One of the most talked-about concert series of 2022 is back, fusing rap and classical

A lot of people asked me if I'd seen a certain concert this past March — a world premiere that interwove the music of Tupac, the Notorious B.I.G. and Mahler.

Even though Hoosier audiences bestow a generous number of standing ovations and flattering compliments on performances, I received many more "hey, did you see's" than usual for "The Resurrection Mixtape." I couldn't make it, but I immediately wished I'd been able to.

So, obviously, I cleared time for the next concert in the symphony's "Uncharted Series": Brahms X. Radiohead in June. "OK Computer's" lyrics — and the famous line "for a minute there, I lost myself" — were meshed inside Brahms' broodingly majestic First Symphony. Together, they felt like the exploration of mental health we need after 2020, even though the fusion predates it.

People told me about "The Resurrection Mixtape" like it was a phenomenon they'd never witnessed, and it was in many ways. But it's actually rooted in a line of fusion compositions that have long been performed in Indianapolis, nationally and internationally.

The reason I'm talking about it all right now is because another in the series — Tchaikovsky X. Drake — will hit Hilbert Circle Theatre on Wednesday. You know how this works now: It's the former's Symphony No. 5 fused with music by one Aubrey Drake Graham, the Canadian rapper and singer.

It's also the first concert of the second season of the symphony's Uncharted Series. In January, Beethoven X. Coldplay will come back. In April, "Mixtape" will return — barely more than a year after it premiered here. The latter sold more than 90% of available seats, symphony CEO James Johnson told me. Clearly, these fusions are speaking to a lot of Hoosiers.

A way to change what's on stage

Much of this story centers around Steve Hackman, a composer and conductor, a songwriter and producer — basically a musician who relishes working outside previously drawn boundaries.

For more than a decade, the symphony has invited him to do so. In 2009, he teamed up with Time for Three, a trio of friends and former classmates from the Curtis Institute of Music, where Hackman earned an advanced diploma in conducting. The trio, which then included the symphony's former concertmaster Zach De Pue, was the ensemble in residence at the Indianapolis Symphony.

All together, this was a laboratory for trying something new, Hackman told me. Facing the need to bring in younger audiences, orchestras were experimenting to find the right birdcall that my generation — the mighty Millennial — would answer. That often involved some combination of drinks and discounts.

But Hackman and Time for Three were more interested in an experience that changed what was on stage. Eventually, Hackman started to work with just the orchestra, creating new fusions: Aaron Copland and Bon Iver, Brahms and Radiohead, Beethoven and Coldplay. The Indianapolis Symphony counts eight complete fusion works that it's performed over the years.

"We were able to say: We're going to change the music itself," said Hackman, who's now based in Los Angeles. "We're going to get in there and remix it, and mash it up and bootleg it and apply all those musical techniques that people know from the pop world to classical music, which at that point had been done very rarely."

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'I have to love this music'

Probably the harshest critique landed in a 2015 piece for The Guardian, in which critic Tom Service called Hackman's fusions "cultural violence" and "an isolatedly insane project of musical relativism gone stark staring bonkers."

As we say in the Midwest: Welp.

But in all honesty, what's a new musical idea without initial annoyance? Parisian audiences rioted over Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" in 1913, and some criticized Beethoven for the length of and addition of a chorus to his Symphony No. 9. As far as Hackman's fusions, he said complaints have dissipated over the years.

His approach to composing reflects his own musical background. Hackman, who grew up in the northwest suburbs of Chicago, studied piano, and his mom bought him classical CD samplers from the grocery store. His playlists included Chopin and the Beatles, Phish and Beethoven. He noticed what they had in common.

During his undergraduate years at the University of Illinois and then at Curtis, Hackman studied conducting and kept fine-tuning his talent for counterpoint and music theory, which grew his talent for composing. After Curtis, he found himself disillusioned with the classical conducting industry and instead wrote, produced and played in clubs.

The Indianapolis Symphony, he told me, was the first organization to give him a platform to disrupt and innovate.

Part of purists' criticism comes from a long-held philosophy. As a torch-bearing player or listener for some of the greatest music on earth, you're trained to show reverence for artworks that preceded you and will outlive you. That means people don't usually alter masterworks.

Plenty of socio-political history is behind this reasoning — how European aristocrats of centuries past wanted to make sure their tastes counted and how that affects what are considered masterworks in the first place. What's evident today is that these pieces are, to put it simply, beautiful on their own — and in thoughtful treatments that reimagine them.

"This is not coming from a place of, 'I'm going to improve Beethoven' or 'I'm going to slander Tchaikovsky,'" Hackman told me.

"I always say to anyone that is detracting: You don't understand how much I have to love this music to spend so much time rewriting it to understand every single note of the original Tchaikovsky and to then start to consider how to rework it in a way that respects the original and pays homage to it.'"

How Hackman links genres and time periods

My IndyStar colleague Brandon Drenon was one of the people who raved about "The Resurrection Mixtape." He remembers how the artists delivered the lyrics a little slower, letting the audience take in the words. And they did. Tupac's line — "they got money for wars but can't feed the poor" — elicited clapping and outbursts of approval, Drenon told me.

I need to say here just how incredible the performers are. Drenon was blown away by Marcus Tenney, Jecorey "1200" Arthur, India Carney, Joe Cleveland and Tre Reid at "Mixtape." The voices of Andrew Lipke, Bill Prokopow and Kéren Tayár intermingled arrestingly for Brahms X. Radiohead.

Indy's own symphony musicians were spectacular as they always are. This music is technically difficult and requires a level of prolonged concentration that could easily be described as superhuman.

Everyone on stage has to feel the musical commonalities of the composers in the fusion so the audience can, too. Sometimes their melodies from each travel side by side. Other times, rhythms lock into sync. Over time, Hackman has revised Tchaikovsky X. Drake to feel like a true hybrid that serves each artist equally.

"It's of course a challenge, how to combine Drake and Tchaikovsky," Hackman said. "It's like all these puzzle pieces: Where can we fit them together, where can we link them? Which musical techniques or harmonies or rhythms do they have in common that we can use as a juncture point?"

"Mixtape" achieves that higher level of integration, too. Layered with Mahler's "Resurrection" Symphony, and his challenges enduring anti-Semitism in late 19th-century Vienna, the meaning compounds into something bigger than the three creators.

Biggie and Tupac were "telling stories of the difficulties of being a Black man in America, especially in poor neighborhoods and what they had to do to survive and the oppressive forces around them that forced them to do things they didn’t want to do but had to do," Drenon said.

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We saw a more diverse symphony audience

Drenon, who covers racial justice and equity, told me he chose "Mixtape" because he considers Tupac and Biggie lyrical geniuses — and because he and his wife enjoyed attending the New York Philharmonic when they lived in the state. He didn't grow up in a household that listened to classical music, but he's been a fan since a friend introduced him.

When Drenon goes to the symphony, he's there for the experience, for hearing so many instruments live at one time. When he glanced around the audience for "Mixtape," he noticed something new.

"It was the first time I've been in a classical setting and seen a large group of Black people in attendance," Drenon said. "I'm normally one of very few."

At Brahms X. Radiohead, I noticed something I don't usually see, too: listeners between ages 20 and 50 joining the more traditional older audience members.

The fusions have provided plenty of fresh ground for Hackman as well. But they're only one of what he calls his creative pillars: He scores for film and TV in addition to collaborating with popular artists including Doja Cat.

Hackman recently premiered "And I Love Her: The Beatles Re-Imagined," which examines the band's music through the lens of the women who influenced them. He wants to bring it to Indianapolis' symphony.

I hope that happens. In the meantime, I recommend the whole Uncharted Series. This time around, I won't miss the April 12 return of "The Resurrection Mixtape."

Classical meets rap at the Hilbert

What: Tchaikovsky X. Drake

When and where: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at Hilbert Circle Theatre on Monument Circle

Tickets: indianapolissymphony.org/event/tchaikovsky-v-drake

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Contact IndyStar reporter Domenica Bongiovanni at 317-444-7339 or d.bongiovanni@indystar.com. Follow her on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter: @domenicareports.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Tchaikovsky X. Drake: Indy symphony's popular series is back