The first of two events this spring with the Metropolis Ensemble happens this coming Monday. I’ve been working to organize these concerts with the Ensemble’s director/founder/conductor Andrew Cyr for probably the past two years; we’ve been in touch since mid-2007, before any of these pieces were written. As such, I feel I have a large stake in the success of these events (I mean æsthetic success, rather than financial); they are representative of my current thinking about Classical Music Programming. Each concert is structured around pairing one of my pieces with a “core repertoire” piece to which it relates: on Monday, I Found it by the Sea with Brahms’s Op. 25 piano quartet (which my piece quotes). I’ll be playing piano on both pieces; the Brahms is a piece I’ve literally been hoping to play since I was about 11, and it somehow hasn’t happened until now, so I’m very excited.

But the thing that makes the Metropolis Ensemble’s programming different from most other “Classical Music” organizations is that it is composer-centric, which, by necessity, means living composers. The industry standard is performer/work-centric: the planning begins with Anne-Sophie playing the Brahms concerto, and then the rest of the 1½ hours are filled in with music that may or may not have any bearing on Brahms. That type of programming putters along without offending anyone, but I think we can all agree that there’s more than enough of it. I think a well-designed program is like a well-curated home; on the surface, stuff; may not look right together (Mozart and Brian Eno?) but the combined effect really tells you something about the resident.

The concert is free, and will fill up fast; reserve your tickets here.

UPDATE: It’s sold out!

Sitting in a coffee shop right now in downtown Albany, awaiting tonight’s première of Look Around You by the Albany Symphony. It’s suddenly frigid and blustery; a haphazardly-locked mountain bike was just blown over in front of me. There’s a strange dichotomy between the scale of Albany and the feeling of it, as though its planners had envisioned a much grander place than actually turned out. Bars here close around 11:30; at one, we witnessed an impromptu push-up contest between the barmaid and a bouncer.

Luckily, there are many friends here: Owen, of course, because he is playing my concerto, with his lovely girlfriend Meena; Rob, my friend from Yale, in town for the ASO’s composer readings; Anna, a composer/visual magic-maker who lives in Troy and goes to RPI; my old Hindemith Ensemble cohort Yi-Ping, holding down the ASO’s viola section. We all headed out to a rather unlikely Lebanese restaurant last night and were fussed over like long-lost family.

Tomorrow, it’s off to New Haven for the première of Crashing Through Fences, a short piece I wrote for Ian Rosenbaum and Mindy Heinsohn for piccolo, glockenspiel, and two kickdrums (which I believe to be a unique combination). I hadn’t been able to make it to New Haven to hear them rehearse, so late last night Ian dropbox’d me a WAV file of one of their run-throughs, which turned out to be completely perfect, polished, and ready for performance, without me ever saying a word. It is so gratifying when that happens; it’s one of the main advantages about writing for friends, something I’m also reminded of in Owen’s fierce rendition of Look Around You’s violin/viola part. If you can’t make it to New Haven for Ian’s show, you can listen to it streaming, live, over the internet; thanks, Fred Plaut Recording Studio!

Photo by Michael Wilson.

I’m thrilled to announce that on Tuesday, May 4th, my album Shy and Mighty will be released by Nonesuch. S&M is a group of 10 works for two pianos, which I recorded with my friend David Kaplan last February. I’ve spent the past year working with the lovely people at Nonesuch to master it and make everything shipshape, and I’m really pleased with the result. The liner booklet has an interview with me done by Ronen Givony, the impresario behind Wordless Music and Le Poisson Rouge, among other things, and photos by the great Michael Wilson. You’ll be able to get CD’s and downloads starting the 4th. Then on Monday, May 17th, we’ll be having a record release concert at (where else?) le Poisson Rouge. Dave will be shipped in from Berlin, and an extra piano shipped in from Yamaha, and we’ll play through the entire thing. Come, have a Red Fish Ale, enjoy fresh tunes.

Photo and snowball by Andy Goldsworthy.

Quick reminder: tomorrow, Sunday, March 14th is the aforementioned ACME show at Le Poisson Rouge. Doors open at 6:30 for a 7:30 show. John Luther Adams, but also loads of other things, like Kevin Volans.

Andy Goldsworthy, only tangentially related, does things like suspend snowballs from preëxisting saplings.

Just love reviews like this one, of Bang on a Can’s annual People’s Commissioning Fund concert. Its blandness surpasses that of even pure reportage; it is like the least offensive press release ever written. Makes me long for the days of Bernard Holland, who at least expressed opinions, no matter how they caused us to cough and sputter in indignation.

I have a sneaking suspicion, however, that there is more than laziness at work here; I’m worried that it’s an official New York Times style guideline, a misguided attempt at advocacy. Better not to scare anyone off, the thinking goes, or wantonly damage some poor musician’s already delicate career. This type of “criticism” has the opposite effect, actually, which is to make every event sound utterly interchangeable. These days, I can barely slog through a review of something I’d actually be interested in, because the quality of the writing is so maddeningly noncommittal.

I would rather be panned than be subjected to this non-treatment.

I’ve got a show in two weeks that I’m pretty excited about. I’ll be joining the ACME quartet for a dual-composer-portrait of John Luther Adams and Kevin Volans at Le Poisson Rouge. I’ll be playing piano and celeste in The Farthest Place and In a Treeless Place. These ACME guys are really something special, and I’m honored to work with them again; these are the folks who completely went to town on Senior at Carnegie last year. To the left, my brother in a place neither particularly far nor treeless, but at least snowy.