A Brahms-Radiohead mashup at Orchestra Hall

What if Johannes Brahms had lived long enough to hear the seminal album OK Computer? Composer Steve Hackman has pondered this, and created music that combines two distinct genres in a piece he envisions as the version of Brahms’ Symphony No. 1 the classical composer would have released “after he became obsessed with Radiohead.”

Hackman will conduct his creation, the lushly melodic fusion Brahms X. Radiohead, with the Minnesota Orchestra and three vocalists on March 21 at Orchestra Hall.

It’s not the stretch one might think; the 1997 album and Brahms’ first symphony have commonalities that are apparent when one digs deep, Hackman says.

“As far as two pieces get along with one another, the music is full of such anxiety, such pathos, I would say,” he says. “Very tense, very nervous. Those emotional qualities make the piece work.

“When they exhaust themselves of that anxiety, there is music of unsurpassed beauty.”

Hackman’s foray into genre-mixing (which he’s explored in a series called SYMPHONYFUSE, with combinations of Tchaikovsky/Drake and Beethoven/Coldplay, among others) came naturally to him. His musical upbringing encompassed all types of music, not focusing on any one variety.

“I was fortunate that I didn’t grow up in a classical music household,” he says, unlike many professional classical musicians who are “kind of bred into the classical world, somewhat insulated.” He studied piano and vocal music at an early age, and began conducting, composing and arranging music in high school.

“No one was imposing any of these false valuations on me, saying ‘classical music is better,’“ or pop music is better, says Hackman, a Chicago area native. While he was in graduate school at Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute of Music, “I knew I was different in this way; I have an equal amount of appreciation for Brahms and for Radiohead.

“In the professional classical music world, my values met with where the market was,” he says. “The market badly needed, and needs, refreshing, needs constant replenishing, needs new audiences, needs to create new relationships with people.

“A bridge could be built between classical music and listeners of other genres of music, and this is one effort to build a bridge to meet people where they are.”

Hackman’s process for creating his mashups starts with an internal inventory. “I have a running list on both sides of my brain of music that I think is essential, that I’m excited to introduce people to,” he explains. “And Radiohead was at the top of that list. The music is so substantial, artful, dense, well-arranged and conceived. It’s one of those bands that a classical musician is likely to like.

“In that way, it was almost the closest reach, the lowest-hanging fruit.” Hackman points out that Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood and Thom Yorke have both composed film scores, although those were in the future when OK Computer burst on the scene.

In combining the Brahms, which Hackman knew nearly by heart because it had been an audition piece for him, and OK Computer, which he said “changed my life — it was like my Bible,” he was dealing with music he knew intimately.

The first phase of composition “is just kind of dreaming, ideas popping into my mind, while I’m at the gym, getting groceries, in the car,” Hackman says.

Then comes what he calls the “architectural” aspects, using the classical work as a structural backbone. “The Brahms is laid out in four movements — I opened up the score and looked for possible juncture points where I can transition into this fusion space where we don’t quite know if it’s Brahms or Radiohead — because it’s both.”

And there always is the nagging obstacle that Hackman describes as “the hardest part: giving yourself permission to change the music.” He faces this question every time he sits down with two competing, yet somehow complementary, musical works in his head.

“Perhaps it’s gotten slightly easier over time,” he says. “I couldn’t do it if I wasn’t as madly in love with this music as any traditionalist. I have to live in it so wholly, I’m so engrossed in it.

“If the next piece is Mahler 5, I’ll have a hard time when I take that first corner, when I start to tinker with it and unglue it. I think that as the pieces have gotten larger and larger in scope, I’ve taken more daring chances. Perhaps I’m just more assured that it will be OK, in that fearful moment.”

A final challenge in the process is melding the vocalists with the orchestra, which requires adaptation both on the part of the singers, who are unused to the powerful and variable orchestral accompaniment, and the audio engineers of the concert hall.

“An orchestra is a unique musical force,” Hackman says. “And these singers haven’t necessarily ever worked with an orchestra. So it’s a challenge, because they’re not just singing Radiohead, but Brahms and Radiohead — the challenging harmonies, the dense counterpoint.” He calls himself “lucky and grateful” to work with vocalists Rich Saunders, Brooke Simpson and Khalil Overton, who “are really the messengers, because I’ve got my back to the audience.”

Hackman has never collaborated with the Minnesota Orchestra, but “I couldn’t be more excited to play with these musicians,” whom he praised for their “impeccable reputation.” “The Minnesota Orchestra does such an amazing variety of programming, and that’s key,” he says. “I’m confident we’ll be in quite capable hands.”

He wants the audience to know “this will be hearing Radiohead through the lens of Brahms. There are no drums or electric guitars, and that’s by design. It uses the same orchestra that Brahms had when he premiered his first symphony.”

As for what he hopes concertgoers will come away with, he wants them to realize that music such as Radiohead’s is “just as worthwhile, just as brilliant.

“All these pieces are trying to encourage people to look past the superficial, the artifice, and look beneath.”

Brahms X. Radiohead

When: 7 p.m. March 21
Where: Orchestra Hall, 1111 Nicollet Mall, Minneapolis
Tickets:  Sold out.

External Links

Steve Hackman – official site

Radiohead – official site

Minnesota Orchestra – official site