May 22, 2025
In Wednesday’s (5/21) Arizona Republic, Ed Masley writes, “In 2024, guest conductor Steve Hackman led the Phoenix Symphony in a performance called The Resurrection Mixtape, a crowd-pleasing mash-up of Gustav Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony and assorted works by two of hip-hop’s most beloved icons—the Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac Shakur … Hackman is back. The weekend of May 30-31, the classically trained composer [will] lead the Phoenix Symphony, the Academy Drum and Bugle Corps drumline, three female vocalists and three additional musicians in recontextualizing 15 of Beyoncé’s greatest hits as new movements in Ludwig van Beethoven’s breathtaking Symphony No. 7…. Hackman: I had a dream where there was a music festival that was unbounded by time, where the greatest classical musicians and composers of all time could play in the same festival as the greatest artists of today…. When Beyoncé released ‘Cowboy Carter,’ I had such a supreme appreciation of her as this concept album artist. And when you think of Beethoven, let’s just take the fifth, sixth and seventh symphonies, they’re so unmistakably Beethoven but each with its own unique characteristics. It’s almost like he was the first concept album artist…. By bringing people in with Beyoncé as a calling card, you’re turning them on to Beethoven. What could be better than that?”
