Collegiate Times

The Kandinsky Trio, along with a beat-boxer and hip-hop dancers, rehearses in Squires Studio Theater.

Forget what you know about music. A beat boxer, classical chamber music trio, hip-hop dancers, trumpet player, soprano, guitarist, trombone and trumpet player will all perform in Squires Studio Theatre Tuesday night for the Kandinsky Beat Down, where the multi-talented musicians team up for the event that seeks to seamlessly fuse jazz, hip-hop and classical music.

"It'll be just a riot," said Alan Weinstein, chief organizer of the Beat Down and cellist of the classical chamber music group The Kandinsky Trio. "It takes each language and it extends each language, of hip-hop, jazz and classical music. It's going to be some mixture of that into a new language."

The story starts with family ties; about five years ago, assistant professor of music Weinstein attended his hip-hop dancer nephew's performance and met beat boxer Shodekeh. The two have been in touch ever since.

Because of the innovative nature of the project, four composers were commissioned to write pieces exclusively for this performance.

"We really trust all the composers. They're all really great. They're all really conscious not to use the beat boxer in the same way," Weinstein said. "Each piece is totally different. It's varied, and I think that the way they integrate the beat boxer is very innovative into the classical stuff. It's very, very innovative writing."

Composers James Miley, professor of music, and Dan Cavanagh, professor of music at University of Texas at Arlington, said plans for the show became finalized in late January to early February, which didn't leave them much time to compose.

Miley said he chose four different poems to include in his piece and wanted an overall theme for this work.

"I went more for a general atmosphere rather than here's a direct setting of this piece," Miley said. "It was the title as much as the content inspiring a space that I could write in."

Miley has a jazz background and said he likes leaving room for interpretation within his work.

"I find the idea of creating a space for improvisation really appealing, whether or not it's the beat box part. I didn't write what he's doing. I just created a space for him to do something interesting," Miley said. "It was creating a world for that to happen."

In rehearsals, Miley has been amending his work to suit the needs of the performers.

His composition, "The Necessary Angel," has four movements that serve separate purposes. One is driven by the beat boxer, one is completely free and features sound effects from the beat boxer, one is a slower piece where the beat boxer just reads aloud the words, and the fourth one is a waltz, which transforms into blues with a guitar solo.

"I was really exploring where we could go with this sound," Miley said of how he wanted to use the beat boxer. "I figure he's going to bring to this his own unique takes, and that will make it sound great."

Cavanagh's piece, "In the Silence," is based off of a love poem by Ibn Hazm, a 12th century Persian poet, translated by a contemporary American poet.

The poem has four stanzas, or sections, and each one has a different tilt to it. The beat boxer will put stanzas up on an easel, and as they pile on each other, the meaning of the piece becomes deeper, Cavanagh said.

"For me, part of this project is not only is it a mix up of different kinds of music genres and styles, but also a cultural thing," Cavanagh said. "What better than to bring in some Muslim culture from the 12th century? It kind of adds that extra element to it."

The beat boxer comes in at four distinct points, and Cavanagh didn't write specifically for him.

Cavanagh gave the beatboxer descriptions of when he should beat box, but not what he should do. He didn't provide any rhythms for the pieces, but he wanted to use the beat boxer in a different way. He said his piece is slower than the others.

"You create an area and space for people to express themselves," Cavanagh said. "It could be a different beat boxer and it would sound totally different and that's cool. That's the point.

"If you bring more things to the table, you bring more people into the audience."

Dominic Talifero, or Shodekeh, will beat box for the Beat Down and said he is interested in working with different musical genres.

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