Led by Grammy-Nominated conductor Andrew Cyr, Metropolis Ensemble performs to capacity crowds, attracting diverse audiences by promoting an atmosphere of openness, discovery, and excitement about the process of creating and performing new music. Metropolis Ensemble has appeared at Lincoln Center's Out of Doors Festival, BAM, Wordless Music Series, Celebrate Brooklyn!, (Le) Poisson Rouge, The New Victory Theatre on 42nd and Broadway, MATA Festival, and in broadcasts by National Public Radio, WNYC Radio, WQXR Radio, and has been featured on Jimmy Fallon's Late Night on NBC television.

Comprised of the finest young artists performing today, Metropolis Ensemble concerts feature major commissions from the freshest voices in composition. Recent international awards and prizes for our roster of composers include The Pulitzer Prize (Caroline Shaw, 2013), The Juno Award (Vivian Fung, 2013), The Rome Prize (Erin Gee, 2008), and The Guggenheim Fellowship (Vivian Fung, 2012). Growing in reputation as a bell-weather for compositional talent, Metropolis Ensemble composers have gone on to be commissioned, engaged as composer-in-residence, and performed by some of the most prestigious orchestras and organizations in the world including: Chicago Symphony, LA Philharmonic, Royal Opera House of London, Carnegie Hall, Tanglewood Festival, Berlin Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Israel Philharmonic, Lincoln Center's Chamber Music Society, and the Salzburg Festival, among others.

Metropolis Ensemble's unique vision enables these emerging composers the opportunity to engage their artistry with a top-notch flexible musical ensemble composed of musicians of their generation and the musicians of Metropolis Ensemble represent some of the most sought-after young artists now performing. These include recent national and international competition winners and finalists as well as current participants in the most prestigious young artist programs and new music ensembles, such as Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society Two, The Academy of Carnegie Hall, Marlboro, Alarm Will Sound, The Silk Road Ensemble, ICE, and Concert Artists Guild. The enthusiasm, skill, and advocacy that these young musicians embody for the music of their time infuses our concerts with virtuosity, artistic integrity, and spirit.

Since its inception in 2006, Metropolis Ensemble has commissioned over 90 new works of music and produced three studio recordings. Metropolis Ensemble recorded its debut studio album with the Grammy-winner Classical Producer of the Year (2005, 2011) David Frost, featuring the chamber orchestra concerti of composer Avner Dorman (b. 1975). The album was released internationally in January 2010 on the world's leading classical label, NAXOS. Metropolis Ensemble received a Grammy Nomination for Best Instrumental Soloist with Orchestra in the 53rd Annual Grammy Awards for Avi Avital (soloist) and Andrew Cyr (conductor) with Metropolis Ensemble for Avner Dorman's Mandolin Concerto, part of the album. David Frost also received a Classical Producer of the Year Grammy Award for his work on five albums, including his recording of Avner Dorman's Concertos.

In the fall of 2012, Metropolis Ensemble released their second studio album on Naxos, featuring the music of Vivian Fung. Collaborating with Grammy-winning producer/engineer Tim Martyn and recorded at Tanglewood's Ozawa Hall, Dreamscapes was awarded the prestigious Juno Award in 2013 by The Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences in Best Classical Composition for Fung's Violin Concerto (Kristin Lee, solo violin) (a work Metropolis Ensemble commissioned). Set for release in the summer of 2013 on Nonesuch Records, Metropolis Ensemble third studio album will feature newly commissioned works by composer/pianist Timothy Andres.

Embracing the fluid state of contemporary music, Metropolis Ensemble collaborates with some of the most innovative and dynamic artists from other genre who defy classification, including hip-hop sensation Questlove and The Roots in two sold out shows at BAM's Opera House, the critically acclaimed indie-rock band Deerhoof, performing to a live audience of 10,000 people in Brooklyn's Prospect Park a remix of The Rite of Spring (arr. by Ricardo Romaneiro and Ryan Francis), jazz artists DD Jackson, David Murray, and Marty Erhlich, Paris-based indie-rocker BabX in a rock-opera based on the life of Nikolai Tesla, electronica artist Jeremy Ellis, Groanbox, a blue-grass trio based in the UK and founded by accordionist Michael Ward-Bergeman, and composer Tan Dun, performing the New York Premiere of his Oscar-Winning score to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon in a multi-media concert of The Martial Arts Trilogy at Lincoln Center's Out of Doors Festival.

Upcoming presentations include a the US Premiere of a new children's opera by British-American composer David Bruce and librettist Glyn Maxwell. The Firework Maker's Daughter will be presented by New Victory Theatre on 42nd Street and Broadway in collaboration with The Royal Opera House of London, Opera North, and The Opera Group. Based on a novel by British author Philip Pullman, The Firework Maker's Daughter has received critical acclaim in London and the UK.

In addition to its active concert schedule, Metropolis Ensemble also manages an active and innovative music education program, Youth Works serves over 200 middle-school aged children at schools and resource centers for under-served children throughout Manhattan and the Bronx. Youth Works teaches music composition as a way to enhance children's appreciation and knowledge of music in all its forms and to encourage artistic self-expression. Youth Works has produced and premiered hundreds of new student works and is free to all participants.

Rooted in the conception of music as a living art-form, continuously renewed, new works by emerging composers provide the focal point of each concert and marketing initiative, while the associations and ramifications from sources that inspire new works are also explored in Metropolis' programming. By closely working with young composers whose points of inspiration come from diverse musical spheres - pop, electronica, jazz, world, rock, classical, modern and folk - each concert promises to display a kaleidoscopic sense of intertwined musical collaboration between artists and genres present and past.

Metropolis Ensemble provides vital support to the next generation of composers by fostering the commission, creation, recording, radio and television broadcasting, online video and audio streaming, free digital downloads, and live performances of new music.

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 it's year-round education program, Youth Works.

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