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BY VALERIE SUDOL
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
The Rutgers Symphony Orchestra gets down with legendary rapper Jay-Z in a music video airing on CBS-TV as part of the Super Bowl pre-game show.
Maestro Kynan Johns leads the New Brunswick-based orchestra in the 2-minute video due to be shown at 6 p.m., before the kickoff between this year's rivals, the New Orleans Saints and the Indianapolis Colts.
Johns admits the gig is "outside the mainstream of classical music" but adds that the music gives the orchestra a prominent role. The arrangement of Jay-Z's latest fuses rap and rock with orchestral atmospherics. The video will be taped this week in New York City.
Johns hopes his classically trained students will appreciate how much goes into the making of a prime-time video and will see that "it takes a lot of time to get pop music to that level."The airplay is a coup for the Rutgers Symphony Orchestra, an ensemble of about 75 players that is more often seen at classical venues on campus and in New York — including Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall. But the big game has the advantage of sheer numbers, with some 99 million viewers expected to tune in to Super Bowl XLIV.
George Stauffer, Dean of Rutgers' Mason Gross School of the Arts, is better known as a specialist on the music of J.S. Bach. Even he was rooting for his players in football's biggest day.
"We're extraordinarily proud to have our students rubbing elbows — and touching knuckles — with Jay-Z," he said.
