METROPOLIS ENSEMBLE PRESENTS: TOCSIN

A large-scale, two-movement piano trio by composer Patrick Higgins in a concert featuring some of today’s most virtuoso advocates for new music: Bang-on-a-Can's pianist Vicky Chow, cellist Jay Campbell (of Jack Quartet), and cellist Mariel Roberts, as part of Higgins’s Crisis Music series and Metropolis Ensemble x BLUEPRINTS In Visible Roads Piano Festival

TOCSIN is a two-movement piano trio in an unusual format.

Written for virtuoso pianist Vicky Chow and two accompanying cellos, it was first premiered as part of a concert suite and art installation by Mr. Higgins' at Pioneer Works in 2016. 

A highly demanding and idiosyncratic work, TOCSIN uses subtle mechanical preparations for piano and a unique instrumentation to create a music where the line between piano, cello, and otherworldly source is constantly traversed, undermined, and transformed. The title comes from Old French, and refers to a warning bell.  It is, in its way, a expression of our particular moment of crisis–of agency, of mechanism, of mourning.

This performance will feature three of New York City's most gifted and most exciting performers engaging in a challenging and adventurous new work, performed here for the first time in over two years.

Doors open at 6:30pm, show at 7:00pm.Because of the generous support of their followers, Metropolis Ensemble is thrilled to offer their pop-up venue at 1 Rivington as a place for new projects and works of music to take shape, at little to no cost to our artists. Select artists are given the opportunity not only to share finished works, but to use this platform to craft ideas into tangible realities.