Everything was in its right place at Meymandi Concert Hall Wednesday night as the North Carolina Symphony took on a grandiose production that combined the works of Radiohead and Brahms.
The program’s composer, Steven Hackman, has found himself torn between the worlds of classical and popular music since he was a child, so to deconstruct two pieces as sonically different as OK Computer and Brahms’ First Symphony was only natural.
“My father had an old album of Chopin piano music when I was a child,” Hackman said. “And as much as I loved that Chopin record, I loved that Beatles record or that Radiohead album.”
These diverse influences shined brightly as Hackman and the North Carolina Symphony seamlessly interweaved fan-favorites such as “Let Down,” “Paranoid Android” and “Subterranean Homesick Blues ” with the whimsical works of Brahms.
Opener Ari Picker and Emma Nadeau of Chapel Hill’s Lost in the Trees were joined by a small string section to provide a warm welcoming to the event. The group’s delicate brand of chamber-folk rang throughout Meymandi Concert Hall and commanded concert-goers’ attention. Vocal harmonies between Picker and Nadeau played on the brilliant counterpoint between the two and showcased the tender, heartfelt lyricism on display in the group’s music.
But the highlights of the evening lied within brilliant machinations of Hackman’s mash-ups. Steven Hackman has been enamored with the world of mash-ups since he was thirteen, listening to house DJs mashing-up various beats and vocals on the radio in Chicago. Such a versatile scope makes Hackman a perfect fit in the world of mash-ups.
Hackman’s first large scale attempt took form with the works of Beethoven and Coldplay—originally switching back and forth between the pieces with little overlap. Hackman gradually honed his technique and was able to take two vastly different pieces and synthesize them into something new and original.
Utilizing the insanely talented symphony and three vocalists who evenly divided well-known Radiohead melodies both solo and harmoniously, the concert took Radiohead’s music to an unimaginable place.
“I’ve wanted to do Radiohead forever,” Hackman said. “They’re one of the great examples of contemporary art. I’ve done some arrangements [for their music] here and there but they were a great choice for this large scale mash-up because their material is so rich. It’s so large in scope that implementing an orchestra or Brahms symphony didn’t seem to out of place.”
The massive soundscapes Radiohead built never felt as immense as they did on Wednesday night when the symphony swelled with the climax of “Let Down”. The gorgeous vocal melodies slowly rose to a spine-chilling crescendo as the vocalists rang out in unison, perfectly meshing with the overwhelming presence created by the symphony. Alternatively, songs like “Paranoid Android” utilized the vocalist’s smooth delivery and created a brilliant dichotomy with the gritty lyrics of this aggressive, spastic song.
By the end of the show, songs began to bleed together and truly take their own form. As “Exit Music (For A Film)” reached its peak of intensity, the symphony erupted with a beautiful blend of various timbres that mesh into one harmonious outburst of musical perfection.
While tracks like “Karma Police” and “Electioneering” felt a bit rushed, both the symphony and the vocalists packed enough of a punch to draw attention away from the awkward speeds and towards the passionate display of booming vocals and encapsulating instrumentation.
It’s clear that Steven Hackman’s hours of labor on these two dense pieces of work paid off immensely. The composer combined his massive amounts of formal and informal training to combine two starkly different pieces of work into a product that feels not only natural, but whimsical as well.
Thankfully this brilliant mash-up won’t be Hackman’s last, the composer plans to finish his work on a Beethoven and Coldplay mash-up and then hopes to work on more in the future after he completes work on his own solo album.
“I definitely plan to do more Radiohead albums with this. I’d love to do Kid A and In Rainbows for sure. Right now I’m working on my own music, but I think it would be really fun to do an Animal Collective thing combined with some Stravinsky,” Hackman said.
Future plans aside, Hackman achieved a great feat with his combination of these two brilliant artists.
