“From country-pop to techno-rap, genre-bending has allowed musicians to be creative with their craft for decades. Can that same experimentation work for go-go, Washington’s unique dance beat?” writes Macy Freeman in Thursday’s (6/26) Washington Post. “Prince George’s County native Liza Figueroa Kravinsky certainly thinks so. Two years ago, the 52-year-old composer and musician founded Go-Go Symphony, a 20-member ensemble that mixes classical music with go-go. It might sound like an odd combination, but audiences, critics and bloggers have been taking notice. ‘Everything’s kind of happening very quickly for us, much more quickly than I expected it would,’ says Kravinsky, who trained as a classical musician but also has ties to the R&B and pop world … In advance of the ensemble’s show Friday at the Atlas Performing Arts Center, which Kravinsky describes as ‘a symphony you can dance and party to,’ we spoke to her about how she got things rolling and her plans for the Go-Go Symphony. ‘I wrote a go-go symphony mixing go-go and classical because I was trying to be different … and I wanted orchestras to play it. … the Go-Go Symphony partners with other orchestras to perform go-go symphony and other works that incorporate classical and go-go. … What I did was just started a little spark, hopefully.”
Posted June 27, 2013
