HIP-HOP ORCHESTRA
ENSEMBLE MIK NAWOOJ’S ALBUM DEATH BECOME LIFE OUT NOW
“a masterpiece”—RIFF Magazine (“Beethoven on Struggle”)
ENSEMBLE MIK NAWOOJ—DEATH BECOME LIFE
SHARES NEW TRACK AND VIDEO
“BACH ON TRANSCENDENCE”
TO HOST ALBUM RELEASE LIVESTREAM EVENT ON MARCH 25
“enchanting and anthemic”—Glide Magazine (“Who Would Be Born”)
“Though Bach is the basis for the track, Kim, Sandman, and company shift and reinvent the aesthetics of tradition, introducing new life and storytelling into the composition and transforming it into something new.”—Under the Radar (“Bach on Transcendence”)
Death Become Life, the new album from Oakland-based hip-hop orchestra Ensemble Mik Nawooj, is out today—stream it here. Alongside the album, they share a new track and video, “Bach On Transcendence,” which premiered yesterday via Under the Radar—watch it here.
The album features previously released tracks, “Who Would Be Born,” which premiered via Glide Magazine, “Beethoven on Struggle,” which premiered via Mundane Magazine and was praised by RIFF Magazine as a “masterpiece,” and seven new tracks.
Additionally, Ensemble Mik Nawooj will host an exclusive album release livestream event co-presented by San Francisco’s Asian Art Museum and Yerba Buena Gardens Festival on March 25 at 7pm PST, featuring a 22-piece orchestra performance, the premiere of five music films documenting the recording of the album and a Q&A portion with panelists from the ensemble. Tickets are now available for purchase on the Asian Art Museum’s website here.
Death Become Life consists of ten tracks and five accompanying live performance videos. Three of the compositions—together known as the Fountainheads Suite—are a direct response to COVID-19 and its disproportionate effects on marginalized communities, meditating on concepts such as finding peace in conflict, joy in sadness and freedom in confinement and aiming to help audiences from all walks of life heal from the trauma of the pandemic. The Suite’s three compositions deconstruct classic works of Mozart (“Mozart on Joy”), Beethoven (“Beethoven on Struggle”) and Bach (“Bach on Transcendence”), and each corresponds with a principle of Greek philosophy: Ataraxia (freedom from fear of death), Apatheia (freedom from violent emotions) and Eudaimonia (blessedness).
Among the album’s other tracks are pieces about the passing of Kim’s mother and a longtime family friend in 2014, an apocalyptic rap-score on the destruction of the world and three selections from the group’s multidisciplinary theater and dance project, Death Become Life, through which they collaborate with region-specific artists to render variations in live performances. The accompanying five performance videos are co-sponsored by Asian Art Museum and Yerba Buena Gardens Festival.
Ensemble Mik Nawooj is led by artistic director and classically trained South Korean composer JooWan Kim, who became increasingly disillusioned with Eurocentric concert aesthetics while studying music composition at Berklee College of Music in his 20s. Eventually, Kim found the missing ingredient and his ultimate inspiration in hip-hop, describing the epiphany he had upon hearing N.W.A.’s Straight Outta Compton for the first time. “I knew at that moment, I had to examine the underlying structures of hip-hop and create concert music with them,” Kim says. Ever since, Kim has been making music with his own multiracial and multi-genre crew—consisting of classical musicians like flute, clarinet, violin, cello, bass, soprano, a hip-hop MC (Sandman) and a Turf dancer—to bridge the gap between tradition and the modern day.
For more information, please contact
Chris Schimpf, Ethan Jacobs or Carla Sacks at Sacks & Co., 212.741.1000.
1. Death Become Life
2. May Good Conquer Evil
3. May Death Become Life
4. Everything Ends
5. Hymn
6. Everything Returns to One
7. Who Would Be Born
8. Mozart on Joy
9. Beethoven on Struggle
10. Bach on Transcendence
