Metropolis Ensemble Two-Night Stand at LPR Reviewed in NYT

The mixing of acoustic instruments and electronic sounds was not always as easy and natural as it can seem nowadays. Certainly, adventurous composers were drawn to the limitless palette of sounds made possible by recording technology and computers. But not until digital sampling and the versatile laptop computer arrived did it become relatively easy to exploit all the unusual timbres and unnatural juxtapositions promised by electronics.

On Thursday night the Metropolis Ensemble, a resourceful pocket orchestra led by Andrew Cyr, presented “Hallucinations,” a program devoted to works in which acoustics and electronics shared roughly equal status. Smart promotion and novel music — and probably the ensemble’s recent Grammy Award nomination — helped to pack the house at Le Poisson Rouge for an evening consisting almost entirely of previously unheard works.

Read the complete Steve Smith review of the Metropolis Ensemble's two-night performance at LPR here.