The Hip Hop Orchestra Experience

In Oakland, the 28-piece Ensemble Mik Nawooj, led by Korean-born composer JooWan Kim, dismantles classical masters and rebuilds them as hip-hop. Onstage, rappers trade rapid-fire bars over a chamber orchestra; a lyric soprano soars above French horns, while a turf dancer’s limbs cut sharp angles under a single spotlight. Kim repurposes Mozart’s "Eine kleine Nachtmusik" and Bach’s “Toccata and Fugue in D minor", not as backdrop but as raw material, his Method Sampling turning counterpoint and canon into driving grooves. The name Mik Nawooj is JooWan Kim spelled backward, a retrograde technique borrowed from the composers he dismantles. Other works he used in the film include Mozart's "Symphony No. 40", Beethoven's "Coriolan Overture", "Ode to Joy", and "Große Fuge". The performances arrive as both argument and celebration. Hip-hop, America's own indigenous art music, was always the answer waiting outside the door.