Scotland's national orchestra is to engage with pop culture in a series of concerts this summer involving turntables, "scratching", DJs, computer games and Elvis Costello.
The Royal Scottish National Orchestra's June season will feature a number of firsts for the national company: instead of Beethoven there will be DJ Beni G, and instead of Tchaikovsky there will be the theme tune to "Tony Hawk Pro Skater".
For the more conservative fans of the RSNO there will be a Prokofiev - but it will be Gabriel Prokofiev, the grandson of the more famous Sergei, and his hip-hop influenced Concerto for Turntables.
The unusual concerts are to be part of the national orchestra's "Orchestra+" season, which its organisers hope will become an annual event in the musical calendar of the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, catering for tastes more attuned to club music and computer games.
The most well-known artist involved in this year's season will be Elvis Costello, returning to Glasgow for the first time in four years, who will play a selection of his best known songs - such as She and Shipbuilding - with his longtime keyboardist Steve Nieve, backed by the RSNO. That will be followed by extracts from his first full-scale orchestral work, Il Sogno.
Il Sogno (The Dream) blends elements of classical style with jazz, originally commissioned by Italian dance company Aterballetto in 2002 as a score for a ballet adaptation of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.
Simon Woods, the chief executive of the RSNO, said he wanted to "demystify" orchestral music. "If we were saying OK, we are not going to do Mahler any more' there might be cause for legitimate complaint, but we're not. What we're trying to do is present something for everyone," he said. "Above all, these concerts are to try and show people that orchestral music is not such a formal and stuffy concept they may think it is."
Concerto for Turntables is a concert project created for the RSNO by Prokofiev. It is a five-movement work which uses the talents of the hip-hop DJ Beni G from the Mixologists. He will stand centre-stage, mixing and "scratching" orchestral instrumental samples, accompanied by the orchestra.
For the past eight years Gabriel Prokofiev has been producing dance, electro and hip-hop music. In 2003 he composed a critically acclaimed String Quartet for the Elysian Quartet.
For the Video Games Live concert, the RSNO will be joined by the RSNO Chorus and the music from various console and computer games - including The Prince of Persia, Spider-Man, Advent Rising and Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow - will be performed next to video footage from the games and lazer lighting.
Concerto for Turntables takes place on June 19, Elvis Costello on June 21 and Video Games Live on June 26.
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