STEVE HACKMAN’S BRAHMS X. RADIOHEAD

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

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

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

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 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.

Guest Artist Biographies

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.