Timo Andres: The Blind Banister Timo Andres, Metropolis Ensemble, Andrew Cyr, Inbal Segev

• Timo Andres (b. 1985): The Blind Banister:
• 1 Andres: The Blind Banister: 1. Sliding Scale 06:59
• 2 Andres: The Blind Banister: 2. Ringing Weights 11:05
• 3 Andres: The Blind Banister: 3. Coda. Teneramente 02:01
• Colorful History:
• 4 Andres: Colorful History 09:27
• Upstate Obscura:
• 5 Andres: Upstate Obscura: 1. Valley of Strange Shapes 04:40
• 6 Andres: Upstate Obscura: 2. Mazes and Mirrors 08:44
• 7 Andres: Upstate Obscura: 3. Vanishing Point 06:35
• Total Runtime 49:31

Info for Timo Andres: The Blind Banister

The album comprises three works by Andres: the composer’s third piano concerto, The Blind Banister, with Andres as soloist, and Upstate Obscura for chamber orchestra and cello, with soloist Inbal Segev—both of which feature Metropolis Ensemble and conductor Andrew Cyr—and the solo piano piece Colorful History, also performed by the composer.

The Blind Banister was written for pianist Jonathan Biss to be performed alongside Beethoven’s second concerto. Andres says, “My piece is not a pastiche or an exercise in palimpsest. It doesn’t quote or reference Beethoven. There are some surface similarities to his concerto (a three-movement structure, a B–flat tonal center) but these are mostly red herrings. The best way I can describe my approach to writing the piece is: I started writing my own cadenza to Beethoven’s concerto, and ended up devouring it from the inside out.” The piece was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2016.

Upstate Obscura takes its inspiration from American painter John Vanderlyn’s Panoramic View of the Palace and Gardens of Versailles. Andres says, “In taking on a quintessentially French subject, Vanderlyn somehow came up with something that feels American; it seems to regard Versailles at a bemused distance, with that characteristically American distrust of anything unnecessarily fanciful. My plan was to start with fragments of musical ornament from the French Baroque tradition—like loose chunks of masonry—and stretch them out until they no longer felt like ornaments ... The solo cello moves through these registers, just as a viewer might explore a virtual world—at times wandering, at times with purpose.”

Andres describes the album’s solo piano work: “Colorful History is a chaconne, stemming from a single augmented triad, and following the course of various directions it suggests. I think of this as a kind of extended metaphor for historical events, and how they echo each other without literally repeating.”

Timo Andres, solo piano
Andrew Cyr, conductor
Metropolis Ensemble
Inbal Segev, solo cello

Timo Andres
(b. 1985, Palo Alto, CA) is a composer and pianist who grew up in rural Connecticut and lives in Brooklyn, NY.

2023–24 season highlights include a recital debut for Carnegie Hall including the premiere of a new piece by Andres, Fiddlehead, and the New York premiere of Gabriella Smith’s Imaginary Pancake; a tour with the Calder Quartet including a new piano quintet by Andres, performed at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts, San Francisco Performances and Chamber Music Albuquerque; the world premiere of a piano concerto written by Andres for Aaron Diehl, led by John Adams at the Los Angeles Philharmonic. In addition, Timo’s orchestrations and arrangements for Justin Peck’s new production of Sufjan Stevens’s Illinoise have had sold-out runs presented by the Chicago Shakespeare Theater, and at The Fisher Center at Bard, running now at New York City’s Park Avenue Armory. A new album of orchestral works, with cellist Inbal Segev and Metropolis Ensemble, is out March 22, 2024 on Nonesuch Records.

This season has also included Philip Glass’s Piano Etudes at Lincoln Center, the Chicago Humanities Festival, and for NPR’s Tiny Desk Concerts, all part of a celebration of a new edition of the Glass Etudes for which Timo served as advisor and editor.

Notable commissions include Everything Happens So Much for the Boston Symphony; Strong Language for the Takács Quartet, commissioned by Carnegie Hall and the Shriver Hall Concert Series; Steady Hand, a two-piano concerto commissioned by the Britten Sinfonia premiered at the Barbican by Andres and David Kaplan; and The Blind Banister, a concerto for Jonathan Biss, which was a 2016 Pulitzer Prize Finalist.

As a pianist, Timo Andres has appeared with the LA Phil, North Carolina Symphony, the Albany Symphony, the New World Symphony, the Metropolis Ensemble, among others. He has performed solo recitals for Lincoln Center, and Wigmore Hall. Timo’s collaborators include Becca Stevens, Jeffrey Kahane, Gabriel Kahane, Brad Mehldau, Nadia Sirota, and—of course—Philip Glass, who selected Andres as the recipient of the City of Toronto Glenn Gould Protégé Prize. He was nominated for a Grammy award for his performances on 2021’s The Arching Path, an album of music by Christopher Cerrone. Andres’s collaborations with Sufjan Stevens also include his May 2023 recording with Conor Hanick of Stevens’s latest album, Reflections; arrangements of ballets for New York City Ballet, and a solo piano album, The Decalogue.

A Nonesuch Records artist, Timo Andres has multiple solo albums including Shy and Mighty, was released to critical acclaim in 2010; Home Stretch, and the compilation album I Still Play, celebrating Robert Hurwitz. A Yale School of Music graduate, he is a Yamaha/Bösendorfer Artist and is on the composition faculty at the Mannes School of Music at the New School.

Andrew Cyr
A champion of new work, Grammy-nominated conductor Andrew Cyr has led premiere performances at venues ranging from Cité de la Musique (Paris, FR), The Met Museum, Celebrate Brooklyn(!), New Victory Theatre, Hamer Hall (Melbourne, AU), Radio City Music Hall, BAM’s Next Wave, and The Tonight Show.

Cyr's work as conductor has been described by Esa-Pekka Salonen as "...precise, rhythmically incisive and fluid. He made complex new pieces sound natural and organic.”

Described as a “prominent influence in the world of newly emerging music” (Washington Post), Cyr’s passion for creating new platforms for outstanding composers and performing artists led him to found Metropolis Ensemble in 2006.

Metropolis Ensemble
is a professional chamber orchestra and ensemble dedicated to making classical music in its most contemporary forms. Led by conductor Andrew Cyr, Metropolis Ensemble gathers today’s most outstanding emerging composers and young performing artists to produce innovative concert experiences. Founded in 2006, the ensemble has commissioned and premièred over 75 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.

This album contains no booklet.