Home Stretch Timo Andres

• 1 Home Stretch 18:15
• 2 Concerto for Piano No. 26 in D major, K.537 & Coronation I. Allegro 14:56
• 3 Concerto for Piano No. 26 in D major, K. 537 Coronation II. Larghetto 07:55
• 4 Concerto for Piano No. 26 in D major, K. 537 & Coronation III. Allegretto 12:38
• 5 Eno Paraphrase 14:15
• Total Runtime 01:07:59

Info for Home Stretch

On the new album, Andres pairs the newly composed title work with two reinventions of works by musical heroes Mozart and Brian Eno: Mozart 'Coronation' Concerto Re-Composition and Paraphrase on Themes of Brian Eno. The New York City-based chamber orchestra Metropolis Ensemble, led by conductor Andrew Cyr, performs on the album, with the composer on piano.

Home Stretch was written for pianist David Kaplan and was conceived as a companion piece to Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 12, K. 414. Andres wanted the piece to reflect the musical resonance of the Mozart and his friend Kaplan's personality. Andres notes, 'I knew I wanted Home Stretch to have something to do with fast cars, which David is obsessively interested in. The piece is in three large sections that gradually accelerate: beginning in almost total stasis, working up to an off-kilter dance with stabbing accents and ushering in a sturm-und-drang cadenza that riles itself up into a perpetual-motion race to the finish. However, there are always little 'smudges' of music from each section in the others, sometimes fitting into their new context, sometimes balefully interrupting.'

Also on the album is Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 26 in D, 'Coronation,' completed by Andres. A virtuosic improviser, Mozart left much of the solo part unwritten as he expected to play the piece himself. In particular, the left hand is mostly absent from the original manuscript. Pianists generally play from a completed score that adds simple accompaniment patterns and harmonies for the left hand, but Andres's treatment of the concerto takes a wholly different approach. He inserts his own voice into the left hand and ends the work with newly written cadenzas. He explains, 'I approached the piece not from a scholarly or editorial perspective, but more as a sprawling playground for pianistic invention and virtuosity, taking cues from the composer-pianist tradition Mozart helped to crystallize.' The New Yorker's Alex Ross wrote on his blog that the result is 'mesmerizing.'

The recording ends with Andres's Paraphrase on Themes of Brian Eno. Already an influential force in popular music history, Brian Eno is increasingly gaining recognition from classical composers. As Andres writes, Eno is a composer with 'two quite distinct sides: as an innovator who works in ambient and collage music, and as a quirky and crafty pop songwriter. It’s all interesting, but the really amazing things happen when these musical personalities overlap and wear away each other's surfaces.' In Paraphrase on Themes of Brian Eno, Andres focuses on Eno's albums Before and After Science and Another Green World. He builds what he terms, 'a 19th-century style 'orchestral paraphrase' on the subject of Eno’s music.'

Timo Andres, piano
Metropolis Ensemble
Miho Saegusa, violin
Emily Smith, violin
Elly Suh, violin
Emma Sutton, violin
Tema Watstein, violin
David Auerbach, viola
Phil Kramp, viola
Eric Nowlin, viola
Na-Young Baek, cello
Ashley Bathgate, cello
Hiro Matsuo, cello
Rachel Calin Evan Premo, cello
Lance Suzuki, flute
Carl Oswald, oboe
James Austin Smith, oboe
Rebekah Heller, bassoon
Adrian Morejon, bassoon
Danielle Rose Kuhlmann, French horn
Leelanee Sterrett, French horn
Jeff Missal, trumpet
Paul Murphy, trumpet
Conor Hanick, piano
Britton Matthews, percussion
Sean Statser, percussion
Andrew Cyr, conductor and Artistic Director

Recorded September 6–7, 2012, in Seiji Ozawa Hall, Tanglewood, Lenox, MA
Recording Engineers: Tim Martyn and Charlie Post
Produced by David Frost

Timo Andres
is a composer and pianist who grew up in rural Connecticut and now lives in Brooklyn, NY. His debut album, Shy and Mighty, which features 10 interrelated pieces for two pianos, performed by Andres and pianist David Kaplan, was released by Nonesuch Records in May 2010 to critical acclaim. Of the disc, Alex Ross wrote in the The New Yorker that Shy and Mighty 'achieves an unhurried grandeur that has rarely been felt in American music since John Adams came on the scene… more mighty than shy, [Andres] sounds like himself.' In the current season, Andres plays a solo recital of his own works alongside those by Chopin, Thomas Adès and Schumann for Lincoln Center's Great Performers; a solo recital for San Francisco Performances, and a duo program with Gabriel Kahane for the Library of Congress. Commissions include a new piano quintet written for Jonathan Biss and the Elias String Quartet, presented by Wigmore Hall, Carnegie Hall, the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, and San Francisco Performances; a solo piano work for Kirill Gerstein commissioned by the Gilmore Foundation, and a new string quartet for the Library of Congress, to be premiered by The Attacca Quartet. Recent highlights include a weekend of performances in Los Angeles, featuring a new work for the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, his own re-composition of the Mozart 'Coronation' Concerto, and chamber works performed by the groundbreaking ensemble wild Up; performances of Crashing Through Fences by eighth blackbird, and solo recitals at (Le) Poisson Rouge and Wigmore Hall.

Metropolis Ensemble
is a professional ensemble based in New York City dedicated to classical music in its most contemporary forms. Led by Grammy-nominated conductor Andrew Cyr, Metropolis Ensemble is emerging a new generation of outstanding composers and performers by promoting an atmosphere of openness, discovery, and excitement about the process of creating new music. Metropolis Ensemble has appeared at Lincoln Center's Out of Doors Festival, BAM, Wordless Music Series, Celebrate Brooklyn!, (Le) Poisson Rouge, New Victory Theatre, MATA Festival, and in broadcasts by National Public Radio and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. Since its inception in 2006, Metropolis Ensemble has commissioned 90 new works and produced three recordings. Metropolis Ensemble’s debut recording on Naxos received a Grammy Nomination for Best Instrumental Soloist with Orchestra in the 53rd Grammy Awards for Avi Avital (soloist) and Andrew Cyr (conductor) for Avner Dorman's Mandolin Concerto. Their second recording featured the music of Vivian Fung and was awarded Canada’s prestigious Juno Award in 2013 by The Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences in Best Classical Composition for Fung's Violin Concerto. Embracing the fluid state of contemporary music, Metropolis Ensemble collaborates with artists who defy classification including Questlove and The Roots, Deerhoof, Paris-based BabX, and Tan Dun. In 2013, Metropolis Ensemble performed the US premiere of a new opera by British-American composer David Bruce. The Firework Maker's Daughter was presented by New Victory Theatre in collaboration with The Royal Opera House of London, Opera North, and The Opera Group.

Andrew Cyr
Grammy-nominated conductor Andrew Cyr is a leader in the rapidly growing contemporary music scene. His enthusiasm for connecting the outstanding musicians and composers of the new generation to today's audiences led him to create Metropolis Ensemble in 2006. Through passionate performances, innovative programming, the fostering, commissioning, and advocacy of emerging composers and performers, and leading a wide variety of community engagement and education initiatives, Cyr displays the scope and potential of today's freshest voices in composition and performance to attract and inspire new and diverse audiences. Cyr has led Metropolis Ensemble in performances at BAM's Howard Gilman Opera House, Carnegie Hall's Weill Music Institute, (Le) Poisson Rouge, The New Victory Theatre (42nd and Broadway), 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 in Brooklyn's Prospect Park, also broadcast live on National Public Radio. Recent guest appearances have included his debut conducting the Colorado Symphony in January of 2013 and in 2011, Cyr made his Kimmel Center Verizon Hall debut as part of Philadelphia's International Festival of the Arts, appearing with Questlove from The Roots.

Booklet for Home Stretch