breast. When the brokers are roaring like beasts on the floor of the Bourse, Intellectual disgrace Ice no axe or book will break, And the poor have the sufferings to Stares from every human face, No Horatian ode unlock, which they are fairly accustomed, And the seas of pity lie No poetic foot imprint, And each in the cell of himself is almost Locked and frozen in each eye. Quatrain shift or couplet dint, convinced of his freedom, A few thousand will think of this day Follow, poet, follow right Ice of Archangelic strength, As one thinks of a day when one did To the bottom of the night, Ice of this hard two-faced month, something slightly unusual. With your unconstraining voice Ice like Dante’s in deep hell Still persuade us to rejoice; Makes your heart a frozen well. What instruments we have agree The day of his death was a dark cold With the farming of a verse Pepper vodka you produced day. Make a vineyard of the curse, Once in Western Massachusetts Sing of human unsuccess With the reading due to start In a rapture of distress; Warmed my spirits and my heart II. In the deserts of the heart But no vodka, cold or hot, You were silly like us; your gift survived Let the healing fountain start, Aquavit or uisquebaugh, it all: In the prison of his days Brings the blood back to your cheeks The parish of rich women, physical Teach the free man how to praise. Or the colour to your jokes, decay, Yourself. Mad Ireland hurt you into —W.H. Auden Politically incorrect poetry. Jokes involving sex and sect, Now Ireland has her madness and her Everything against the grain, weather still, IV. Audenesque Drinking, smoking like a train. For poetry makes nothing happen: it survives Joseph, yes, you know the beat. In a train in Finland we In the valley of its making where Wystan Auden’s metric feet Talked last summer happily, executives Marched to it, unstressed and stressed, Swapping manuscripts and quips, Would never want to tamper, flows Laying William Yeats to rest. Both of us like cracking whips on south From ranches of isolation and the busy Therefore, Joseph, on this day, Sharpened up and making free, griefs, Yeats’s anniversary, Heading west for Tampere Raw towns that we believe and die in; (Double-crossed and death-marched (West that meant for you, of course, it survives, date, Lenin’s train-trip in reverse). A way of happening, a mouth. January twenty-eight), Nevermore that wild speed-read, Its measured ways I tread again Nevermore your tilted head III. Quatrain by constrained quatrain, Like a deck where mind took off Meting grief and reason out With a mind-flash and a laugh. Earth, receive an honoured guest: As you said a poem ought. William Yeats is laid to rest. Nevermore that rush to pun Let the Irish vessel lie Trochee, trochee, falling: thus Or to hurry through all yon Emptied of its poetry. Grief and metre order us. Jammed enjambements piling up Repetition is the rule, As you went above the top, Spins on lines we learnt at school. Nose in air, foot to the floor, Worshipped language can’t undo Dust-cakes, still – see Gilgamesh - Revving English like a car Damage time has done to you: Feed the dead. So be their guest. Hijacked when you robbed its bank Even your peremptory trust Do again what Auden said (Russian was your reserve tank). In words alone here bites the dust. Good poets do: bite, break their bread.

—Seamus Heaney

ARTIST PROFILES

KIERA DUFFY — SOPRANO

American soprano Kiera Duffy is recognized for both her gleaming high soprano and insightful musicianship in repertoire that encompasses Handel, Bach, and Mozart to the modern sounds of Berg, Glass, and Zorn. For the 2012 - 2013 season, Kiera Duffy makes her Metropolitan Opera debut as a Flower Maiden in the new production of Parsifal under Daniele Gatti, which will also be an HD broadcast, and at the Lyric Opera of Chicago as Stella in A Streetcar Named Desire. On the concert stage, she returns to the Atlanta Symphony under Donald Runnicles in Debussy’s La damoiselle elue and New World Symphony in Mahler’s 4th Symphony under Michael Tilson Thomas. She also debuts with the Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig in Carmina Burana under Kristjan Jarvi and records the same work with Sony Records. She will also be seen at the Chamber Society of Lincoln Center in a program of George Crumb and a New York City recital debut with Roger Vignoles at Rockefeller University.

Ms. Duffy’s 2011-2012 season included her debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in Schonberg’s Pierrot Lunaire and the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center in Handel’s Messiah, as well as joining the roster of the Metropolitan Opera in their new original baroque fantasy The Enchanted Island. She returned to the Los Angeles Philharmonic in Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 (“Symphony of a Thousand”) under music director Gustavo Dudamel for performances in Los Angeles and on tour in Caracas, which was simulcast in movie theaters across North America. She was also heard under Michael Tilson Thomas in David del Tredici’s Syzygy with the New World Symphony in Miami and San Francisco Symphony in San Francisco, then on tour to Ann Arbor and Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall in New York. In the summer, Ms. Duffy returned to the LA Philharmonic in Mozart’s Exsultate, jubilate under Dudamel and Berio’s Recital for Cathy in their Green Umbrella Series. Ms. Duffy’s first commercial recording “Richard Strauss: The Complete Songs, Volume 5” with legendary pianist Roger Vignoles was just released on Hyperion Records, following her very successful Wigmore Hall debut with Vignoles in 2010.

Ms. Duffy began her prolific concert career with her New York Philharmonic debut in Pierre Boulez’s Pli selon pli: “Improvisation II sur Mallarme” under the baton of Lorin Maazel, then returned as Venus in the critically acclaimed performances of Gyorgy Ligeti’s Le Grand Macabre under Alan Gilbert. She has gone on to sing Gyorgy Ligeti’s seminal works, Aventures and Nouvelles Aventures for her first performances with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and has since returned in Pierrot Lunaire and Unsuk Chin’s Cantatrix Sopranica. Ms. Duffy debuted with the San Francisco Symphony in Messiah and returned in Mozart’s Requiem and Feldman’s Rothko Chapel, both under Michael Tilson Thomas. She made her London Symphony Orchestra debut singing Cunegonde in Candide under Kristjan Jarvi, Atlanta Symphony debut with Mozart’s Coronation Mass under Roberto Abbado, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra debut in Carmina Burana with Andreas Delfs, and sang Berg’s Lulu Suite with the American Symphony Orchestra under Leon Botstein at Bard Summerscape. Ms. Duffy has appeared with much success at the Tanglewood Festival with the Boston Symphony Orchestra as Despina in Cosa fan tutte, Tebaldo in Don Carlo, and the US premiere of Elliot Carter’s What Next?, all under the baton of James Levine. In addition to her varied work in modern music, Ms. Duffy excels in baroque music and has worked extensively with the baroque ensemble Apollo’s Fire, most notably for performances and a recording of Handel’s music written for the British monarchy and in Michael Praetorius’s Christmas “Vespers”. Other concert appearances have included engagements with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, Utah Symphony, Omaha Symphony, Masterwork Chorus and Orchestra for her Carnegie Hall debut, Pacific Symphony Orchestra, Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, Fort Smith Symphony, Palm Beach Symphony, California Symphony, Reno Philharmonic, and the Metropolis Ensemble at New York’s newest destination: The Times Center.

Ms. Duffy was a finalist in the 2007 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and is featured in the film “The Audition” which has recently been released on DVD by Decca. On the operatic stage, Ms. Duffy has been seen as Queen Tye in Philip Glass’ Akhnaten and Despina in Mozart’s Cosa fan tutte at Atlanta Opera, Clorinda in Rossini’s La Cenerentola and Elvira in the L’italiana in Algeri, as well as the Dew Fairy in Humperdinck’s Hansel und Gretel with Opera Company of Philadelphia, Ghita in Vicente Martin y Soler’s rarely performed opera Una cosa rara at Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Violet Beauregard in the European premiere of The Golden Ticket and Florestine in Corigliano’s The Ghosts of Versailles at the Wexford Festival, and the Center for Contemporary Opera’s new production of Morton Feldman’s only “anti-opera” Neither at the Brut Wien. Her varied operatic repertoire has also taken Ms. Duffy to New York City Opera’s VOX Showcase for John Zorn’s monodrama La machine de l’etre, the Spoleto Festival for Pascal Dusapin’s To God, and Arizona Opera as Fatme in Gretry’s Zemire et Azor.

Kiera Duffy was an accomplished pianist before pursuing singing and holds a Bachelor’s and Master’s Degree in Vocal Performance and Pedagogy from Westminster Choir College. Ms. Duffy is the recipient of numerous awards and recognition from such esteemed organizations as the Metropolitan Opera National Council, the Philadelphia Orchestra Greenfield Competition, Opera Theatre of St. Louis, and the Young Concert Artists International Competition.

KATE LINDSEY — MEZZO SOPRANO

This season, rising star mezzo-soprano Kate Lindsey returns to the Metropolitan Opera as Annio in Clemenza di Tito and to the Los Angeles Opera as Angelina in La Centerentola,, appears on tour with the Cercle de l’Harmonie in Europe, and makes her debut at the Glyndebourne Opera Festival as Kompanist in Ariadne auf Naxos. She has already appeared in many of the world’s prestigious opera houses, including the Metropolitan Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Seattle Opera, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Bayerische Staatsoper, the Aix-en- Provence, Festival, Lille Opera, and the Theatre des Champs-Elysees. Her growing repertoire includes Rosina in Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Cherubino in Le nozze di Figaro, Zerlina in Don Giovanni, Idamante in Idomeneo, Hansel in Hansel und Gretel, and Nicklausse in Les Contes d’Hoffmann. She also created the title role in the premiere of Daron Hagen’s Amelia at the Seattle Opera.

An accomplished concert singer, Ms. Lindsey sang the premiere performances of a new commission by John Harbison with James Levine and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. She has also appeared with the New York Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, Met Chamber Orchestra (in Carnegie Hall), and at the Tanglewood and Mostly Mozart festivals, and has worked with many of the world’s most distinguished conductors including Emmanuelle Haim, James Levine, Lorin Maazel, David Robertson, and Franz Welser-Most In recital, she has been presented by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Rockefeller University in New York City. Ms. Lindsey recently starred in the Metropolitan Opera’s HD broadcast of its new production of Les Contes d’Hoffmann. She was also featured in its broadcast of The Magic Flute which was subsequently released on DVD. A native of Richmond, Virginia, Ms. Lindsey holds a Bachelor of Music Degree with Distinction from Indiana University and is a graduate of the Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program. Her many awards include a prestigious 2011 grant from the Festival Musique et Vin au Clos Vougeot the 2007 Richard F. Gold Career Grant, the 2007 George London Award in memory of Lloyd Rigler, the 2007 Lincoln Center Martin E. Segal Award, and a 2006 Sullivan Foundation Grant.

DAVID BABIN / BabX — COMPOSER & PERFORMER

Don’t talk to him about his mass of black hair, though it’s hard to separate the zig zags of curls from the idea that they are the sparks from the electricity going on in his mind. His appetite for creation and to bring his music to all forms of art has been a constant for David Babin since he was a teenager. Singer/ songwriter/ arranger/ pianist, he broke into the recording industry in under the pseudonym, BabX, releasing 2 acclaimed albums, “BabX” in 2006 and “Cristal Ballroom” in 2009 (in which he collaborated with Francophile guitarist, Marc Ribot, and sound engineer, Oz Fritz). The first was recorded almost by accident. He had been working on other projects, writing original music for a theater troop in which he was also an actor. The ambiance of the theater and cabaret creeps into his music giving it density and intemporality.

From the beginning, he knew that he wanted to keep his independence as an artist and that prompted him to co-create a label, Karbaoui Records. His albums were licensed to Warner Music France. Born in 1981, David Babin grew up surrounded by music: the practice of it and the study of it. His grandfather was a conductor and his mother a pianist and musicologist. The piano has always been his main instrument, but he plays the saxophone, keyboards and enough guitar to get by. He was a student at L’Ecole des Enfants du Spectacle which permitted him to dedicate himself to music while going to school. He also studied at the Bill Evans Piano Academy where he learned jazz. This fan of Bob Wilson and Tom Waits started earning a living in music at the age of 17, giving lessons to children and directing an adult choir. The experience gave him the tools to become a producer and arranger.

After touring in Europe and in Quebec, Babin put his career as a singer on hold. He returned to the theater writing the music to “Noctiluque” with his “alter ego”, the guitarist Gregory Dargent, for the Japanese choreographer and dancer Kaori Ito (James Thierre, Philippe Decoufle,Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui...) During this time, Babin also wrote music for short films and documentaries. He created “Cristal Automatique” at the Parisian theater, Les Bouffes du Nord. The idea was to adapt the writings of the “punk poets” of literature, Kerouac, Ginsberg, Rimbaud or Baudelaire, to stage. What interested Babin was to express “the electric side of their poetry”. David Babin’s love of recording and production brought him back into the studio to produce 2 critically and commercially acclaimed albums for 2 rising female stars in France: the eponymous “Camelia Jordana” and “Initiale” by L. The albums went gold and platinum.

Winner of many prestigious prizes such as Le Prix Charles Cros and le Prix Lucien Barriere, he also got a nod from Les Victoires de la Musique, le Prix Constantin and was a finalist in the International Songwriting Competition whose jury members included Robert Smith, McCoy Tyner, Tom Waits and more. Today, David Babin’s desire to explore opera has brought him to his new project with Metropolis Ensemble who he discovered thanks to his faithful accomplice, the French film and video director, Armel Hostiou.

“Why Birds”, currently presented tonight in a reading of excerpted scenes and tableau, will eventually become a full-length contemporary opera based on the life of Nikola Tesla, modern pioneer of commercial electricity. Babin has always been attracted to the “architecture” of opera. The idea that “emotions are expressed in musical themes and that if you take away the words, the comprehension and the emotion stays intact”. This idea has always been the basis for the way he writes his songs. His 3rd album, “Drones personnels” will be released in February 2013 on the label Cinq 7.” CLOVIS Labarrière — ARRANGER

(Editors Note: Biography could not be translated in time for publication.)

Compositeur français né en 1982 à Amiens, Clovis Labarrière commence le piano à l’âge de cinq ans et grandit dans l’univers du théâtre et des arts plastiques. De 2001 à 2003 il étudie le piano jazz et l’improvisation à la Bill-Evans Piano Academy. Il entre en cycle spécialisé d’écriture musicale au Conservatoire National de Région de Paris en 2006 puis l’année suivante au Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris (CNSMDP) où il étudie dans les classes d’harmonie, contrepoint, analyse, orchestration (avec Marc-André Dalbavie), écriture musicale XXe-XXIe siècles, fugue et formes (avec Thierry Escaich), polyphonie renaissance, acoustique musicale et musique pour l’image. Il y obtient un master 2 d’écriture musicale (mention Très bien), cinq prix ainsi qu’un mémoire (mention Très bien) sous la direction de Pascale Criton portant sur les résonances entre la pensée du philosophe Gilles Deleuze et la musique contemporaine. Dans le cadre de ses recherches, il fait une rencontre particulièrement déterminante avec les compositeurs François Bayle et Franck Bedrossian. Il étudie par ailleurs la composition avec Martin Matalon de 2010 à 2012.

Son parcours musical est jalonné de rencontres artistiques diverses: l’Orchestre du Conservatoire de Paris (OLC), l’Octuor de violoncelles de Beauvais, les chefs d’orchestres Pascale Jeandroz, Jan Krejcik, Philippe Cambreling, Béatrice Warcollier, la pianiste Vanessa Wagner, les chanteuses Eliette Prévot, Annastina Malm, Zina Niculescu, Sandrine Monlezun, Norig, le chanteur Babx, le trio Tzane, l’écrivain Denis Lachaud, le photographe Eric Larrayadieu. Il collabore à plusieurs reprises avec les collectifs d’artistes «La Forge» et «Nous Travaillons Ensemble » et compose des musiques de film pour l’École Nationale Supérieure Louis Lumière et l’École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs.

Ses œuvres dialoguant souvent avec différentes formes d’expression artistique et arborant des genres multiples (instrument seul, musique de chambre, symphonique, vocale, électroacoustique, mixte, théâtre musical) ont été interprétées notamment au Petit Palais (Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris), à la Fondation Deutsch de la Meurthe, au Théâtre de la Commune - Centre dramatique national d’Aubervilliers, à la Maison du Théâtre d’Amiens, à l’Abbaye de Saint-Riquier, à l’Historial de la Grande Guerre de Péronne, au Théâtre du Châtelet et diffusées sur France 2, ABC Radio, BBC Radio 3, France Musique. Egalement arrangeur, il a signé plusieurs arrangements chez Sony music, Warner Music, Universal music et Naïve. Il participe actuellement au projet “Carnet de sons” coordonné par Christophe Rosenberg en composant un cycle de pièces pour piano préparé, électroacoustiques et mixtes intitulé : Tous les chantiers sont insensés pour la Philharmonie de Paris et la Cité de la Musique. Il est Lauréat 2012 Fonds SACD Musique de scène pour le spectacle de cirque équestre contemporain: “Perspectives cavalières” Conception et direction artistique: Benjamin Grain ; Mise en scène: Olivier Antoine. (Création en mars 2013 au Cirque Jules Vernes à Amiens puis à Bonlieu Scène Nationale à Annecy)

Mohammed Fairouz — COMPOSER

Mohammed Fairouz, born in 1985, is one of the most frequently performed, commissioned, and recorded composers of his generation. Hailed by the New York Times as “an important new artistic voice” and by BBC World News as “one of the most talented composers of his generation,”Fairouz melds Middle-Eastern modes and Western structures to deeply expressive effect. His large-scale works, including four symphonies and an opera, engage major geopolitical and philosophical themes with persuasive craft and a marked seriousness of purpose. His solo and chamber music attains an “intoxicating intimacy,” according to New York’s WQXR, which selected his Critical Models as Album of the Week. A truly cosmopolitan voice, Fairouz had a transatlantic upbringing. By his early teens, the Arab-American composer had traveled across five continents, immersing himself in the musical life of his surroundings. Fairouz’s catalog encompasses virtually every genre, including opera, symphonies, ensemble works, chamber and solo pieces, choral settings, and electronic music. Prominent advocates of his instrumental music include the Borromeo String Quartet, Imani Winds, violinist Rachel Barton Pine, and clarinetist David Krakauer, who all appear on an upcoming portrait disc on Naxos; the Lydian String Quartet, The Knights Chamber Orchestra, Metropolis Ensemble, violinist James Buswell, and conductors Gunther Schuller, Joshua Weilerstein, Mark Shapiro, Fawzi Haimor, and Yoon Jae Lee.

Since childhood, Fairouz has found musical inspiration in literary and philosophical sources. The composer has described himself in Poets and Writers magazine as“obsessed with text.” His first attempt at composition, at age seven, was an Oscar Wilde setting; since then, he has composed an opera, thirteen song cycles, and hundreds of art songs. He has been recognized by New Yorker magazine as an“expert in vocal writing,” while Gramophone has called him a “post-millennial Schubert.” He has collaborated directly with several distinguished poets, including Mahmoud Darwish, Wayne Koestenbaum, and Nobel Prize-winner Seamus Heaney. Among the eminent singers that have promoted his wealth of vocal music are Kate Lindsey, Sasha Cooke, Lucy Shelton, D’Anna Fortunato, Mellissa Hughes, David Kravitz and Randall Scarlata.

Commissions have come from the Borromeo Quartet, Imani Winds, New York Festival of Song, Da Capo Chamber Players, New Juilliard Ensemble, Cantus Vocal Ensemble, Cygnus Ensemble, Counter)induction, Alea III, Musicians for Harmony, Seattle Chamber Players, Cantori New York, Back Bay Chorale, Reach Out Kansas,and many others. His music has been performed at Carnegie Hall (all three auditoriums), Lincoln Center, Boston’s Symphony Hall, The Kennedy Center, and throughout the United States, the Middle East, Europe, and Australia. It is also heard in “downtown” New York venues such as Le Poisson Rouge, Issue Project Room, Roulette, and Galapagos. Recordings are available on the Naxos, Bridge, Dorian Sono Luminus, Cedille, Albany, GM/Living Archive, and GPR labels.

As an artist involved with major social issues, Fairouz seeks to promote cultural communication and understanding. States the composer, “There’s an old saying: where words fail, music begins. I would almost say, where politicians have failed, artists might succeed.” His third symphony, Poems and Prayers for mezzo- soprano, baritone, chorus, and orchestra, interweaves texts of Arab poets Fadwa Tuqan and Mahmoud Darwish, the Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai, and prayers such as the Aramaic Kaddish. His fourth and latest symphony is In the Shadow of No Towers for wind ensemble. It is inspired by Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novelist Art Spiegelman’s book of the same title about American life in the aftermath of 9/11. The work will premiere on March 26, 2013 in Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium, and is being recorded for a release on Naxos.

Fairouz’s first opera, Sumeida’s Song, is based on a based on the play Song of Death by the Egyptian playwright Tawfiq al-Hakim. The opera follows the protagonist Alwan’s attempts to bring modernity to darkness and break a never-ending cycle of violence, with grave consequences for Alwan. Sumeida’s Song was performed in concert in Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall, and a recording will be released on Bridge Records in October 2012. Its premiere staging will take place at the Prototype festival of new opera-theater works, held in January 2013 at HERE Arts Center in NYC.

Mohammed Fairouz was chosen by the BBC to be a featured artist for the television series Collaboration Culture, which will air globally on BBC World Service TV (viewership approximately 70 million). As part of the program, which includes an in-depth profile of the composer, Fairouz developed and unveiled an entirely new dance work, Hindustani Dabkeh, featuring David Krakauer, the American String Quartet and Bollywood star Shakti Mohan. Fairouz has been heard in interviews on nationally syndicated shows such as NPR’s All Things Considered, BBC/PRI’s The World, and The Bob Edwards Show. He has been profiled in Symphony Magazine, Strings Magazine, New Music Box, and the Houston Chronicle, and featured as part of a special segment on Sirius-XM’s Symphony Hall channel. His principal teachers in composition have included György Ligeti, Gunther Schuller, and Richard Danielpour, with studies at the Curtis Institute and New England Conservatory. Honors and awards include the prestigious Tourjee Alumni Award from the New England Conservatory, the Malcolm Morse Memorial Award, and the NEC Honors award, among others. In 2008 he was honored with a national citation from the Embassy of the U.A.E. in Washington D.C. for outstanding achievement in artistry and scholarship. Fairouz has been invited to lecture and lead residencies across the country at institutions such as Columbia University, Brown University, Chestnut Hill College, Grinnell College, Humbolt State University and the University of Western Michigan. He has served on the faculty at Northeastern University in Boston and several summer festivals, including SongFest and the Imani Winds Chamber Music Festival at The Juilliard School. His works are published by Peermusic Classical. He lives in New York City.

VIVIAN FUNG — COMPOSER

With music described as “evocative” by The New York Times, Canadian-born Vivian Fung has distinguished herself as a composer with a powerful compositional voice, whose music often merges Western forms with non-Western influences such as Balinese and Javanese gamelan and folk songs from minority regions of China. New projects in the current 2012-2013 concert season include commissions for an orchestral work for Chicago Sinfonietta under Music Director Mei-Ann Chen, a new string quartet for the Banff International String Quartet Competition, a new work for piano for the International Beethoven Project in Chicago, a gamelan work, Kreasi Mekanik Mainan for Gamelan Yowana Sari at Queens College, and Gamelan Grunge for CONTACT Contemporary Music in Toronto. In September, 2012, Naxos Canadian Classics will release the world premiere recording of Vivian Fung’s Violin Concerto,Piano Concerto “Dreamscapes,” and Glimpses for prepared piano, featuring Metropolis Ensemble conducted by Andrew Cyr, featuring violinist Kristin Lee and pianist Conor Hanick.

During the past season, the September, 2011, world premiere of Vivian Fung’s Violin Concerto by violinist Kristin Lee and the Metropolis Ensemble in New York City was described by The Strad magazine as a work of “sinuous melodies, moto perpetuo passages, and a ferocious cadenza...reminiscent of Benjamin Britten or Colin McPhee in their Balinese mode... but it also travelled through more contemporary idioms.” Also in 2011, the Eastern Music Festival premiered Dust Devils for large orchestra, conducted by Gerard Schwarz, commissioned in celebration of the festival’s 50th anniversary. Ms. Fung was also composer in residence at the Delaware Chamber Music Festival in July, 2012, where Kristin Lee and Conor Hanick gave the world premiere of a commissioned work, Birdsong for violin and piano. The duo will give Philadelphia and New York premieres of Birdsong at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts and Americas Society respectively in September 2012. As the recipient of a 2012 Guggenheim Fellowship, Ms. Fung will travel to Southwest China in 2013 for ethno-musicological research to study minority music and cultures in the Yunnan province, continuing research that previously inspired Yunnan Folk Songs (2011), commissioned by Fulcrum Point New Music in Chicago with support from the MAP Fund. Following the March, 2011, world premiere, The Chicago Tribune wrote, “Yunnan Folk Songsstood out... [with] a winning rawness that went beyond exoticism.” As a composer whose travels often inspire her music, Ms. Fung has also explored diverse cultures in North Vietnam, Spain, and Bali, Indonesia. Ms. Fung toured Bali in 2010 and competed in the Bali Arts Festival as an ensemble member and composer in Gamelan Dharma Swara.

Vivian Fung’s music has been embraced as part of the core repertoire by many distinguished artists and ensembles around the world. Pizzicato for string quartet was recorded on the Telarc label by the Ying Quartet and has remained part of their repertoire for several seasons. The Escher String Quartet also performed Pizzicato for the opening night of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s 2011-2012 season. Ms. Fung’s String Quartet No. 2 was commissioned by the Shanghai String Quartet for its 25th anniversary international tour in 2009-2010, including its world premiere at the Freer Gallery in Washington, DC and the Canadian premiere in Ms. Fung’s native city of Edmonton. Glimpses for prepared piano has been championed by a diverse group of pianists, including Margaret Leng Tan, Conor Hanick, Jenny Lin, Jenny Q Chai, Bryan Wagorn, and Vicky Chow. Ms. Fung’s orchestral and chamber works have also been performed by the Afiara String Quartet, Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Montreal Chamber Orchestra, Music from China, and American Opera Projects, to name a few.

Ms. Fung has received numerous awards and grants, including the Simon Guggenheim Foundation, New York Foundation for the Arts’ Gregory Millard Fellowship, ASCAP, BMI, American Music Center, MAP Fund, Music Alive! and the League of American Orchestras, American Composers’ Forum, and the Canada Council for the Arts. She has been composer-in-residence of the Delaware Chamber Music Festival, the Music in the Loft chamber music series in Chicago, the San Jose Chamber Orchestra, and the Billings Symphony. Vivian Fung also completed residencies at the MacDowell, Yaddo, and Banff arts colonies, as well as residencies at the Atlantic Center for the Arts. Born in Edmonton, Canada, Vivian Fung received her doctorate from The Juilliard School in 2002. Ms. Fung began composition studies with composer Violet Archer. Other early influences include her mentors David Diamond, Narcis Bonet, and Robert Beaser. Fung is affiliated with The Juilliard School and is an associate composer of the Canadian Music Centre. Several of Ms. Fung’s works have also been released commercially on the Telarc, Cedille, and Signpost labels.

RYAN FRANCIS — COMPOSER

American composer Ryan Anthony Francis (b.1981) has spent his career drawing upon aesthetically diverse sources of inspiration from his music. His works have been described as “shimmering”, “focused” and “rhythmically sharp-edged” (New York Times), “sweeping” and “exceptional” (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette), as well as “compelling” (Los Angeles Times). He is currently working on a commission for the Oregon Ballet Theater with choreographer Pontus Lidberg, Goldberg Machines, a piano cycle based on the cartoons of Rube Goldberg for pianist Conor Hanick, and a concerto for piano and soprano to be premiered by the El Sakia String Orchestra in Cairo, Egypt.

During the 2011-2012 season, Francis saw numerous international commissions and premieres come to fruition. He was composer in residence for the Canada’s Banff Centre summer music series, where Sylvan for chamber ensemble was premiered. Tri Cantae was premiered by pianist Akimi Fukuhara in Sumida Triphony Hall, Tokyo and Wisp was premiered by pianist Soojin Anjou in Orleans, France. In 2010, High Line, Francis’s musical response to the Manhattan’s new High Line park was premiered by the American Composers Orchestra in Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall. Other recent highlights include a set of piano pieces inspired by Haruki Murakami’s novel The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, an electro-acoustic arrangement of Stravinksy’s Rite of Spring that he conceived of with fellow composer Ricardo Romaniero for Wordless Music and Celebrate Brooklyn, and a new piano concerto for Metropolis Ensemble. Francis has also received commissions from the Metropolis Ensemble, the Jerome Foundation, Columbia Symphony of Portland, NU:BC Collective, New Juilliard Ensemble, Axiom, FearNoMusic Ensemble, Palisades Virtuosi, and the New York Youth Symphony.

Born in Portland, Oregon, Francis trained at the Juilliard School, where he received his masters and doctoral degrees in composition as a student of Robert Beaser. At Juilliard he was twice the recipient of the Palmer Dixon Prize, the school’s highest compositional honor. He also holds a bachelors of composition from the University of Michigan, where he studied with Bright Sheng. He received a Charles Ives scholarship from the Academy of Arts and Letters. BRAD BALLIETT — COMPOSER

Composer Brad Balliett’s music explores many corners of the musical landscape, ranging from bassoon etudes to avant-garde hip-hop operas; electronic music to interactive pieces for children. Recent months have seen his music performed in New York and Chicago on an International Contemporary Ensemble series, at the Fourth International Metapoetry Congress in New York City, and in a gallery exhibition of the artwork of Jesus Betances.

His works have been played by orchestras and ensembles throughout the country and abroad, including performances by the Brattle Street Chamber Players, the International Contemporary Ensemble, symphony orchestras at Harvard University and Masschusetts Institute of Technology, and the Callithumpian Consort. His music has been presented at the Aspen Music Festival, on NPR’s From the Top, on Alex Ross’s The Rest is Noise, and at colleges and universities including New England Conservatory, Hartt School of Music, Skidmore College, MIT, and Harvard, Rice and Northwestern Universities.

An avid bassoonist, Balliett has premiered dozens of solos and chamber works with bassoon, including many original pieces. He has been a member of Ensemble ACJW and the Houston Symphony Orchestra, and has performed in the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra under James Levine and the Lucerne Festival Academy Orchestra under Pierre Boulez. Born and raised in New England, Balliett’s teachers include Elliott Gyger, Robert Levin, John Harbison, Richard Lavenda, and Michel Merlet. He graduated summa cum laude from Harvard University in 2005, has a M.M. in bassoon performance from Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music (where he was a student of Benjamin Kamins), and studied counterpoint and harmony at the Ecole Normale de Musique in Paris during summer of 2008. Active as a teaching artist, Brad is currently fulfilling a two-year residency at P.S. 315 in Brooklyn through The Academy, a fellowship at Carnegie Hall. He is also Metropolis Ensemble’s Director of Youth Works. He resides in Manhattan and likes to run in Riverside Park.

SAYO KOSUGI — COMPOSER

Composer Sayo Kosugi, admired for her “extraordinary sensibility and universal appeal,” (Ad Lib. Magazine), is quickly being recognized as one of Japan’s leading young composers. Ms. Kosugi has to her credit several high-profile commissions, including one in 2009 from Japan’s Imperial Household Agency, whose resounding success and praise from Japanese emperor Akihito has resulted in several follow-up works. Most recently, a piano trio written for the 2012 Crested Butte Music Festival was received with critical acclaim.

Ms. Kosugi also appears both as composer and pianist in many international events and shows, including award ceremonies of the International Figure Skating Championships, the FIFA World Cup, the World Baseball Classics, and the fashion shows of Cartier, Dior, Vivianne Westwood, and Shiseido. From 2003 to 2008, she gave over 1000 live performances throughout all of Japan, including all the major cities. Several albums of her own compositions have become best-sellers in Japan, and she is a frequent collaborator with new media. Ms. Kosugi has also written works for films and television programs on major Japanese networks such as National Fuji Television and NHK. Ms. Kosugi holds a Bachelor of Music degree in piano performance from Kunitachi Music University in Tokyo, and is currently pursuing a Master of Music degree in composition at The Juilliard School under Robert Beaser. NICHOLAS BRITELL — COMPOSER

Nicholas Britell is a composer, pianist, and producer. He has recently finished the score for the film Gimme the Loot by Adam Leon, which won the Grand Jury Prize at SXSW in March 2012 and was an Official Selection for the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. Further film credits include music featured in the film New York, I Love You, and in Natalie Portman’s directorial debut short film, Eve, (which brought attention to his piece “Forgotten Waltz No. 2”).

This year, he has also scored Michele Mitchell’s PBS documentary Haiti: Where Did the Money Go as well as Saro Varjabedian’s film After Water There Is Sand, for which he and Saro were awarded the ASCAP/Doddle Award for Collaborative Achievement. Other recent films he has scored include the films Half-Life and The Air Inside Her directed by Darya Zhuk, Plastic, directed by Andrew Baker, and Jack Riccobono’s two films Rage for Sale and The Rib. In addition, Britell has scored the documentary Hammer and Cycle, narrated by Sam Waterston, as well as the indie feature Domino One. In 2012, he has also written music for a dance film entitled “Bacchanale” by Black Swan’s choreographer Benjamin Millepied. Featuring Lil Buck and the New Styles Krew, the film blends street dancing with ballet accompanied by Britell’s recording of Bach’s Double Harpsichord Concerto B.W.V. 1060 re-imagined with elements including woodwinds, drums, electric bass, looping, and glitch FX.

As a pianist, his work and projects have been featured in publications including New York Magazine, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and Vogue, which called him among “the most talented young artists at work.” For the past year, he has been performing as part of the “Portals” project with violin virtuoso Tim Fain. “Portals” is a multimedia concert program featuring music by Philip Glass, Nico Muhly, William Bolcom, and Aaron Jay Kernis as well as films by Kate Hackett and Benjamin Millepied. Britell has been performing for audiences from a very young age, giving his first public recital at the age of 10 in Manhattan. A winner of multiple regional competitions and awards, he performed concerti by Beethoven and Schumann with orchestras before the age of 14. A student of the late Jane Carlson at the Juilliard School’s Pre-College Division, he has performed at venues including the Peter Jay Sharp Theater at Juilliard, Steinway Hall, the Palace Theater, Harvard University’s Fogg Museum of Art and Signet Society, and the Aspen Music Festival. He has also performed Mozart’s Piano Concerti Nos. 12 and 14 at the landmark Old Westbury Gardens with an orchestra led by noted conductor Eric Jacobsen.

In addition, Britell was the keyboardist in the hip-hop ensemble The Witness Protection Program. The WPP, as they were known, opened acts for hip-hop groups including Blackalicious and Jurassic 5 and performed at venues ranging from the Paradise Theater in Boston to New York’s classic Arlene’s Grocery. He is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Harvard University, where he earned a degree in Psychology with honors.

CAROLINE SHAW — COMPOSER

Caroline Shaw, originally from North Carolina, is a musician of many sorts. She has performed, as violinist or singer, with the American Contemporary Music Ensemble (ACME), Roomful of Teeth, the Trinity Wall Street Choir, the Mark Morris Dance Group Ensemble, Alarm Will Sound, Wordless Music, Signal, The Yehudim, Victoire, Opera Cabal, and the Yale Baroque Ensemble. Her original music has recently been featured at Mass MoCA (with artist Jane Philbrick’s permanent landscape installation “The Expanded Field”), the Ecstatic Music Festival, Manchester Chamber Music, Chicago’s High Concept Labs, De Link (Netherlands), and on the upcoming Roomful of Teeth album (2012 release). She holds a B.M. (violin) from Rice and an M.M. (violin) from Yale, and she is currently a doctoral fellow in composition at Princeton. She is a former Thomas J. Watson Fellow. ANDREW CYR — CONDUCTOR & ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

Grammy-nominated conductor Andrew Cyr is a leader in the rapidly growing contemporary music scene. Recent engagements conducting Metropolis Ensemble include Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute, (Le) Poisson Rouge, The Brooklyn Academy of Music, Celebrate Brooklyn!, and The Wordless Music Series. In 2011, Cyr made his conducting debut at The Kimmel Center’s Verizon Hall as part of Philadelphia’s International Festival of the Arts. Cyr has collaborated with a diverse list of critically acclaimed indie-rock, hip-hop, and jazz artists including Deerhoof, Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson and The Roots, Keren Ann, BabX, and David Murray. A native of Fort Kent, Maine, Cyr holds music degrees from Bates College, the French National Conservatory, and Westminster Choir College.

KRISTIN LEE — VIOLIN & CONCERTMASTER

Korean-American Violinist Kristin Lee has been praised by The Strad for her “rare stylistic aptness” and “mastery of tone and rare mood in a performer of any age.” A violinist of remarkable versatility and impeccable technique, Ms. Lee enjoys a vibrant career as a soloist, recitalist, a chamber musician, and is equally noted for her growing reputation in collaborations with various genres of music. Winner of 2010 Astral Artists Auditions and 2012 Walter W. Naumburg Competition, Ms. Lee has appeared as soloist with St. Louis Symphony, New Jersey Symphony, Rochester Philharmonic, New Mexico Symphony, Albany Symphony, the Ural Philharmonic of Russia, the Korean Broadcasting Symphony of Korea, and many more. She has appeared on the world’s finest concert stages, including Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, the Kennedy Center, Kimmel Center, the Metropolitan Museum, Steinway Hall’s Salon de Virtuosi, the Louvre Museum in Paris, and Korea’s Kumho Art Gallery. She has been featured on the Ravinia Festival’s Rising Stars Series, and has toured throughout northern Italy. In April 2012, Ms. Lee organized a memorial concert at Menlo-Atherton Performing Arts Center for the victims of the Oikos University shooting which occurred in Oakland, California. Upcoming engagements include concerto appearances with the Colgate University Orchestra, West Virginia Symphony, Massapequa Symphony, Temple University Symphony, and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra; recitals for the Strathmore Series and Philadelphia’s Morning Musicales; chamber music performances throughout New York, Michigan, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and tours of the U.S. and Korea with The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Ms. Lee is also curating a solo recital as part of Metropolis Ensemble’s “Resident Artist Series” for the spring of 2014 in which she is commissioning composer/ performers to write music for the violin and steelpan, guitar, theremin, and carnatic South Indian singing.

Metropolis Performers BabX Appearing in Music for Voice David Babin, Synthesizer and Kristin Lee, Violin / Concertmaster Brad Balliett, Bassoon Lead Vocals Emily Smith, Violin Paul Murphy, Trumpet Sebastien Gastine, Bass Ashley Bathgate, Cello Danielle Rose Kuhlmann, Horn Frederic Jean, Percussion Doug Balliett, Contrabass David Kaplan, Piano Gregory Dargent, Electric Guitar Philip Kramp, Viola Britton Matthews, Percussion Lance Suzuki, Flute Visit BabX at babx-music.fr Carlos Cordeiro, Clarinet SUPPORTERS 2010–2012

Metropolis Ensemble would like to thank the following individuals, foundations and corporations for their generous support for the 2011/2012 programming year. Donors with an * indicated are also sustaining members.

DONORS Anthony Webb* Paul Maddon MEMBERS 2010–2012 Eric Wolff* Rodney McDaniel up to $200 Jeffrey Zerba & Linda Jeo Anke Nolting Clay Andres Timothy Andres Christie Salomon John & Nancy Austin Josh Atkins $200+ Roxann Taylor Na Young Baek John & Nancy Austin* Louise Barder Roy & Diana Vagelos Jerome & Jodie Basdevant Michael Bacon Mandy Berman Cynthia Wilcox Astrid Baumgardner Brad Balliett David Bruce Clyde Wu Melissa Bito Robert and Barbara Balliett Robert Cerutti & Caroline Hancock Armistead Booker Katie Banser-Whittle Kitty Chou $2,500+ Charles Boudreau & Vivian Fung Rosalie & Leslie Beal Christina Dalle Pezze American Chai Trust / Cohn Family Eric Brewster & Stephanie Bader Alan & Susan Bennett* Alice Dubois Cary New Music Performance Fund John Childs & Peggy Fogelman Patricia Berg Anne Dunning Miranda Chiu Coralie Carlson Charles Boudreau & Vivian Fung Catherine Fukushima Con Edison Nicholas Cohn Dominic Carbone* Evanne Gargiulo Sandra & David Joys Glenn Cornett Robert & Joellen Carlson David Gold & Corinne Schiff Anne Meyers Paul Corrigan Midwin Charles Makram Hamdan Trip & Allyson Samson Clarissa Crabtree Lia Chavez David Hsia* Andrew Schorr* Witney Earle Amy Chen Peter Knell Edward Sien* Rochelle Feinstein Pauline Chiou Aleksandr Kogan Susan Weller Carl Fisher Portia Chiou Edward Lai Jonathan & Tania Wilcox Lori Fox Michael Clarke Winsome Lee Lilah Gaw Jakub Ciupinski Mateo Paiva & Lily Lim $5,000+ Nancy Hubbard Brian Cohen Tom & Imre Lendvai The Aaron Copland Fund for Music Thomas Jackson Conrad Cummings* Marie Lewis Christopher & Sarah Cox Mindy Kaufman Nancy Davidson Edmond Loedy Paul & Elizabeth De Rosa Memorial Catherine Lee Bradley & Charlotte Detrick Jane McIntosh Fund Merrill Matthews Kiera Duffy Leila Mureebe Steve & Jill Lampe Matthew McLean Bowie Fu Alexis Neophytides* Mikhail Iliev Laura Moore Merwin Geffen Stephen Nicholas New York State Council on the Arts Sarah Murkett Myriam Ghazi Johanna Roman The Prudential Foundation Vladimir Nicenko Jeff Guida Russell Savage Richard Salomon Kate Oberjat Conor Hanick Jocelyn Stone Thomas Wu Arienne Orozco Elaine Harrison Hamburg & Kelly Tang Renata Parras Umi Hashitsume & Ryan Francis* Miranda Wong Tang $10,000+ Alixandra Pearlstein & Patricia Pinto Stefan Jackiw Andrew Vagelos* Robert Bielecki Rachel Rauch Olga Jobe* Michael Vitale Crosswicks Foundation / Jones Christopher Reiger Arthur Jussel John Voiklis & Charlotte Jones Family Asher Remy-Toledo David Kaplan Janet Wang The David Rockefeller Fund Dennis & Andrea Roberts Jerry Katz* Erin Wiley New York City, Department of Carin Roman Bridget Kibbey Cultural Affairs Penelope Rowlands Takayuki Kigawa $500+ Colin Ryan & Kaitlin Collins Edward Klorman John Avery & Elisabeth Bell Avery* $15,000+ Rachel Salomon Marc Lawrence-Apfelbaum Daniel Bertram & Amy Kessler The Aaron Copland Fund for Music, Daniel Schofield Kristin Lee Jeremy Barbera & Charise Beckett Recording Program Noah Smith Sean Lee Rajeeve Bhaman & Sumangala The Augustine Foundation Cara Starke Alice Levitus Prabhu The Blanchette Hooker Rockefeller Susan Steiner Henry Lin Carrie Chiang Foundation Matthew Strassler Frank David & Julie Lin Andrew Cyr & Kate Gilmore Jennifer Salomon Lisa Switkin Raymond Lustig & Ana Berlin* Michael & Louise Cyr Kim Van Atta Sarina Mahasiri Jack & Lillian Davidson $25,000+ Jack & Linda Viertel Marino & Associates, PC Deutsche Bank Americas Foundation The Richard Salomon Family Carol Wernick Stella Maris Catoggio Joe Fig & Rosie Walker Foundation Paul Young Hiro Matsuo Bard Geesaman Jiayun Zhong Yeou Cheng Ma Richard & Judith Gilmore $50,000+ Andrew & Abigail Zimmerman Suzanne McClellan Google Matching Gifts Program June Wu Adam & Ariel Zurofsky Laura Melnyczenko Tom Healy & Fred Hochberg Abigail Mohlin Jane Heap Emily Moqtaderi Drew Helmer CORPORATE AND Jenna Mulberry Joshua Hyman & Elizabeth Corsini John Mulliken Allen & Valerie Hyman IN-KIND DONATIONS Albert Peng Chloe Almour-Kramer Tracy Pogue Sophie Lee Blue Ribbon Sushi & Bowie Fu Become a Bruce Rabb Cristiane Lemos* Buffalo Trace Richard Raymond Jeffrey Leung & Selina Poon City Winery Member Today! Michael Reingold Michael Lin Zipora Fried Gabrielle Rieckhof & David Wah* Eduardo & Jennifer Loja Stanley James Gary Rosenberg Ronald Ma Cristiane Lemos You can help sustain Candice Madey Dan Lerner Isabel Sadumi Metropolis and the The Samuel Lawrence Foundation Britton Matthews & Ben Cockerham* The Looking Glass Paul Scott Nanette Po Candice Madey vitality of classical and Emily Smith Francis Resheske Jennifer McCrae contemporary music in our Jonathan Schorr* Sara Menker Norman Solomon society. Become a member Janet Stradley Stax Inc. & Rafi Musher Miro Cellars Elly Suh Cristin Tierney On Stellar Rays of Metropolis Ensemble Lance Suzuki Darren Thomason Paul Hastings & Friedemann and join one of the most Carol Whitcomb Thomma Rachel Teoh vibrant, collaborative Mary Thibeault Flora Wong (le) Poisson Rouge Saeunn Thorsteinsdottir David Wu Rayogram and innovative arts Riverpark Pamela Grau Twena Roger Wu organizations today. Jennifer Undercofler & Brian krinke Glenn Schoenfeld Vienne Vincent $1000+ Carol Whitcomb Thank you for your Andrew Vogelman AJ Bocchino & Phoebe Washburn ‘wichcraft generous support! Stephanie Wang Eric Brewster & Stephanie Bader Jeffrey Zurofsky & Satya Twena Tema Watstein Alex & Irene Chu Jacob Werner Maura Fitzpatrick* Get started at

Kevin Winther Kenneth Greif metropolisensemble.org Luanne Zurlo Irene Ho Francine Wolterbeek* Rhiannon Kubicka Youth Works students at (le) Poisson Rouge in May 2012 GIVING BACK: EDUCATION UPDATE NOTES BY BRAD BALLIETT, DIRECTOR OF YOUTH WORKS

As part of our mission, we strive to engage the community of Metropolis Ensemble composers and performing artists to bring the arts to underserved communities.

To this end, in addition to our concertizing activities, we launched in 2006 an educational program called Youth Works that reaches underserved children at P.S. 11, a Title One school in Manhattan, in which Metropolis Ensemble composers and performers taught children in the elementary grades about music through the process of helping the students compose their own works.

As an outgrowth of our success at P.S. 11, in the past couple of years we have formed a new partnerships with The TEAK Fellowship, a well-established organization that helps talented New York City students from low- income families gain admission to and succeed at top high schools and colleges. This year we are excited to announce two new sites for our Youth Works program: The Special Music School at PS 859 and Reciprocity (a resource center for homeless and runaway teens, with an emphasis on serving LGBT youths). These partnerships will enable Youth Works to reach more young people and is often the only arts education program that they are exposed to. In a newly created partnership with Little Red School House, Metropolis Ensemble composers and musicians are hired to participate in their Young Composers and Improvisers workshop, an after-school music program. Little Red provides Metropolis Ensemble with a much needed source of earned income which helps to support aspects of our Youth Works program which we offer pro bono at other sites where the need is great.

Last May, the good people at (Le) Poisson Rouge donated this venue allowing us to present music from all four of these sites in our first-ever public concert of Youth Works. With additional support from Con Edison, the concert was also broadcast on WQXR’s Q2 Radio. Thanks to a grant from the David Rockefeller Fund, Metropolis Ensemble will continue to grow our education programs and develop innovative ways to fully engage young people through music by helping them make it themselves.

Learn more at metropolisensemble.org/education SPECIAL THANKS June Wu, Jenna Mulberry, Jonathan Schorr, Andrew Schorr, David Hsia, Joanna Williams, Doug Balliett, Britton Matthews, Caroline Woodfield and Opus 3 Artists, Nate Bachhuber, Steven Schwartz, Nick Cohn, Kate Gilmore, Jennifer Gilmore, David Hsia, Armel Hostiou, Mathilde Fassin, Chloe Rouverolles, Stephanie Amarnick Hessol, Lauren Winterbottom, Jules Matton, John Glover, Sam Bacheleder, Richie Clarke, Ronen Givony, Matt Duane, and the entire staff at (le) Poisson Rouge.

METROPOLIS ENSEMBLE BOARD OF DIRECTORS: Mali Sananikone Gaw, Jeff Guida,Mikhail Iliev, Edward Jones, Eduardo Loja, Candice Madey, Glenn Schoenfeld, Jennifer Salomon, Edward Sien, and June Wu.

DOCUMENTATION: Joanna Williams (photography), Armel Hostiou (film), Ryan Streber and Richie Clarke (sound engineers).

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