[Music] okay almost [Music] there this is a rehearsal for the hipop experience it is sponsored by Ensemble MC n Christopher Nicholas and Juan Kim created the company to perform a new genre incorporating classical music mixed with contemporary hip-hop the hip-hop Orchestra is our Ensemble that is uh based in Oakland California um and it consists of um hip-hop elements and classical elements um so for instance we have a hip-hop U MC or rapper we have a hip-hop dancer um that does Turf dance which is um Oakland Centric hip-hop inspired dance and we have the classical element which is a chamber orchestra annually they complete a multi-city tour by teaming up with local Symphony musicians from the towns they will perform in earlier this year they teamed up with the Shaban Symphony Orchestra to perform at the John Michael ker Arts Center for Black History Month generally speaking um traditional orchestras don't play contemporary music and or if they do they rarely work with an actual tears Christmas but in addition to the performance Christopher Nicholas gave a master class on the history of hip-hop rag time we have Jazz we have Blues we have U Soul we have Funk and Hip Hop and again we haven't really unpacked this term but hip hop is an amalgamation of everything that kind of precedes it now I'm going to ask this question one more time based on something I'm going to play is this hip hop or [Applause] not in regular classical uh music there is an idea of mcing so actually juxtaposing it and then actually putting it into a structurally important Point within this group and that changes that changes the whole nature of the ensem and what does hip-hop music mean to you freedom of expression Jan immigrated to America from Korea at 20 years old in pursuit of a musical degree at Berkeley College of Music in Boston soon after his arrival he grew a liking for American hipop hop it was his attraction to hip-hop mixed with his background in classical music that inspired the idea of the hip-hop Orchestra experience I decid to push this project forward but I felt like I needed that I needed help uh from someone and that's when I called my college buddy Christopher Nicholas who is now uh our executive director and that was about 13 years ago we've been doing it consistently when um I was in my undergraduate Jan was my roommate so as I was um finishing up my masters and Jan had asked me to come out um he told me that he did a performance at his um at his school so he was getting his Masters at SF conservatory and he told me that he did this novelty piece that combined um hip-hop MC and chamber orchestra and he got a full page write up in Oakland Tribune so so you know I was like wow that that sounds amazing and so he was like okay well why don't you come out and help me you know kind of kind of work it you know kind of make it do something more so than just like one page right up people see it they don't even hear it meaning like white people and black people are there and then doing something together and there's an Asian guy I think that for me I want them to see that America still can come together and make something new or at least tolerate each other and maybe we can forgive let's not go to love yet but like just tolerate and forgive and I think the best way to understand each other is to actually do something together I want people to see and experience something that has never been seen and experienced before I want them to be be comfortable I want them to really enjoy the fact that they're seeing something radically different um and as I mentioned it hasn't really been done before at this scale um so I want people to really um take home the fact that um they're experiencing history in the [Music] making G shes everything around me get the money louder come [Music] on