Ep. 25: Miki Kekenj and the Concerto Köln Speak! Project

Hip-hop artist and classical violinist, Miki Kekenj, joins the podcast to discuss the Concerto Köln education project, Speak!. For this project, the period-instrument orchestra, Concerto Köln combined to play the Mozart Requiem with the period-instrument youth orchestra, Jugendbarockorchester Rheinland, and the choir of the famous Cologne Cathedral, the Judgendchor am Kölner Dom. As well as playing the complete original piece, in between several movements, they also performed rap versions with classes of 8th grade students, taught and coached by Miki. He arranged the raps himself, while he taught the students to write the rap lyrics themselves. Miki taught these students about Mozart, the song-writing process, and bigger lessons of creativity and how to work together.

We also talk about Miki’s musical life, which is split between what many people would think to be two opposite types of music. Miki is the concert master of the Bergische Symphoniker and discusses how he got into hip-hop as a teen, how these two types of music have shaped him into the musician he is today, and how he can use rap to bring a new audience to classical music.