music box - Metropolis Ensemble

metropolis ensemble
RESIDENT ARTIST SERIES
BRIDGET
KIBBEY
MUSIC
BOX
January 11 & 15, 2012
Le Poisson Rouge
New York City
metropolisensemble.org

Drink specials sponsored
by Buffalo Trace
2012 season is supported
by ConEdison
Supported by Meet the
Composer
WNYC STAR Initiative
participant
Supported by Aaron
Copland Fund for Music
Supported by New York
State Council on the Arts
Supported by NYC
Department of Cultural
Affairs
Supported by Who's In
My Fund?
Major underwriting for our Resident Artist Series
is generously provided by The June Wu Artist Fund.
* Northern Lights commissioned by Conrad and Louise Golaski.
** Glitch Box commissioned by Carolina and Tommy White.
*** Caja de Música commissioned by Concert Artists Guild.
EVENING PROGRAM
KATI AGOCS: Northern Lights *
I. Prelude: Carillon (Church Bells, Montréal)
II. À La Claire Fontaine (Québec)
III. I’s the B’y (New Foundland)
IV. Huron Carol (’Twas in the Moon of Wintertime…)
(Native Canadian)
V. Aurora Rising
PAQUITO D’RIVERA: Bandoneon (world premiere)
PAQUITO D’RIVERA: Habanera (world premiere)
KINAN AZMEH: It’s About Time (world premiere)
RICARDO ROMANEIRO: Glitch Box ** (world premiere)
INTERMISSION
DU YUN: The Ocean Within (…The Lamp Enclosed in a
Glass: The Glass a Brilliant Star) (world premiere)
SUSIE IBARRA: The Little Flowers Cry (world premiere)
DAVID BRUCE: Caja de Música ***
I. First Movement
II. Second Movement
III. Third Movement
BRIDGET KIBBEY: Templehouse

WELCOME NOTE FROM ANDREW CYR
Artistic Director of Metropolis Ensemble
Thank you for coming tonight! Metropolis Ensemble is thrilled to present the inaugural
concert of our new Resident Artists Series - concerts, musical events, and social
gatherings that feature our core ensemble artists as solo instrumentalists in creative
collaborations with composers from all genres.
Metropolis Ensemble's founding harpist Bridget Kibbey kicks-off this new initiative with a
concert presentation entitled Music Box, featuring the world-premieres of six newly
commissioned works for solo harp.
Music Box gathers music by composers born in other countries who now call the United
States home. Moved by both their individual stories and their music, Bridget solicited
new work whose inspiration is based in folk idioms from each composer's country of
origin as well as from their own personal narratives. The harp is an instrument
emblematic of storytelling and folklore. Music Box will allow the harp to carry this
tradition forward into the 21st century, giving expression to the diverse voices that make
up contemporary American culture.
I would especially like to thank June Wu for her extraordinary leadership and
commitment to our performing artists and composers and to all those who contributed
so generously to The June Wu Artist Fund to make this series possible. I would also like to
thank the good people at (Le) Poisson Rouge, David Handler, Justin Cantor, and Ronen
Givony as well as the able staff at LPR for being such important advocates and
supporters of our community of emerging musicians and composers. Special thanks as
well to Jessica Healy and Buffalo Trace, Jakub Ciupinski, Zipora Fried, Kristin Lee,
Candice Madey, Jennifer McCrae, Andrew Schorr, Jonathan Schorr, Sara Menker,
Jennifer Salomon, Richard Salomon and Laura Landro, Roy and Diana Vagelos, and
tonight’s host committee for their efforts to broaden our community of fans, friends, and
supporters.
So, tonight, we are an orchestra of one, yet in Bridget’s hands (and feet), she will sound
like many! Thank you and enjoy tonight’s show.
NOTE FROM BRIDGET KIBBEY
Two summers ago, I flew to France to visit friends in Brittany. Winding our way down the
coast, we discovered Lorient, a town bustling with some of the best Celtic talent from
Ireland, Wales, Scotland, and of course, Brittany - all coming together for the Festival
Interceltique de Lorient. What a find!!
Aside from drinking great beer and listening to fabulous bands, we spent every night
joining hundreds of local Bretons, packed into massive halls to dance to traditional
pipers or bands in large circles, arm-in-arm. With each new reel or change in the music,
the locals instinctively changed their steps to a new regional dance. I was in shock.
Citizens of all ages knew these complicated steps, and joyously danced away the
nights, celebrating their region. I was schooled by the eighty-three-year-old woman to
my right wearing stilettos. With a proud gleam in her eye, she firmly grasped my arm,
yelling “Comme ça!!”
With sore feet and a heavy dose of whimsy, I walked away from the festival having
witnessed folk music and dance as powerful means to creating and celebrating one’s
community…
I came home with this music fresh in my ears and decided to try my hand at arranging
a couple reels - Templehouse and Mountain Road. But, more than that, I decided to
create a project that would showcase some of the folk music of some of my very own
NYC neighbors: composers born in other countries who have immigrated to the United
States, weaving their rich cultural backgrounds into the American fabric.
My hope was two-fold: that audiences would have a whimsical taste of these cultures,
much like my experience in Brittany; and two, using their own folk heritage as a
springboard, that each composer would stretch the boundaries of the harp, creating
new solo works for the instrument.
Welcome to Music Box! I hope you enjoy encountering the harp and each of these
cultures as much as I have, and thank you for joining me this evening. I’d like to offer my
sincerest gratitude to Andrew Cyr and Metropolis Ensemble for collaborating with me to
present this project, to each of the composers for their incredible contributions, to
Concert Artists Guild, and to all my friends, fans, and family who have supported and
encouraged me in my musical endeavors and beyond.
BRIDGET KIBBEY: SOLO HARP / COMPOSER
Harpist Bridget Kibbey's passionate performances
display the unique abilities of this fantastic
instrument, with genre-bending performances
ranging from baroque to world music, to
collaboration with singer/songwriters, to
commissioning new works from today's composers.
An Avery Fisher Career Grant recipient, and a
winner of Concert Artist Guild's 2007 International
Competition and Astral Artist Auditions, Ms. Kibbey's
performances have been broadcast on NPR's
Performance Today, on New York's WQXR, WNYC's
Soundcheck, and A&E's Breakfast with the Arts. She
may be heard on Deutsche Grammaphon with
Dawn Upshaw on Berio's Folk Songs and Osvaldo
Golijov's Ayre, and has toured the work with Ms.
Upshaw in the US and abroad. Bridget's debut album, Love is Come Again, was named
one of 2007's Top Ten Releases by Time Out New York. As hailed by the New York Times,
harpist Bridget Kibbey "...made it seem as though her instrument had been waiting all its
life to explode with the gorgeous colors and energetic figures she was getting from it."
Ms. Kibbey has collaborated with an array of artists in repertoire new and established,
including Ian Bostridge, David Krakauer, Jaime Laredo, Edgar Meyer, Mayumi Miyata,
Cristina Pato, Sharon Robinson, David Schifrin, and the Calder and Jupiter Quartets. She
is frequently featured with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and is the
founding harpist of the International Contemporary Ensemble and Metropolis Ensemble.
This season's highlights include Opening Night at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln
Center and multiple appearances in Alice Tully Hall showcasing French works with harp,
appearances at the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C, Boston's Gardner Museum,
concerto appearances with the Modesto Symphony, Illinois Symphony, a concerto tour
with the Manchester Festival Strings, and performances at Music @ Menlo and the
Mostly Mozart Festival.
A leader in broadening the scope and platform of her instrument, she has premiered
new works by Kati Agocs, Harrison Birtwistle, Sebastian Currier, Pierre Boulez, Nathan
Shields, Kaija Saariaho, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Augusta Read Thomas, Charles
Wuorinen, among others. Ms. Kibbey performed Britten's Canticles in Carnegie Hall's
Zankel Hall with tenor Ian Bostridge, performed the New York premiere of Elliot Carter's
Mosaic in Zankel Hall for the composer's 100th birthday, and the American premiere of
Sebastian Currier's Broken Minuets with Symphony in C in Philadelphia's Kimmel Center.
Ms. Kibbey is a graduate of the Juilliard School, where she studied with Nancy Allen. She
is on the harp faculties of Bard Conservatory, New York University, and the Juilliard
Pre-College Program.
Visit Bridget’s site at bridgetkibbey.com

KATI AGÓCS: COMPOSER
Composer Kati Agócs was born in Windsor, Canada, of
Hungarian and American background, and has been on the
composition faculty of the New England Conservatory in Boston
since 2008. The Boston Globe recently praised the ”fluidity and
austere beauty" of her music, while The New York Times has
characterized it as "striking" and "filled with attractive ideas" and
has described her vocal music as possessing "an almost
19th-century naturalness." A citation from the American
Academy of Arts and Letters (for the 2008 Charles Ives
Fellowship) noted the "melody, drama, and clear design" of her
music, its "soulful directness", and its "naturalness of dissonance."
Recent works include Vessel, on which she collaborated with Metropolis Ensemble as
part of Meet the Composer’s Three-City Dash; Immutable Dreams, a Jerome
Foundation commission which has been programmed by over eight different
ensembles since its 2007 premiere, including a national tour by Eighth Blackbird; Elysium,
commissioned by the National Arts Centre and performed as part of the 2010 Olympics
in Vancouver; Perpetual Summer, commissioned for the National Youth Orchestra of
Canada's 50th Anniversary and awarded Special Distinction in ASCAP's 2011 Rudolph
Nissim Prize (one of only three works selected by a jury of conductors out of over 260
anonymously-submitted new orchestral scores); and Supernatural Love, a violin-piano
duet described by Fanfare Magazine as "serene and unworldly, exploring space with
sound in a way that seems to evoke the time before the universe hosted life." Kati
Agócs earned Doctoral and Masters degrees from The Juilliard School, where her
principal teacher was Milton Babbitt, and was a fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center
with the ASCAP Leonard Bernstein Fellowship.
KINAN AZMEH: COMPOSER
Hailed as a "virtuoso" by The New York Times and "Incredibly
Rich sound" by the CBC, Kinan Azmeh is one of Syria's rising
stars. His utterly distinctive sound across different musical genres
is now fast gaining international recognition.
Born in Damascus, Kinan was the first Arab to win the premier
prize at the 1997 Nicolai Rubinstein International Competition,
Moscow. A graduate of New York's Juilliard school as a student
of Charles Neidich, and of both the Damascus High institute of
Music where he studied with Shukry Sahwki, Nicolay Viovanof
and Anatoly Moratof, and Damascus University's School of Electrical Engineering, Kinan
is currently finishing his doctoral work at the City University of New York.
Kinan has appeared worldwide as a soloist, composer and improviser. Notable
appearances include: Opera Bastille, Paris; Tchaikovsky Grand Hall, Moscow; Carnegie
Hall, Alice Tully Hall and the UN's general assembly, New York; the Royal Albert hall,
London; Teatro Colon, Buenos Aires; der Philharmonie; Berlin; the Library of Congress, the
Kennedy Center, Washington DC; the Mozarteum, Salzburg and the Damascus opera
house for its opening concert in his native Syria.
As classical Clarinetist, he has appeared as soloist with the Bavarian radio orchestra, the
West-eastern Divan orchestra, the Kiev Camerata, the Corasara Orchestra, and the
Syrian symphony Orchestra among others.; and has shared the stage with Marcel
Khalife, Daniel Barenboim, Zakir Hussein Francois Rabbath, Solhi-al-Wadi, Manfred
Leuchter, Kevork Mourad, and members of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, among
others.
Compositions include several works for solo, orchestra, and chamber music; film, live
illustration, and electronics. His discography include three albums with his ensemble
HEWAR, several soundtracks for film and dance, and a duo album with pianist Dinuk
Wijeratne. He serves as artistic director of the Damascus Festival Chamber Music
Ensemble, with whom he released an album of new contemporary Syrian chamber
music written especially for the ensemble by various composers and is on the advisory
board of the Nova Scotia Youth Orchestra.
DAVID BRUCE: COMPOSER
Born in Stamford, Connecticut in 1970, David Bruce grew up in
England and now enjoys a growing reputation on both sides of
the Atlantic. In the US, his third Carnegie Hall commission
Steampunk (2011), follows Piosenki (2006), and Gumboots
(2008) which have both gone on to be widely performed by
leading ensembles around the world. His song-cycle The North
Wind was a Woman was commissioned by the Lincoln Center
for Dawn Upshaw for the gala opening of the Chamber Music
Society of the Lincoln Center's 2009 season. In the UK, Bruce has
a new chamber opera in development with the Opera Group
and ROH2, based on Philip Pullman's story The Firework Maker's Daughter (for a planned
UK tour in Winter/Spring 2012/13); a new commission from the London Philharmonic
Orchestra for their BrightSparks series; and Fire, a new work for massed choir, horns and
fire artist, one of 20 '20x12' commissions celebrating the Cultural Olympiad.
In great demand as a composer, Bruce continues to work with some of the world's
leading musicians. In August 2011 violinist Daniel Hope together with the David Orlowsky
Trio and cellist Vincent Segal premiered his 45 minute chamber work The Given Note,
co-commissioned by the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival, Germany and the
Savannah Festival USA; and for 2012 Bruce is working on a new commission from Yo-Yo
Ma's Silk Road Ensemble.
Bruce's music draws inspiration from folk-traditions from around the world. He particularly
enjoys collaborating with musicians who have strong connections with both classical
and folk/world traditions, such as accordionist Michael Ward-Bergeman, mandolinist Avi
Avital and clarinettist David Orlowsky. Bruce also enjoys close working relationships with
some of the finest musicians of the younger generation including Ensemble ACJW;
harpist Bridget Kibbey; the Grammy-nominated Metropolis Ensemble in New York;
Chroma in the UK; and Art of Elan in San Diego (whose commission The Eye of Night was
premiered in Jan 2011 and will shortly be recorded).
SUSIE IBARRA: COMPOSER
Composer/Percussionist Susie Ibarra resides in New York and has
performed as a soloist and collaborator in various
configurations. Ibarra is a Vic Firth, Paiste and Yamaha Drum
Artist. Ibarra composes and performs regularly with
composer/percussionist Roberto Rodriguez in their
eco-electronica duo Electric Kulintang, childrens world music
with Mundo Niatos, and chamber jazz ensemble Susie Ibarra
Quartet, as well as various interdisciplinary art collaborations
with poet Yusef Komunyakaa and visual artist Makoto Fujimura.
She has recorded numerous works as a leader and
collaborator. Recent Works Include: Drum Sketches,solo percussion, Dialects by Electric
Kulintang, Summer Fantasy and Folklore commissioned by MoMa Summergarden and
Jazz at Lincoln Center, A Translation of Silk with Yusef Komunyakaa premiered at the
Harlem Stage, Canciones de Cuna / Lullabies by Mundo Niatos, Madre Selva, a
soundtrack video installation by Juan Sanchez in tribute to Ana Mendieta, Kit: Music for

SUSIE IBARRA: COMPOSER (CONTINUED)
Four Pianists commissioned by Ars Nova Workshop, War Horses music by Electric
Kulintang and poetry by Yusef Komunyakaa commissioned by Isamu Noguchi Museum,
These Trees That Speak commissioned by Ethos Percussion Quartet, Pintados Dream/
The Painteds Dream a concerto for drums , visual art by Makoto Fujimura commissioned
by American Composers Orchestra and premiered at Zankel Carnegie Hall.
In 2004 Ibarra began work in cultural and environmental preservation with Indigenous
and children’s groups in the Philippines, US, Asia/Pacific and co-founded in 2008 Song
of the Bird King. She is honored to be a TED Fellow and Asia Society Young Leaders
Delegate as she continues her documentary work and public service projects towards
cultural innovation and preservation.
Ibarra is currently working on several collaborations including a sound walk installation
for lower Manhattan 2012 , Hidden Truths, with percussionist/composer Roberto
Rodriguez and Makoto Fujimura. Hidden Truths are compositions by Electric Kulintang
including recordings of guest Filipino traditional artists from seven Indigenous tribes in the
Philippines. Another collaboration is with Lebanese electronic conceptual artist Tarek
Atoui, Visiting Tarab , new compositions inspired by archival Arabic classical Tarab
music, for mixed ensemble of oriental taq and contemporary musicians in Sharjah 2012.
Electric Kulintang will release a new record, Drum Codes, beginning of 2012.
PAQUITO D’RIVERA: COMPOSER
Paquito D'Rivera defies categorization. The winner of nine
Grammy Awards, he is celebrated both for his artistry in Latin
jazz and his achievements as a classical composer.
Born in Havana, Cuba, he performed at age 10 with the
National Theater Orchestra, studied at the Havana
Conservatory of Music and, at 17, became a featured soloist
with the Cuban National Symphony. As a founding member of
the Orquesta Cubana de Musica Moderna, he directed that
group for two years, while at the same time playing both the
clarinet and saxophone with the Cuban National Symphony Orchestra. He eventually
went on to premier several works by notable Cuban composers with the same
orchestra. Additionally, he was a founding member and co-director of the innovative
musical ensemble Irakere. With its explosive mixture of jazz, rock, classical and traditional
Cuban music never before heard, Irakere toured extensively throughout America and
Europe, won several Grammy nominations (1979, 1980) and a Grammy (1979).
His numerous recordings include more than 30 solo albums. In 1988, he was a founding
member of the United Nation Orchestra, a 15-piece ensemble organized by Dizzy
Gillespie to showcase the fusion of Latin and Caribbean influences with jazz. D'Rivera
continues to appear as guest conductor of that group which features such artists as
James Moody, Slide Hampton, Airto Moreira, Flora Purim, Jon Faddis, Steve Turre, and
others. A Grammy was awarded the United Nation Orchestra in 1991, the same year
D'Rivera received a Lifetime Achievement Award from Carnegie Hall for his
contributions to Latin music. Additionally, D'Rivera's highly acclaimed ensembles- the
Chamber Jazz Ensemble, the Paquito D'Rivera Big Band, and the Paquito D'Rivera
Quintet are in great demand world wide.
While Paquito D'Rivera's discography reflects a dedication and enthusiasm for Jazz,
Bebop and Latin music, his contributions to classical music are impressive. They include
solo performances with the London Philharmonic, the London Symphony Orchestra, the
Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra, the Baltimore
Symphony, the Florida Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Brooklyn Philharmonic. He has
also performed with the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra, the Costa Rica National
Symphony, the SimoÌon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra, the Bronx Arts Ensemble, and the
St. Luke's Chamber Orchestra, among others. In 2005, he began touring with guitar duo
Sergio and Odair Assad, in "Dances from the New World." In his passion to bring Latin
repertoire to greater prominence, Mr. D'Rivera has successfully created, championed
and promoted all types of classical compositions, including his three chamber
compositions recorded live in concert with distinguished cellist Yo-Yo Ma in September
2003. The chamber work Merengue, from that live concert at Zankel Hall, was released
by Sony Records and garnered Paquito his 7th Grammy as Best Instrumental
Composition 2004.
In addition to his extraordinary performing career as an instrumentalist, Mr. D'Rivera has
rapidly gained a reputation as an accomplished composer. The prestigious music
house, Boosey and Hawkes, is the exclusive publisher of Mr. D'Rivera's compositions.
Recent recognition of his compositional skills came with the award of a 2007 John Simon
Guggenheim Fellowship in Music Composition, and the 2007-2008 appointment as
Composer-In-Residence at the Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts with the
Orchestra of St. Luke's. As part of the Caramoor Latin American music initiative, Sonidos
Latinos, D'Rivera's new concerto for double bass and clarinet/saxophone,
Conversations with Cachao, pays tribute to Cuba's legendary bass player, Israel
“Cachao” Lopez. D'Rivera's works often reveal his widespread and eclectic musical
interests, which range from Afro-Cuban rhythms and melodies, including influences
encountered in his many travels, and back to his classical origins. Inspiration for another
recent composition, The Cape Cod Files, comes from such disparate sources as Benny
Goodman's intro to the Eubie Blake popular song Memories of You, Argentinean
Milonga, improvisations on the music of Cuban composer Ernesto Lecuona, and North
American boogie-woogie. His numerous commissions include compositions for Jazz at
Lincoln Center, the Library of Congress, the National Symphony Orchestra and
Rotterdam Philharmonic, the May, 2010 Turtle Island String Quartet, Ying String Quartet,
the International Double Reed Society, Syracuse University, Montreal's Gerald Danovich
Saxophone Quartet, and the Grant Park Music Festival.
RICARDO ROMANEIRO: COMPOSER
Composer Ricardo Romaneiro synthesizes his interest in
electronic music with his background in classical composition,
he earned a Master Degree from The Juilliard School and a
Bachelor from Manhattan School of Music. His music has been
commissioned and performed by ensembles and institutions
such as the Metropolis Ensemble, the Museum of Modern Art's
Summergarden Series, Wordless Music, the Alvin Ailey Dance
Company, the New Juilliard Ensemble, Quintet of the Americas,
the Colorado Ballet, and the Sacramento Ballet. In 2010 his
composition Sombras was featured in the American Composers
Orchestra's Underwood New Music Readings, where he was the
recipient of the People's Choice Award. Romaneiro's composition process and music
was featured in Esquire Magazine's 2007 "Best & Brightest" issue.
His work with Metropolis Ensemble includes The Rite: Remixed, a re-imagination of
Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring for brass ensemble, percussion, and live electronics, and
Two-Part Belief, featuring Grammy Award-winning soprano Hila Plitmann. Presented by
Wordless Music Series as part of Celebrate Brooklyn! summer concerts, both were
premiered in Prospect Park Bandshell for an audience of 10,000 and nationally
broadcast live on NPR. Hallucinations his most recent project with Metropolis was an
adaptation of selections from composer John Corigliano's Academy Award-nominated
iconic film score Altered States, re-imagined for chamber orchestra and live electronics.
Surrealistic instrumental and electronic effects are combined with frenetic orchestral
textures and sparse, eerie melodies to create a 5.1 surround-sound cinematic

RICARDO ROMANEIRO: COMPOSER (CONTINUED)
experience. Also on the program was Strata, exploring the boundaries of electronica
and classical music, it weaves the listener through layers of pulsating grooves and
radiant harmonies, in which New York Times stated "a blissful and compelling mix of
Minimalist-derived rhythmic ecstasy."
DU YUN: COMPOSER
Described as "electrifying... an attractive score ... "
"cutting-edge...to whom the term 'young composer' and 'the
pianist' can hardly do justice " (by New York Times), "ineffably
quaking... stirs a scene" (by La Presse, Montréal); "...a work
loaded with subtle lament, spanning from chaotic sonorous
atmosphere to structured improvisation..." (by Cervantino,
Mexico), "...reconciles savageness and quietness ..." (by
Volkeskrant, Amsterdam), "...the strongest impression made yet,
a political statement against oppression and violence" (by De
Rode Leeuw, Amsterdam), and "...one senses the exceptional
ear, exploration and the results are impeccably powerful" (by Le Devoir, Montréal), Du
Yun's written compositions have been spotlighted on China's National Radio Station,
Radio-Shanghai, Radio-Canada, Radio Canada Internationale (RCI), Espace Musique
100.7 FM, FBi 94.5 (Australia), Canal 22 (Mexico), Art of the States (artofthestates.org),
SinoVision (US), WFMT, WCKR and l'Union Européene de Radio-Télévision.
Recent recipient of the 2007 Fromm Foundation, in the recent years Du Yun has been
granted of awards, fellowships, and commissions including from the Jerome Foundation,
Meet the Composer, American Music Center, Greenwall Foundation, Lower Manhattan
Council, the First Place of China National Young Composer Competition, Harvard
Dissertation Completion Award, winner of the 3rd British and International Bass Forum
Composition Competition (solo section), Adelbert W. Sprague Prize, the audience
award of the 2004 International Composer Forum in Montréal, Canada, New Trumpet
Festival of New York, and the Shanghai New Music Foundation.
Her concert music has been premiered by the Radio Kamer Filharmonie of The
Netherlands, le Nouvel Ensemble Moderne of Canada, le Decadanse of France, Nueva
Musica Duo of Mexico, the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, the Shanghai New Music
Ensemble the Bang On a Can All-Stars, the Oberlin Orchestra, the Boston Modern
Orchestra Project, the North/South Consonance Chamber Orchestra, the New York
Miniature Ensemble, cellists Frances-Marie Uitti, Joakim Munkner, and among others.
And most importantly, she is blessed to continue to compose for the International
Contemporary Ensemble (the group with whom she is the founding composer and has
had the working relationship since its inception).
Aside from composing notated music for concert halls, Du Yun's music also spans from
writing for art shows, experimental theatres to improvising/performing actively at
avant-garde venues on the amplified/processed Chinese zither (the 21-string zheng),
piano, laptop, and with her own voice. Propelled by the kernel of genere-defying, her
approach to music, regardless its formation, has always aimed to be ultimately visceral;
to evoke a sense of corporeality stripped-down from spirituality. Cast as the leading role
of her own hour-long music-theatre, Zolle, she was seen on stage at the Performance
Space 122 for a week-run in October 2005, with ICE and director Lydia Steir. Recently
signed with Tag Team Records as a songwriter and singer, her first LP in the genre of
alternative/experimental electronica is scheduled to release in US and China in 2009.
Du Yun's classical compositions can be heard on labels such as Wugui (Beijing),
Shanghai Classical Music, ATMA Classique, and Focus (upcoming). She is a member of
ASCAP.
This current season her concert music has been featured at the festivals that include
Ultima Contemporary Music Festival in Oslo, Norway; the Festival Internacional
Cervantino in Mexico and the Shanghai New Music Festival; at a torn-down theatre
space in Cartagena, Columbia; world premiere of her most recent orchestra piece by
the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra at the Shanghai Symphony Hall. Her current
composing engagements include a work (Cockroach's Tarentella) for string quartet, a
narrator, and electronics for iO quartet; a commission from the Vision & Voice Theater to
work on a play, I have been to Hiroshima Mon Amour, with playwright Chiori Miyagawa
and director Jean Wagner, which will be on preview at the Culture Project in April 2008;
a dance/multimedia project, Karaoke Superstar, with the Moving Theater for featuring
at the Whitney Museum Live in November 2008.
Born and raised in Shanghai, China, Du Yun currently resides in New York City. She is an
alumna of Shanghai Conservatory, Oberlin Conservatory (B.M.) and Harvard University
(M.A., Ph.D). Her principal compositional teachers include DENG Erbo, Randolph
Coleman, Bernard Rands, Joshua Fineberg, and Mario Davidovsky. She currently serves
on the composition faculty at the State University of New York-Purchase.
ANDREW CYR: ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
Grammy-nominated conductor Andrew Cyr is a leader in the
rapidly growing contemporary music scene. His enthusiasm for
fostering the outstanding musicians and composers of a new
generation and for connecting them with new audiences led
him to create Metropolis Ensemble in 2006.
Cyr has appeared in performances at Lincoln Center, Carnegie
Hall, The Kimmel Center, (Le) Poisson Rouge, and, in 2008, made
his debut with the Wordless Music Series, sharing the stage with
indie-rock sensation Deerhoof and conducting a remix of The
Rite of Spring to a live audience of 10,000 people, also broadcast live on National Public
Radio. In April of 2011, Cyr made his conducting debut at Kimmel Center’s Verizon Hall
as part of ?uestlove and The Roots’ Philly-Paris Lockdown at the Philadelphia
International Festival of the Arts.
Cyr’s work leading Metropolis Ensemble in their first studio album, which featured Avner
Dorman’s Concertos, earned him a classical nomination in the 53rd Annual Grammy
Awards along with Avi Avital (soloist) for Avner Dorman’s Mandolin Concerto. The album
was released on the NAXOS label and was made in collaboration with Grammy-winner
“Classical Producer of the Year” David Frost. Next season, Cyr will lead Metropolis
Ensemble in two new studio albums in collaboration with David Frost, featuring the
music of Timothy Andres and Vivian Fung.
Cyr is a native of Fort Kent, Maine, and holds music degrees in trumpet, organ, and
conducting from Bates College, the French National Conservatory (Études Supérieures),
and Westminster Choir College. His primary musical mentors include Dr. Joseph
Flummerfelt, Kenneth Kiesler, Pierre Grandmaison, and Kynan Johns. Cyr’s work as
conductor has been described by Esa- Pekka Salonen (Conductor, London
Philharmonia) as “...precise, rhythmically incisive and fluid. He made complex new
pieces sound natural and organic.”
Learn more about Andrew at metropolisensemble.org/about

ABOUT METROPOLIS ENSEMBLE
Metropolis Ensemble is a professional chamber orchestra and ensemble dedicated to
making classical music in its most contemporary forms. Led by Grammy-nominated
conductor Andrew Cyr, Metropolis Ensemble gathers today's most outstanding
emerging composers and young artists to produce unique, innovative concert
experiences. Founded in 2006, Metropolis has commissioned over 75 works of music
from a dynamic mix of composers and has been presented by The Wordless Music
Series, Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall's Weill Music Institute, (Le) Poisson Rouge, and
Celebrate Brooklyn. Metropolis Ensemble has quickly established a reputation of
presenting “new music played with the same kind of panache and bravura we usually
experience only in performances of standard repertoire” (Esa-Pekka Salonen).
In 2010, Metropolis Ensemble was proud to receive a classical nomination in the 53rd
Annual Grammy Awards for Avi Avital (soloist) and Andrew Cyr (conductor) for Avner
Dorman's Mandolin Concerto, part of their first studio album, Avner Dorman's
Concertos. In recent activity, Metropolis made its Lincoln Center debut this summer,
presenting the New York premiere of Tan Dun’s Martial Arts Trilogy for their Out of Doors
Festival. This fall, Metropolis Ensemble collaborated with David Frost, 2010
Grammy-winner “Producer of the Year“, and Grammy-winning producer Tim Martyn to
record the debut orchestral albums of composers Timothy Andres (for Nonesuch) and
Vivian Fung (for NAXOS) at Tanglewood's Ozawa Hall, set for release next season. In
recent highlights, Metropolis Ensemble appeared on NBC’s Late Night with Jimmy Fallon
with the multiple Grammy-winning hip-hop sensation The Roots as part of their new
album Undun.
Metropolis Ensemble is equally dedicated to making a difference in its local community
and offers innovative music programs to some of New York’s most under-resourced
populations. Its education and outreach program Youth Works collaborates with
cultural organizations, nonprofit partners, and schools such as The Teak Fellowship, PS 11
and PS11 programs in Lower Manhattan, and the Special Music School at PS 859.
Join the community at metropolisensemble.org
NOTES FROM THE COMPOSERS
Kati Agócs
Northern Lights is a cycle for solo harp that incorporates folk songs from three regions of
Canada, bookended by a prelude and postlude of original material that set the mood,
interpolate, and comment. The three central movements are not folk-song
arrangements, but instead subject the original melodies to my own harmonic
inflections, fragmentation, and juxtaposition with new motives. Much of this process
involves searching for ways to make the material sound resonant on the harp. In this
way, the piece builds upon my 2005 harp cycle Every Lover is A Warrior, where I worked
with folk songs from Appalachia, France, and Hungary.
Since I spent my first nineteen years in Canada and many of its folk songs are as familiar
to me as breathing, choosing and working with its songs presented a special challenge.
I needed to cast aside my own associations with the songs, to hear them in a new light,
and to mine the musical material for its own intrinsic beauty.
À la Claire Fontaine is a lyrical French Canadian folk song about lost love. I used
changes in modality and unusual non-diatonic pitch collections to capture the
bittersweet essence of the original words: “It has been a long time since I have loved
you; I will never forget you.”
I’s the B’ye is an irrepressible Newfoundland jig, its title in dialect: “I am the boy who
builds the boat, and I am the boy who sails her…” I interwove continuous melodic layers
with cross-rhythms against the tune and played with the coloristic possibilities of harp
harmonics, making a hybrid that resembles a Maritime jig fused with a Baroque
toccata.
The Huron Carol (‘Twas in the moon of Wintertime) is a Christmas song introduced to
Canada by the Jesuits with the goal of converting its Native people. It describes the
birth of Jesus in a silent, snow-covered winter landscape. Wise men’s gifts are replaced
by furs and pelt harvested by the native people in the woods. This movement links the
mystery of Christian mysticism with the pristine natural environment in Ontario, the
county’s central region.
My prelude - the opening movement - features bell-like sonorities; the postlude is a
perpetual-motion movement that accumulates resonance over the entire range of the
harp, evoking the emergence of the Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis).
Northern Lights was written on a private commission from the Boston-based couple
Conrad and Louise Golaski to celebrate their 40th Wedding Anniversary in 2011.
Paquito D’Rivera
Habanera, dedicated to Maurice Ravel, was originally part of my 5-movement work,
Aires Tropicales, for woodwind quintet. The piece is based on a rhythmic cell of the first
Cuban music style.
Bandoneon, inspired by the expressive accordion-like instrument regarded by many as
the soul of the Argentinean Tango, was initially scored as the second movement of my
Cape Cod Concerto, for clarinet, piano, and orchestra.
My dear assistant Charles Whalen and I specially adapted both pieces for the
wonderfully talented harpist, Bridget Kibbey.

NOTES FROM THE COMPOSERS (CONTINUED)
Du Yun
The Ocean Within
I open my gaze and saw nothing. I close my eyes and sit still.
Should you look closer, you will see how old that feeling is, how loud the sound is.
As old as the world, as loud as the ocean.
Ricardo Romaneiro
“Glitch” is a term used to describe a genre of electronic music that emerged in the late
1990’s. In Glitch Box, a piece for amplified harp and live electronics, the acoustic harp
is processed through computer software as well as audio hardware to "glitch" the live
sound, creating a tapestry of cascading rhythmic counterpoint. The most common
"glitch" technique is similar to the sound of a skipping CD, except here the effect is
notated into rhythmic patterns that correspond to certain musical material and forms,
transforming the sounds associated with digital reading errors into something aesthetic.
In Glitch Box, I have also created a live electronic element in which dozens of musical
cells, modular pre-composed musical material that can be activated spontaneously,
combined with the texture, and manipulated at will. This allows for live improvisation
within predetermined parameters when ‘played’ by the laptop performer throughout
the piece. The combined results mix the dry amplified signal from the harp with
processed and pre-generated sounds to create the impression that the acoustic harp
and electronics sound as a single instrument.
Susie Ibarra
Las Pequenas Flores Lloran
Little Flowers Cry, is a reflection on the delicate dance of nature and urbanization. It is a
metaphor I've felt while working in heritage sites and homelands with traditional
Indigenous artists in the Philippines. It is a spiritual, a lament and a reverence for fragile
beauty. Las Pequenas Flores is composed with a section for the soloist to improvise on.
The intention to compose this piece for solo harp was to capture it's delicacy and
power, as well as am homage to music for plucked strings in traditional and
contemporary music.
Kinan Azmeh
“It's about time" for solo harp was commissioned by American Harpist Bridget Kibbey in
2011. My original plan was to draw elements from my Syrian roots and traditional Arabic
music vocabulary as many of my earlier works did. However, the end product ended up
borrowing elements from New York City’s electronic music scene, a genre that I have
been fascinated by for many years.
The piece plays around the very subtle difference between a steady 4/4 meter and
that of a 17/16 meter when played in a fast tempo. This extra sixteenth note adds some
sort of anxiety to the mix that makes one look for other “downbeats” to relate to.
In this piece, one can find elements of American minimalism, in which
apparently-distant rhythmical elements can actually groove together in a unifying
larger cycle, as well as one of the most used motifs in club music: the never-ending
triplets against a steady beat. Elements of Indian rhythms techniques are equally found
in the middle transition section, which uses time compression that leads the piece to the
end of the “party”. In short, it is all about time and groove, using an instrument that is
not known for its club-capacity!
David Bruce
I wrote Caja de Música for Bridget Kibbey's Weill Hall recital debut in 2009 on a
commission from the Concert Artists Guild. Around that time I had come across the
wonderful Joropo music from Venezuela, which is usually written for a trio of harp,
Cuatro (a guitar-like instrument) and shakers, with the harp taking a central melodic
role. I was immediately taken with the use of the harp as a raw, vibrant and above all,
rhythmic instrument and this piece is a kind of homage to the Venezuelan tradition. Of
course, being a solo harp piece, the soloist needs to be both lead and rhythm section -
making for a pretty challenging piece - the third movement in particular is packed with
fiendish cross-rhythms which no mortal harpist should be able to play.
Composers often struggle to write for the harp, not just because of the technical
difficulties of the instrument, but also, I think, because everything sounds so beautiful - it
can be hard to get variety when even the harshest dissonance sounds so sweet. But my
instinct was to embrace this sweetness rather than deny it and I was struck by the fact
that what came out as I started writing the piece reminded me of the sound of the old
wind-up music boxes we've all seen lying around our relatives houses.
“Caja de Música” - Spanish for “music box” - seemed an appropritate title, and the
resulting piece, in three movements, is a strange hybrid of these two totally
unconnected traditions. There are strong hints of Joropo throughout – including a
3-beats-to-a-bar time signature at the start of all three movements; but there is also
something of that music box naivety here too.
It has been my great pleasure to get to know and work with Bridget Kibbey these last
couple of years, who is deservedly gaining a reputation as one of the finest harpists of
her generation. Her commitment to my new piece from the earliest sketches to the
finishing touches has been a model that I only wish other players would follow and it is
an infinitely richer piece thanks to her thoughtful contributions and suggestions during
the process of our transatlantic collaborations. It is also a pleasure to work again with
Metropolis Ensemble, a group of extraordinarily talented and spirited musicians I have
had the pleasure to write music for on many occasions.

SUPPORTERS 2011/2012
Metropolis Ensemble would like to thank the following individuals, foundations and
corporations for their generous support for the 2011/2012 programming year.
DONORS
up to $200
Timothy Andres
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Fung
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Jones
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Beckett
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Gilmore
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Poon
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New York City, Department
of Cultural Affairs
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Stax Inc. & Rafi Musher
Who’s In My Fund?
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$1000+
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Avery
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Scocimara
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$2,500+
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Meet the Composer
Foundation
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Con Edison
$5,000+
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Cohn Family
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for Music
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Mikhail Iliev
NYSCA
New York City Department
of Cultural Affairs
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Weill Music Institute at
Carnegie Hall
Jennifer Salomon
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$10,000+
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Crosswicks Foundation /
Jones Family
Akarin Gaw & Mali
Sananikone Gaw
$15,000+
The Augustine Foundation
The van Otterloo Family
Foundation
$25,000+
The Richard Salomon
Family Foundation
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In Memory of James M. H.
& Esther F. C. Wu
$50,000+
June Wu
CORPORATE and IN-KIND
DONATIONS
Blue Ribbon Sushi & Bowie
Fu
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The Looking Glass
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Miro Cellars
On Stellar Rays
Paul Hastings &
Friedemann Thomma
(le) Poisson Rouge
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Glenn Schoenfeld
Andrew Schorr
Jonathan Schorr
Stax Inc. & Rafi Musher
Who’s In My Fund?
‘wichcraft
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Twena
MEMBERS 2010–2012
Clay Andres
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Fung
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Fogelman
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Anthony Webb
Carol Wernick
Francine Wolterbeek
Paul Young
Jiayun Zhong
Andrew & Abigail
Zimmerman
Adam & Ariel Zurofsky

SPECIAL THANKS
HOST COMMITTEE
Melina Beim, Sharland Blanchard, Lia Chavez, Andrew Cyr, Alyson Denny, Maggie
Duckworth, Ariel Esposito, Jeannie Rose Field, Megan Folkmann, Zipora Fried, Patrick
Gibson, Sara Hunninghake, Rae Kim, Moon Kim, Andy Lerner, Elana Margulles, Candice
Madey, Matthew McNulty, Sara Menker, Kristen Oliveri, Tim Pinkston, Shan Raovfi,
Ricardo Ravasini, Michael Reingold, Nisha Richardson, Frederick Schjang, Andrew
Schorr, Jonathan Schorr, Sarah Shore, Melanie Stein, Jessica Stone, Misty Tolle, Jeff
Valenty, Linda Vitaletti, Joanna Williams, Katja Zigerlig
PRODUCTION TEAM
Carly Gaebe, Photography
Ryan Streber, Audio Engineer
Alex Popov, Videography
METROPOLIS ENSEMBLE BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Mali Sananikone Gaw, Jeff Guida, Mikhail Iliev, Edward Jones, Eduardo Loja, Candice
Madey, Jennifer Salomon, Glenn Schoenfeld, Ed Sien, June Wu
BECOME A MEMBER
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Members provide vital support to our artistic and education programs, consider joining
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