New York Band brings revamped ‘Sound of Music’ to Lied

The hills are alive with the sounds of blues, hip-hop and rap.

 

The Brooklyn Rundfunk Orkestrata (BRO) will be entertaining more than a lonely goatherd with its debut presentation of "The Hills Are Alive" at the Lied Center for Performing Arts tonight at 7:30 p.m.

 

This evening's show will present the music from Rodgers and Hammerstein's "The Sound of Music," using different vocals and instrumentation.

 

"Ultimately, this show is the Sound of Music score re-imagined," said Bill Stephan, executive director of the Lied Center.

 

Peter Kiesewalter formed the New York-based Brooklyn Rundfunk Orkestrata about two years ago. Kiesewalter has also worked as a member of the East Village Opera Company, a group that writes new musical twists on operas, and said several other members of East Village and freelance musicians have participated in BRO.

 

The national tour will bring seven of these musicians to Lincoln. Kiesewalter is on keyboards, Matt Beck on guitar, Jeff Lipstein on drums and Jeff Allen on bass. Three singers, Carolyn Leonhart, Jason Paige and Victoria Cave will accompany the instrumentalists.

 

Kiesewalter booked the group's first show immediately before Christmas, but was looking to produce a performance somewhere between straight up holiday music and a holiday-inspired show.

 

Kiesewalter recalls always associating "The Sound of Music" with the holidays and from there, he began to experiment with the score.

 

"When you hear a rock band is about to play "The Sound of Music," you might think, ‘Oh, they're going to do silly things with it,'" he said. "Irony is too easy and, frankly, I'm tired of it."

 

After reviewing the project, the Rodgers and Hammerstien Organization gave BRO the rights to change the score. They are the only group that has been granted permission to do so, according to Stephan.

 

Kiesewalter sat down with the movie's score and began to work through it, song by song. He said he looked for "musical suggestions" or lyrical hints within the scores for clues on how to rewrite each piece. He added that he sometimes stripped the music away from the piece and only looked at the lyrics.

 

"The Sound of Music at this point is kind of a part of (Americans') collective DNA," Kiesewalter said. "I wanted to look at the music through a distinctly American filter."

 

And that filter gave him some interesting ideas.

 

Songs were rewritten using inspiration from several different genres, including blues, rock and rap. He mixed

"Do Re Mi" with the Jackson 5 song, "ABC."

 

When Kiesewalter began working with "Climb Every Mountain," he found inspiration in soul and R&B as well.

 

"It reads like the tracks to a Mary J. Blige album," he said.

 

The album, "The Hills Are Alive," was released in 2011 after a year of work. Kiesewalter said listeners have had varied reactions to it, ranging from horror to absolute enthusiasm. The performance allows people who have seen the movie to hear the music presented in a different way as well as introducing others to "The Sound of Music" for the first time.

 

"(It's like) Wow, I've never heard the "Lonely Goatherd" presented as a Led Zeppelin track," Kiesewalter explained.

 

He said the hardest part of writing the album was obtaining the copyright permission for songs.

Kiesewalter is currently focused on "The Hills Are Alive" but has tentative future plans to revamp Handel's "Messiah."

 

Just as this performance will be BRO's Nebraska debut. Stephan said the Lied Center is currently expecting about 500 people to attend.

 

The show is an "Arts for All" event, and plenty of tickets are still available for students.

 

"You hear these songs for years and years, and now you hear them and they are very hip," Stephan said. "It's old but new."

 

katienelson@dailynebraskan.com