Beat-boxing and classical music are normally don’t go collectively. However Saturday, The Kandinsky Beat Down will convey the 2 genres collectively on the Lyric.
Headed by The Kandinsky Trio, The Beat Down venture is a bunch of classical performers who’re making an attempt to do one thing somewhat completely different with music.
Elizabeth Bacheldoer, Benedict Goodfriend and Alan Weinstein make up the classical piano trio that’s the Kandinsky Trio, which incorporates piano, violin and cello.
“We’re a classical chamber music group,” stated Weinstein, the group’s cellist and likewise a professor of music at Virginia Tech.
The trio is definitely in residence at Roanoke Faculty. Collectively, the group has been enjoying for 23 seasons.
“We’re one of many longest working chamber teams with unique members,” stated Goodfriend, the trio’s violinist. He stated he has been enjoying the violin for nearly 50 years now.
After assembly at school in Boston, Weinstein and Goodfriend talked of sometime forming a chamber group. Then Weinstein moved to the Roanoke space and met up with Bacheldoer, the group’s present pianist. Weinstein then referred to as Goodfriend and stated he thought they may all “make a go of it” as a bunch.
“The remainder was historical past,” Goodfriend stated.
Now, the trio has expanded its resume.
“What we’ve got completed is fee 5 composers to jot down for us: a beat-boxer and 4 soloists, one in every of which is a singer and the others are jazz musicians,” Weinstein stated.
They’ve additionally included some hip-hop dancers.
The trio mixed with the opposite musicians and dancers make up the eclectic musical group, The Kandinsky Beat Down.
“It’s classical music, meets jazz, meets hip-hop tradition,” Weinstein stated.
The composers have written completely different items of music that incorporate completely different components of the group in various mixtures.
The performers come from each the Tech group and elsewhere.
“The trombonist is a well-known New York Jazz artist, Joshua Roseman. The trumpet participant, John Dearth, runs an awesome jazz program at UVa. The guitarist is from Roanoke and the singer, Ariana Wyatt, teaches at Tech,” Weinstein stated.
The 2 hip-hop dancers, referred to as the Boogaloo Crew, are from Philadelphia.
“That is going to be our third efficiency of this venture,” Weinstein stated.
The group, whereas making an attempt to maintain the identical thought for every present, has labored with a pair completely different individuals in every efficiency, making every present somewhat completely different from the final. The 2 earlier reveals the Beat Down carried out at Roanoke’s Jefferson Heart offered out. The group can also be planning to begin a nationwide tour.
The thought for the Kandinsky Beat Down, based on Weinstein, happened two years in the past.
“The group was fashioned for the kickoff occasion for the annual ‘Arts Fusion’ right here at Tech,” Weinstein stated.
Whereas going to see his nephew, a member of the Boogaloo Crew, carry out in Washington, D.C., 5 years in the past with one other member of the dance crew, Weinstein additionally first noticed Shodekeh (Sho-da-kay), who’s now the group’s beat-boxer.
“We simply began form of speaking,” Weinstein stated concerning the performers. “After which when Arts Fusion got here round, I wrote some grants so we might make it occur — that was the catalyst for the venture.”
“Alan’s nephew Jake is definitely my finest pal,” stated William Robinson, a member of the Boogaloo Crew and a dancer within the Kandinsky Beatdown. “He was truly the one who acquired me into dancing, and we did the previous two reveals collectively.”
Robinson is a classically skilled dancer with 11 years of expertise in lots of varieties of dance, together with hip-hop and break dancing.
The dancing within the present “could be very a lot impressed by the music,” he stated.
“I attempt to keep as a lot as doable, prepared and open to improv, to react to the music, type of like hip-hop dancers would within the membership or on the road. It’s a response that’s sincere to the scenario at hand, particularly since we don’t get a whole lot of rehearsal.”
Though Robinson says the group is extra ready at this cut-off date than at its final efficiency, he nonetheless enjoys “that rawness of being within the second.”
“It doesn’t matter what you assume it is likely to be, there’s a lot occurring that just about anyone might get one thing out of it. It’s one thing to see,” Robinson stated.
“I feel it reveals every style, the classical, hip-hop and jazz,” Weinstein stated. “The enjoying is admittedly robust, the writing is admittedly robust, and the dancing is superb. So it’s type of a celebration of every self-discipline. It’s not crossover; it makes its personal new language by combining all three.”