Media: N1info.si
Authors: I. L.
Date: Tue, 07 Jun 2022
Link: Resistance in classical music and rap: charity concert by young musicians at Križanke – N1 (n1info.si)
Rap, hip hop, poetry and classical music. Today, 86 young musicians from the Slovenian and Ukrainian youth orchestras and 15 rappers of the younger generation will come together on the stage of Križanke in Ljubljana. As part of the charity concert Alarm – H2SO4 together they wish to draw attention to climate and social justice and, through art, to express their resistance to social and climate injustice.
Today Križanke hosts the charity concert for climate and social justice Alarm – H2SO4 , at which Slovenian rappers will perform accompanied by the orchestra Music For the People . This is a project that the Slovenian Youth Orchestra, led by conductor Živa Ploj Peršuh, began planning as early as January, shortly after the publication of the collection of poetry of resistance H2SO4 by Dr Igor Saksida and the rapper Masayah . The war in Ukraine gave the originally planned project additional dimensions and significance, as Ploj Peršuh helped organise the evacuation of young musicians from the Youth Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine. “The concept of charity developed when it became a necessity,” Ploj Peršuh said ahead of today’s concert.
“It is about bringing together young people who deserve to be given a voice and a stage like the one at Križanke,” she stressed. “Climate and social justice is one of the issues that the younger generations are actively engaged with, even more than we are, and will still be in 2050,” said Ploj Peršuh, which is why a piece was composed especially for the concert, depicting what Ljubljana will look like in 2050. She added that young people are stronger than older generations in their thinking about climate change, social inequalities and problems, and so they have the opportunity, through music and the interpretation of art, to take action in their own way and unite in their desire for change. “You don’t have to be a speaker at protests to be heard; a top artist, musician or rapper can also make their voice heard,” the conductor added.
Dr Igor Saksida, Professor of Literature at the Faculty of Education in Ljubljana, who for years has been combining rap and classical Slovenian poetry in various projects, said that it is precisely the expressiveness of rap and its desire to change the world that most connects it with poetry. He sees this as a way of reflecting on the world and changing it through inner resistance. “Young creators know this precisely, which is why they have innovatively reinterpreted Slovenian rebel poetry,” he added ahead of today's concert.
So today, 86 musicians of the youth orchestra, 15 rappers and the violin soloist Maja Horvat will come together on the stage of Križanke. With the orchestra's musical accompaniment, representatives of the younger generation – with Masayah, one of the best-known artists on the Slovenian hip hop scene, and rappers including Emkej, Drill, Vazz, Žena and many others – will, in their own style, activate, explore and interpret poems by the literary giants Prešeren, Župančič, Zajc and Šalamun, collected in a book of Slovenian rebel poetry and on the album H2SO4.
As stated on the Beletrina website, the collection, comprising 35 poems and eight lyrics from the accompanying album, gains particular value from the thematic reflections of 34 contemporaries who, through their work in very different fields, have stood out from the ordinary. These texts seek to show the living message of poetry from its beginnings to our own time, and the anthology also reaches into music, as the acclaimed artists Masayah and HYU have created original musical interpretations of selected rebel poems. “Nothing unusual, since rap music is also a cry of rebellion against a society in which we are constantly searching for freedom and humanity,” they added.
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