Andrew Cyr

Conductor and artistic director Andrew Cyr leads the innovative Metropolis Ensemble. He is at the forefront of efforts to connect contemporary classical music with young new audiences. Cyr was born in isolated Fort Kent, on the Canadian border in far northern Maine, in the mid-'70s. His parents were schoolteachers, and during his youth, he played piano in a Catholic church but had no exposure to contemporary music. Cyr also lived in the central Maine city of Orono for a time. He attended Bates College in Lewiston, from which he graduated in 1996. Cyr had further conducting training at Westminster Choir College in New Jersey and in France from organist Pierre Grandmaison. After living in Maine, where he worked for an organ builder, and in Montreal for a time, Cyr moved to New York in 2000. Noting that his young peers often attended the likes of modern art openings but avoided classical music concerts, he resolved to work toward bringing contemporary music to new audiences. To this end, he founded the Metropolis Ensemble in 2006. The group released its first album, featuring concertos by Avner Dornan, in 2010 on the Naxos label and earned Cyr a Grammy nomination. Not a fixed group, the ensemble consists of young musicians who are mostly recent conservatory graduates and come together according to the requirements of specific pieces and concert projects. Cyr's emphasis on new music filled a need in New York's classical scene; by 2010, the Metropolis Ensemble had commissioned 30 new works, and as of the mid-2020s, the figure was more than 450, ranging from chamber music to opera to electronic works. The group appears in various projects and venues, with Cyr making his opera conducting debut at the New Victory Theatre on Broadway (where he led David Bruce's The Firework Maker's Daughter in 2013), the Weill Music Institute at Carnegie Hall, the Howard Gilman Opera House at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and the progressive rock club Le Poisson Rouge. Cyr has also collaborated with the rapper Questlove and various rock acts. Cyr has led the Metropolis Ensemble on various recordings, including Vivian Fung: Dreamscapes on Naxos in 2012, Tyondai Braxton: Telekinesis on Nonesuch in 2022, and Timo Andres: The Blind Banister, also on Nonesuch, in 2024.
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