Hip-hop meets Baroque music
At the Spoken Word Festival, Odense Denmark in 2018, the audience experienced a unique concert match, where baroque music performed by an ad hoc ensemble interacted with the strong lyrics and rhythmic phrasing of Danish rapper Pelle Møller.
Hip-hop and classical music are not often heard in combination, but both 400-year-old baroque music and modern rap are based on improvisational approaches. Musically, both genres rely on a strong rhythmic groove, and both baroque and rap focus on the lyrics as an essential narrative element. The two genres therefore merge effortlessly into a different and very special musical expression.
A COMPOSED AUDIENCE
A mixed audience, composed by equal parts of younger and older people, listened attentively on this inspiring August evening to the word juggler Pelle Møller combining his strong lyrics and rhythmic phrasing with the tight pulse and pace of the Baroque music in the concert program Baroque'n'rap.
Both genres are based on a strong rhythmic groove, and focus on the lyrics as an essential narrative element
Baroque'n'rap is produced by the ensemble Via Artis Konsort and forms a part of the experimental concert project BRO (BRIDGE).
A CREATIVE PARTNERSHIP
Rapper Pelle Møller has been releasing music since 2011 under his own name and as part of the rap group 'Parlør'. He is part of the political satire freak show 'RapAvisen'. In 2015 he participated in the freestyle competition 'MC's Fight Night', where he made it all the way to the semi-finals. Today he has retired from adult bullying, and freestyles in other ways, for instance when he raps at conferences, or performs with other freestyle legends.
The ad hoc Baroque ensemble is formed around the Via Artis Konsort, an international ensemble of professional musicians who operate in the intersections of classical, art and world music. Since its establishment in 2006, Via Artis Konsort has performed more than 400 concerts and music-dramatic performances in Scandinavia, Spain and Latin America, most recently the physical opera 'Andersen's Duende' and the site-responsive concert series 'Anywhere revisited'.
Instruments: Rap, classical baroque soprano, viola da gamba, harpsichord and electronic beats.
