Naxos Canadian Classics Releases DREAMSCAPES Recording with Works by Vivian Fung Today, 9/25

Ms. Fung has received numerous awards and grants, including the Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, New York Foundation for the Arts’ Gregory Millard Fellowship, ASCAP, BMI, American Music Center, MAP Fund, Music Alive! and the League of American Orchestras, American Composers’ Forum, and the Canada Council for the Arts. She has been composer-in-residence of the Delaware Chamber Music Festival, the Music in The Loft chamber music series in Chicago, the San José Chamber Orchestra, and the Billings Symphony. Vivian Fung also completed residencies at the MacDowell, Yaddo, and Banff arts colonies, as well as residencies at the Atlantic Center for the Arts.

Born in Edmonton, Canada, Vivian Fung received her doctorate from The Juilliard School in 2002. Ms. Fung began composition studies with composer Violet Archer. Other early influences include her mentors David Diamond, Narcis Bonet, and Robert Beaser.

Fung is affiliated with The Juilliard School and is an associate composer of the Canadian Music Centre. Several of Ms. Fung’s works have also been released commerciallyon the Telarc, Çedille, and Signpost labels.

Violinist Kristin Lee, winner of Astral Artists Auditions, Walter W. Naumburg Competition, and Premio Trio di Trieste Competition of Italy, has performed concertos with major orchestras including St. Louis Symphony, Rochester Philharmonic, the Juilliard Orchestra, and given recitals throughout the United States, Korea, France, Italy, Russia, and China. Leading concertmaster of Metropolis Ensemble, she graduated from The Juilliard School under Itzhak Perlman and Donald Weilerstein, and is an artist of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and on faculty at Queens College.

The pianist Conor Hanick has performed throughout the United States, Europe and Asia and collaborated with some of the world’s leading conductors, including Pierre Boulez, David Robertson and James Levine. A vehement proponent of contemporary music, he has worked with composers as diverse as Mario Davidovsky and David Lang and given premières of dozens of works at venues ranging from Carnegie Hall to (le) Poisson Rouge. Currently a doctoral candidate at The Juilliard School studying with Yoheved Kaplinsky and Matti Raekallio, he resides in New York City.

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 premiered 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. In their first album with Naxos, Metropolis Ensemble received a nomination in the 53rd Annual Grammy Awards (2010) for Avi Avital (soloist) and Andrew Cyr (conductor) for Avner Dorman's Mandolin Concerto, part of the album.

GRAMMY-nominated conductor Andrew Cyr is a leader in the rapidly growing contemporary music scene. Recent engagements conducting Metropolis Ensemble include Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute, (Le) Poisson Rouge, the Brooklyn Academy Of Music, Celebrate Brooklyn, and The Wordless Music Series. In 2011, Cyr made his conducting début at the KimMel Center’s Verizon Hall as part of Philadelphia’s International Festival of the Arts and in 2013 will direct performances of a new opera by David Bruce with the Royal Opera in London and Opera North. He has collaborated with a diverse list of critically acclaimed indierock, hip-hop, and jazz artists, including Deerhoof, Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson and The Roots, Keren Ann, Babx, Nicole Atkins, and David Murray. A native of Fort Kent, Maine, Cyr holds music degrees from Bates College, the French National Conservatory, and Westminster Choir College.

Naxos Canadian Classics is an ongoing series featuring music by Canada's finest composers. Naxos Canadian Classics will eventually include composers from across Canada and will feature compositions for large ensemble, vocal music, chamber and solo music, as well as the often forgotten genre of wind band music. The first two releases on Naxos Canadian Classics are: Fugitive Colours: Music of Jeffrey Ryan with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, Gryphon Trio, and conductor Bramwell Tovey; (8.572765); and I Saw Eternity, a collection of Canadian choral music with the Elora Festival Singers conducted by Noel Edison (8572812).