STEVE HACKMAN’S BRAHMS X. RADIOHEAD

Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra

Friday, March 31, 2023 at 7:30 pm Saturday, April 1, 2023 at 7:30 pm

ALLEN-BRADLEY HALL

Steve Hackman, conductor

Rich Saunders, vocalist

Alita Moses, vocalist

Jamal Moore, vocalist

PROGRAM

Brahms: Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Opus 68

Radiohead: OK Computer

I. Un poco sostenuto – Allegro “Airbag”

“Paranoid Android”

“Climbing Up the Walls”

“Karma Police”

“Subterranean Homesick Alien”

II. Andante sostenuto “No Surprises”

III. Un poco allegretto e grazioso “Let Down”

IV. Adagio – Più andante – “Exit Music (For a Film)”

Allegro non troppo, ma con brio “Lucky”

“Electioneering”

This weekend’s media sponsor is WISCONSIN PUBLIC RADIO.

The length of this concert is approximately 1 hour and 30 minutes without intermission.

Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra can be heard on Telarc, Koss Classics, Pro Arte, AVIE, and Vox/Turnabout recordings. MSO Classics recordings (digital only) available on iTunes and at mso.org. MSO Binaural recordings (digital only) available at mso.org.

Guest Artist Biographies

STEVE HACKMAN

STEVE HACKMAN

A multi-hyphenate music powerhouse and visionary producer, Steve Hackman is a daring voice leading the charge among a new generation of classical musicians intent on redefining the genre. Equally adept in classical and popular styles, he is the creator of a production concept called FUSE, which synthesizes classical and popular masterworks. He has conducted these productions, like Brahms X. Radiohead and The Resurrection Mixtape (Mahler X Notorious BIG X Tupac Shakur), all over the world, including Philadelphia, Richmond, San Francisco, San Diego, Seattle, Colorado, Phoenix, and Grand Rapids symphonies; Pittsburgh, Nashville, symphony orchestras; Colorado Music Festival; and the Boston Pops.

Hackman has teamed up with some of the biggest pop superstars of today to add a signature virtuosic and classical dimension to their work, including Kanye West, Doja Cat, and Andrew Bird. He was trained at the Curtis Institute of Music and The Juilliard School.

RICH SAUNDERS

RICH SAUNDERS

When Rich Saunders was a child, he and his family would spend long, relaxing afternoons sitting in a circle and singing together in the way that only blood relatives truly can, creating close harmonies whose naturally blending tones seem the result of some kind of inbuilt genetic code. Fast forward a couple of decades and, though much has happened in the interim – a period as one-third of Universal-signed group Thirdstory, a stint singing backing vocals for Chance the Rapper, a trans-Atlantic, more experimental duo going by the name Refs – it’s still those magical vocal moments that are at the crux. However, now they’re coming primarily from the singer himself under new, voice-centric solo project. Recent collaborations include SG Lewis, Smoko Ono, Maths Time Joy, SHAED, and more. In the last year, Saunders has also grown his Tiktok to over 600K followers, with co-signs along the way from Justin Vernon of Bon Iver, James Blake, Elton John, Timbaland, Haley Williams, and more. Recent support includes Wonderland, BBC Radio 1, Complex, Flaunt, KCRW, and more.

ALITA MOSES

ALITA MOSES

Alita Moses is a remarkably versatile vocalist, songwriter, and entertainer whose talents have taken her all over the world, both as a performer and as a teaching artist. She has shared the stage with a myriad of household names in both the pop and jazz world, including legends like Shawn Mendes, Cynthia Erivo, Al Jarreau, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Chris Botti, and, currently, Jacob Collier on his DJESSE world tour. Her brush with orchestral features began at the young age of 14 with the Hartford Symphony Orchestra, later with the Philly POPS, and she has since been seen with several big bands and chamber groups in New York City. Her latest feat was releasing her first single as an independent artist, entitled “Still.” Whether on stage or in the studio, Moses brings a natural warmth to each performance and astounds audiences with musical lustre, grace, and soul.

JAMAL MOORE

JAMAL MOORE

Jamal Moore is an internationally acclaimed singer, songwriter, and recording artist. Known for his smooth, rich tone and his crossstyle versatility, Moore brings captivating artistry to everything he touches, be it pop, classical, gospel, or jazz.

A regular collaborator with Beyoncé, Moore has performed at Coachella Festival, the Kobe & Gianna Bryant Memorial service, on Disney’s new The Lion King soundtrack, and on Beyoncé’s newest hit track, “Break My Soul.” He has also toured globally with Kanye West as a member of gospel sensations The Sunday Service Collective. On screen, Moore has performed on The Academy Awards, BET Awards (with Kirk Franklin), Super Bowl Halftime Show (with The Weeknd), Jimmy Kimmel Live, The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, and Netflix documentary, Beyoncé Homecoming. Moore was also a finalist on NBC’s The SingOff and can be heard as the singing voice of “Synth” on Dreamworks/Netflix series, Trolls. Most recently, Moore appeared alongside Rihanna at this year’s Oscars, performing a soul-stirring arrangement of “Lift Me Up” from Marvel’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

With a degree in opera from New York’s Eastman School of Music, Moore remains active in the classical music space, having recently made his solo symphonic debut with the LA Philharmonic, performing solo Duke Ellington selections at Walt Disney Concert Hall. Moore has toured extensively as a featured soloist with Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, including most recently as a soloist in Marsalis’ “All Rise Symphony” in commemoration of the Tulsa Race Massacre. A member of LA Opera and LA Master Chorale, Moore has performed Mahler’s Second Symphony and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, both with Gustavo Dudamel and the LA Philharmonic, and sang in The Little Mermaid Live at the Hollywood Bowl.

With vocal quintet The Exchange, Moore has performed in over 50 countries, served as an official cultural ambassador abroad for the U.S. State Department, and opened for the Backstreet Boys’ Europe arena tour. For Moore’s original songwriting, he was the Grand Prize Finalist in the esteemed John Lennon Songwriting Contest.

In 2020 and 2021, Moore released Love Letters Vol. 1 and 2, a collection of genre-bending covers and originals, to great acclaim. His next record, set to release 2023, promises a groundbreaking fusion of the multiple diverse styles that have shaped Moore into the one-of-a-kind artist he is. With 5+ million views and 60,000+ followers on YouTube, Moore is grateful for the opportunity to collaborate and learn from other creatives and to share his voice with his growing audience around the globe.

Notes on Brahms X. Radiohead:

Brahms X. Radiohead is an orchestral synthesis of the Brahms First Symphony (1882) and Radiohead’s OK Computer (1997), wherein ten songs from Radiohead’s seminal album are experienced through the lens of Brahms, drawing upon the latter’s harmony, form, counterpoint, and motifs. This was the first large-scale work of this type that I endeavored, and what a thrilling process of analysis, discovery, de/re-construction, and creation it was.

These two works share striking and defining characteristics; the most significant is their mood of anxiety and brooding pathos. Brahms, unendingly plagued by the shadow of the great Beethoven, took more than a decade to write this symphony for fear of not living up to his predecessor. That pressure is felt in each tightly-wound measure. For Radiohead, the themes of social alienation, consumerism, emotional isolation, and political turmoil are channeled electrically through every anxious note and lyric of OK Computer

Secondly, both pieces represent “invention within convention” – adhering to existing structures but innovating within them (in Brahms’s case, the symphonic form, and in Radiohead’s, the concept album).

Finally, they have distinct musical similarities; beyond the fact that both are dense, substantive, and full of rich counterpoint, I heard unmistakably similar melodic and harmonic devices. For example: the iv-I chord progression of “No Surprises” is used by Brahms (with an added 6th, in inversion) in the final moments of the second movement; or the fact that “Subterranean Homesick Alien,” like the Brahms first movement, is in 6/8 time (rare for an alternative rock song).

I took advantage of those similarities in the synthesis, and it is those moments that I am most excited about. We hear “Subterranean Homesick Alien” over an undercurrent of Brahms’s pedal tones; the stark opening music of the symphony adding to the frenzy of “Paranoid Android”; the final lyric of “No Surprises” floating over the gorgeous conclusion of the second movement; themes of the third movement evoked in the distance during the experimental middle section of “Let Down”; and the ostinato bass figure of the fourth movement coda providing the rhythmic motor of “Electioneering.”

A final note: some may purport that these two pieces are separated by more than just time. They may seek to label and categorize them and perhaps judge their respective and comparative values accordingly.

I believe that the more we truly understand the creative and technical processes that result in any kind of art – regardless of genre or category – the more similar they will reveal themselves to us.

– Steve Hackman, May 2018

Brahms X. Radiohead Lyrics

Airbag

In the next world war

Jack-knifed juggernaut

I am born again

In the neon sign

Scrolling up and down

I am born again

An interstellar burst

I’m back to save the universe

Paranoid Android

Please could you stop the noise, I’m trying to get some rest

From all the unborn chicken voices in my head

What’s that...?

When I am king, you will be first against the wall

With your opinion which is of no consequence at all

What’s that...?

Ambition makes you look pretty ugly

Kicking and squealing gucci little piggy

You don’t remember

You don’t remember

Why don’t you remember my name?

Off with his head, man

Off with his head, man

Why don’t you remember my name?

I guess he does...

Rain down, rain down

Come on rain down on me

From a great height

From a great height... height...

That’s it, sir

You’re leaving

The crackle of pigskin

The dust and the screaming

The yuppies networking

The panic, the vomit

The panic, the vomit

God loves his children

God loves his children, yeah

Climbing Up the Walls

I am the key to the lock in your house

That keeps your toys in the basement

And if you get too far inside

You’ll only see my reflection

And either way you turn

I’ll be there

Open up your skull

I’ll be there

Climbing up the walls...

Karma Police

Karma police

Arrest this man

He talks in maths

He buzzes like a fridge

He’s like a detuned radio

Karma police

Arrest this girl

Her Hitler hairdo

Is making me feel ill

And we have crashed her party

This is what you’ll get

When you mess with us

For a minute there

I lost myself, I lost myself

Subterranean Homesick Alien

The breath of the morning

I keep forgetting

The smell of the warm summer air

I live in a town

Where you can’t smell a thing

You watch your feet

For cracks in the pavement

Up above

Aliens hover

Making home movies

For the folks back home

Of all these weird creatures

Who lock up their spirits

Drill holes in themselves

And live for their secrets

They’re all uptight

Uptight...

I wish that they’d swoop down in a country lane

Late at night when I’m driving

Take me on board their beautiful ship

Show me the world as I’d love to see it

I’d tell all my friends

But they’d never believe me

They’d think that I’d finally lost it completely

I’d show them the stars

And the meaning of life

They’d shut me away

But I’d be all right

All right...

I’m just uptight

Uptight...

No Surprises

A heart that’s full up like a landfill

A job that slowly kills you

Bruises that won’t heal

You look so tired-unhappy

Bring down the government

They don’t, they don’t speak for us

I’ll take a quiet life

A handshake of carbon monoxide

With no alarms and no surprises

No alarms and no surprises

No alarms and no surprises

Silence...

This is my final fit

My final bellyache

With no alarms and no surprises

No alarms and no surprises

No alarms and no surprises

Silence...

Such a pretty house

And such a pretty garden

Silence...

Let Down

Transport, motorways and tramlines

Starting and then stopping

Taking off and landing

The emptiest of feelings

Disappointed people clinging on to bottles

And when it comes it’s so, so disappointing

Let down and hanging around

Crushed like a bug in the ground

Let down and hanging around

Shell smashed, juices flowing

Wings twitch, legs are going

Don’t get sentimental

It always ends up drivel

One day I’m going to grow wings

A chemical reaction

Hysterical and useless

Hysterical and...

Let down and hanging around

Crushed like a bug in the ground

Let down and hanging around

Let down again

You know, you know where you are with

You know where you are with

Floor collapsing

Floating, bouncing back

And one day...

I am going to grow wings

A chemical reaction

Hysterical and useless

Hysterical and...

Let down and hanging around

Crushed like a bug in the ground

Let down and hanging around

Exit Music (For a Film)

Wake from your sleep

The drying of your tears

Today we escape

We escape

Pack and get dressed

Before your father hears us

Before all hell breaks loose

Breathe, keep breathing

Don’t loose your nerve

Breathe, keep breathing

I can’t do this alone

Sing us a song

A song to keep us warm

There’s such a chill, such a chill

You can laugh

A spineless laugh

We hope your rules and wisdom choke you

Now we are one

In everlasting peace

We hope that you choke, that you choke

Lucky

I’m on a roll

I’m on a roll this time

I think my luck could change

Kill me Sarah

Kill me again with love

It’s gonna be a glorious day

Pull me out of the aircrash

Pull me out of the lake

‘Cause I’m your superhero

We are standing on the edge

The Head of State

Is calling me by name

But I don’t have time for him

It’s gonna be a glorious day

I feel my luck could change

Pull me out of the aircrash

Pull me out of the lake

‘Cause I’m your superhero

We are standing on the edge

Electioneering

I will stop, I will stop at nothing. Say the right things when electioneering

I trust I can rely on your vote.

When I go forwards, you go backwards

And somewhere we will meet.

Riot shields, voodoo economics,

It’s just business, cattle prods and the I.M.F.

I trust I can rely on your vote.

When I go forwards, you go backwards

And somewhere we will meet.