RHYTHM AND RHYME
KATE WALLACE
TELEGRAPH-JOURNAL
10 FEB 2012 03:31AM
Gabriel Malenfant didn’t make the choir in Grade 1 – “nobody got cut, but I got cut,” he says – but he’ll enjoy a redemption of sorts Saturday, Feb. 18, when he takes a hometown stage backed by dozens of student musicians.
Malenfant’s group, Radio Radio, will be the New Brunswick Youth Orchestra’s special guests at a concert at Moncton’s Wesleyan Celebration Centre. It is the orchestra’s first Moncton performance since its win at The Summa Cum Laude International Youth Music Festival and Competition in Vienna, Austria this summer.
“They have classical backgrounds, but why they win is they have swing,” Malenfant says of the orchestra. “Anybody can play notes, but you’ve go to know how to play them and how to approach them.”
Dubbed by one critic as the Great White North’s answer to the Beastie Boys, the Acadian hip-hop trio, which includes Alexandre Bilodeau and Jacques Doucet, has had a good run of its own lately, making the 2010 Polaris Prize shortlist, touring European tour and generally enjoying great critical acclaim.
Still, they’ve never played with an orchestra.
“It’s the first time we’ve been offered such a gift,” Malenfant says by phone from a Montreal café where he and his bandmates are reviewing liner notes for their new album, Havre de Grace. “It’s like if you have a story to tell but then Coppola makes a movie about it. It’s like you have this amazing collaborator that helps you interpret your piece,” he says.
“It’s a way to shine a very different light, an epic light, on our songs.”
They are keen to work with young musicians. Malenfant and Doucet have both spent time teaching.
Radio Radio also play a lot of school shows, and their music appeals to kids and parents alike.
“A good party is like a good wedding where the uncles are dancing with the cousins and it’s family time.”
The orchestra is rehearsing today with conductor Tony Delgado, who arranged two of the Radio Radio songs for the show.
“I really like their music. It’s rhythmic, its catchy. I like the energy they give to every one of their songs .”
Delgado says the orchestra can give the band a bigger, more dynamic sound.
But not too big.
“The key word, it’s balance,” he says. “It’s the same when you’re working with a soloist, even a class music soloist.”
Malenfant says he thinks the orchestra will up the emotional content of their songs.
“The melody will be pushed, and the rhythms too, and they’ve got percussion so hopefully it will just amplify the feeling and bring it somewhere else.”
The evening’s program will features six Radio Radio songs, including a few unreleased tracks from the new album, as well as popular classics, such as the suite from Bizet’s opera Carmen, the William Tell Overture and Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet.
“I would say there’s music for everyone,” Delgado says.
There are a few surprises planned, too.
“We’ve got rabbits packed in our hats,” Malenfant quips. “In our Stetsons.”
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Kate Wallace writes about art for the Telegraph-Journal. Contact her at wallace.kate@telegraphjournal.com.