hopecenterforthearts.org.<\/a><\/p>\nBefore packing up their string instruments for their trip to Springfield, violinist Kendall Isadore took time to answer a few questions for The Republican.<\/p>\n
Q: How would you describe your unique sound?<\/b><\/p>\n
A: It\u2019s freeing, it\u2019s soulful, it\u2019s unashamed, and unapologetic. The three of us speak the same musical language. It\u2019s the power of three. We are three string players playing music that traditionally has drums, guitars, synthesizers and more. And we are still tasked to bring those tunes to life without them, especially when we play covers. It often sounds like more than three people are playing because most of the time we\u2019re each playing two notes at a time. We\u2019re almost always playing double stops to give people that full orchestral sound. And where traditional classical music string trios might have space and breath in their playing, we\u2019re covering and filling up the space the entire time because of the style and the genres of music that we\u2019re playing. So, we\u2019re covering the melody. We\u2019re covering the harmony. We are trying to figure out rhythms, so a lot of times you\u2019ll see us using pizzicato. We\u2019re plucking the strings for whole passages. But while it is freeing for us as classically trained musicians, it\u2019s also very technically sound. We cannot run from the technique just because you\u2019re playing a song by Prince or you\u2019re playing a Negro Spiritual, neither one of those are classical nor from that foundation, but they still should get the technique. It\u2019s not like the technique goes away.<\/p>\n
Q: What songs are part of your repertoire?<\/b><\/p>\n
A: It\u2019s like, get ready because it is going to be everything from classical to soul like \u201cEarth, Wind and Fire.\u201d We play a lot of Stevie Wonder and play \u201cEleanor Rigby\u201d by The Beatles, which we arranged. We arrange all our music. We also have a beautiful arrangement of Michael Jackson\u2019s \u201cHuman Nature.\u201d Then, you like Gershwin, right? We have a new arrangement that is going to be on our upcoming album this summer. It\u2019s called \u2018\u201cSummertime Maria\u201d [and] that has a Latin, jazzy vibe to it combining Gershwin\u2019s \u201cSummertime\u201d and Carlos Santana\u2019s \u201cMaria Maria.\u201d <\/p>\n
Sometimes we play a tune called \u201cCrazy Rolling,\u201d which is a combination of Gnarls Barkley\u2019s \u201cCrazy\u201d and Adele\u2019s \u201cRolling in the Deep.\u201d We also have an arrangement that we wrote called \u201c\u2019Til Victory is Won\u201d which is a combination of \u201cLift Every Voice and Sing,\u201d \u201cBattle Hymn of the Republic\u201d and \u201cAmerica the Beautiful.\u201d It is a beautiful arrangement that we play all year long, when you usually hear \u201cLift Every Voice and Sing\u201d during Black History Month and \u201cAmerica the Beautiful\u201d during the Fourth of July. The messages of those three tunes are aligned and all talk about freedom, liberty and justice. We are not afraid to make a statement through our music, Every show is different. We may play all of those. We may switch some of those out. But we try to craft a set list that is a story that takes the audience on a journey.<\/p>\n
Q: Do you find it difficult to attract an audience because they might not like string music and its association with the classical genre?<\/b><\/p>\n
A: The data would say no because almost every show, thank God, is sold out. So, attracting people, there doesn\u2019t seem to be an issue or a barrier to getting them through the door. But, with that said, we know that there are conversations that happen before people buy their tickets. They ae talking to their spouse or their loved one and saying \u201cWe must see this concert,\u201c while the other may respond saying, \u201dI don\u2019t know about these strings. I don\u2019t like string music.\u201c We hear about those conversations all of the time, but somehow people take a chance on us. I think it is important to us for people to see themselves in us somehow, no matter if we are the same gender or have the same or different religious beliefs. It doesn\u2019t matter. Music is just music and is the universal language that unites all of us. And we are just so grateful that folks don\u2019t let those thoughts and their preconceived notions keep them out of the door.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.masslive.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SPRINGFIELD \u2014 Meet The String Queens, three classically trained musicians who put their own twist on timeless classics in an attempt to bridge the gap between classical, hip hop, pop and everything in-between. The trio \u2014 Kendall Isadore, Dawn Johnson and \u00c9lise Sharp \u2014 will bring their string music to the Hope Center for the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2231698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-entertainment"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2231698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2231698"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2231698\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2231699,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2231698\/revisions\/2231699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2231698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2231698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2231698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}