The return of in-person performances for the School of Music and Dance has been a slow process in dealing with the fluctuating difficulties of the pandemic. Thankfully groups like the hip hop ensemble as well as two popular music ensembles are getting an opportunity to perform for a live audience again.
“The popular music program here at Oregon has been really growing in the past few years. It’s becoming, from what I’ve been told, one of the bigger departments within the music school,” Evan Hamada, GE for the unnamed pop music ensemble, said. These ensemble groups are a chance for musicians or anyone else who loves hip hop or popular music to gain experience in performing and express the joy of music.
“It’s a good fit for our school to have a group like that because we have a lot of people who play traditional instruments well but we also have people who want to be involved with hip hop,” Toby Koenigsberg, the program director for the popular music department, said.
The hip hop ensemble has been around for eight years now and the current instructor for the group Sean Peterson was one of the first members when it started. Peterson, now a graduate employee for the pop department and instructor for the group, helps coordinate their progress and performance. The ensemble is more focused on the music and the expression of joy that comes with the covering and creation of hip hop and aligning genres.
“The hip hop ensemble is drawing from a wide range of styles because most of our members are not hip hop musicians, so we’re incorporating a lot of R&B and songwriting,” Peterson said.
The group is almost like a jazz combo with singers and MCs (master of ceremonies) providing adlibs and words of wisdom over beats. The hip hop group is planning on doing covers of golden era songs like “Can I Kick” by A Tribe Called Quest as well as originals. Singer of the group and senior Alivia Nelson wrote the original song, “Four Corners” while in quarantine.
“I thought it’d be fun to bring the song to the group because it has more of that hip hop vibe. And it was already missing a second verse and I was like, ‘Oh, how cool would it be if our MC could add something of his own there and kind of fill out the song,’ so it kind of all just worked out perfectly,” Nelson said.
The two popular music groups, one unnamed that performs indie folk music while the other group named Sour Dream, will perform neo-soul and jazz-influenced songs. Both groups are also dabbling in originals as well as covers for the show.
“I think we hope to express a lot of different things, but I think the bottom line is just about having fun. Hopefully, we express some joy and good energy, but we’re just looking more to just entertain people,” Avery Scanlon GE for Sour Dream said.
The performance will highlight the songs coming from the hearts of the students and the joy that comes with sharing music in a live setting. “I would hope that this performance is just a chance to showcase the popular music department, and the progress and the opportunities that it provides,” Hamada said.
The sound is going to be excellent during the performances because the show will be held in one of the premier schools of music performance halls with an advanced sound system. The performance is going to be engineered by the school of music sound engineers so it will do classic hip hop justice with a powerful low end and clear lyrics.
The ensembles will perform on Feb. 17 in the Aasen-Hull Hall at 8 p.m. for students and the public with 30 minute sets from each group.
