Brooklyn Phil Announces Five Beethoven Remix Finalists

The Brooklyn Philharmonic announces five finalists for its community-based BEETHOVEN REMIX PROJECT. Following an open application process coordinated by musician and community organizer Sam Hillmer, where Brooklyn-based DJ's and sound artists were invited to remix the finale of Beethoven's Third Symphony (the Eroica), five finalists have been selected. Tiny Mix Tapes helped spread the word.

The winning remix, to be announced later in March, will be adapted by acclaimed contemporary composer Andrew Norman and performed live by the Brooklyn Phil as part of its season finale Bed-Stuy Orchestra Concert on June 9, 2012, which also features hip-hop legend Yasiin Bey (formerly Mos Def) and a tribute to Bed-Stuy native Lena Horne.

The finalists include composer and multi-instrumentalist Dan Friel; electronic musician and cultural activist Boima Tucker; composer Andrew "Komplexx" McLean; DJ and producer DJ Eddie Marz; and a collaboration of six high school students from Brooklyn Community Arts & Media High School called Swaggbrarians. All of the finalists received stipends for the work on their remixes. Their submissions can be heard online at the Brooklyn Phil's website, www.bphil.org.

While only one of the remixes will be arranged for orchestra and performed live, the Brooklyn Phil plans to burn 2,000 mix-tape CD's of all five, and distribute them free of charge to the audience at the June 9 orchestra concert, on a first-come-first-served basis. The CD's will also include an orchestral recording of the Eroica Symphony's final movement, the music which served as the  starting point for the remixes.

Introduced last summer at the beginning of its 2011-12 relaunch season, the Remix Project is the culmination of a Beethoven thread woven into the orchestra's first journey through Brooklyn's neighborhoods. The Brooklyn Philharmonic performed Beethoven's Eroica Symphony in its debut concert in 1857; as a yearlong tribute to its 154 year-old history, each orchestra concert this season features one movement from this Symphony, presented in a context that reflects the neighborhood it is performed in. 

For example, earlier in the season, the opening movement was paired with a Russian film by Akop Kirakosyan in the Brooklyn Phil's Brighton Beach Orchestra Concert. And the scherzo will be performed in a 19th century reimagining at the March 24 and 25 Brooklyn Village concerts at Roulette, as part of the Brooklyn Phil's Downtown Brooklyn Series. 

Andrew Norman, who will arrange the winner's remix for live performance by the orchestra, is a chamber and orchestral composer whose work has been praised by The New York Times as "pulsing with adrenalin and rich in vigorous bowing effects and antiphonal give-and-take." In recent seasons, his commissions have included the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Aspen Music Festival, and the Des Moines Symphony.

Tickets for the June 9 concert are free.