Visionary Producer and Composer Steve Hackman Blurs Lines
by Mildred C. Fallen
In his 2016 Ted Talk, Beethoven X Beyonce: Who’s Violating Whom, multidisciplined conductor, arranger and composer Steven Hackman said a great teacher once told him, “If you’re not controversial, you’re not much.” Lauded for his reimagined compositions of symphonic masterpieces, Hackman dares to break barriers between classical and popular music. For more than a decade, the 44-year-old’s catalog of millennial-focused fusion productions, SYMPHONYFUSE, have connected audiences across the aisle. His mission? To introduce the symphony orchestra to its future audience and make its repertoire more welcoming for everyone.
Steve Hackman in his studio.
So why is this kind of work so important to Hackman? “In my work as a professional classical musician, advocacy is integral to what we do; otherwise, we’re not going to do it anymore,” he explains. “It’s always occurred to me that there are so many lovers of different genres of music that just haven’t had the exposure to classical yet, but if they were played the right thing, if they were delivered the right message, extended the right olive branch, they could become passionate about what we do.”
Even at a young age, Hackman always cared about bridging gaps. Having an equal affinity for popular and classical music, he says, “I was that 10-year-old who was trying to get my friends to listen to Chopin and Mozart and Beethoven.” Native to Cincinnati and raised in suburban Chicago, Hackman became immersed in the diversity of the public schools he attended and his father’s record collection. “I really didn’t get professional musical training until I got to college,” says Hackman, who has an undergraduate degree in piano performance from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and studied conducting at the American Academy of Conducting at Aspen Academy. “But that was a blessing in a way because I grew up loving all types of music. I grew up being friends with all sorts of people—from the sports people to the musical theater people, to the drama people, to the grunge people—and I think that really shaped how I am, what my musical tastes are and the openness.”
His 13 orchestral fusions pair genres that would seem disparate, such as IGOR DAMN STRAVINSKY, his synthesis of Stravinsky’s Petrouchka with Kendrick Lamar’s Pulitzer Prize-winning album DAMN, and The Resurrection Mixtape, which combines Mahler’s Second Symphony with music from Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac Shakur. Yet, in his productions, he pinpoints when to interpolate from popular music while keeping the classical piece intact. These curatorial elements are why he prefers the term fusion instead of mashups.
Steve Hackman leading the Cincinnati Pops in the January 2024 Resurrection Mixtape performance. Credit: Charlie Balcom
In 2024, Hackman premiered SYMPHONYFUSE’S Beethoven X Beyoncé, which uses Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony as the structural outline for the “Renaissance” singer’s music. For Hackman, Beyoncé and Beethoven are “the queen and the king” of their respective eras and genres, and the production’s premise is like a duet between the two icons.
“Beethoven is like Zeus sitting atop a Mount Olympus of composers,” Hackman says. “You could argue, but I think a lot of people feel like that’s who Beethoven is within the classical music canon. And then Beyoncé, I mean, the longevity, the reimagination of her identity, the way she takes on a new persona with each album, and just the quality, I just think she’s such a singular figure.”
Beyoncé, from the promo for her halftime performance on Christmas Day 2024 during the Baltimore Ravens vs. Houston Texans game, part of Netflix’s first-ever NFL Christmas Gameday.
A signature technique of Hackman’s is demonstrating how classical compositional techniques like counterpoint (creating music lines and aligning them with existing ones) are also used in all music genres. “A lot of the techniques that I use to create orchestral fusions overlap with that of a DJ,” Hackman observes.
Interestingly, the DJ mixes he heard on the radio as a child also fed his curiosity for experimentation. “Being in Chicago, I was listening to [WBBM-FM] B-96 on the weekends. I was like 11 years old,” Hackman recalls. “I was taping the DJ sets that those DJs were doing, and I would listen to it on the bus all through the week. Those DJs were mashing things up; it was like they were crossing genre boundaries. It didn’t matter if it was a theme from a TV show or a new disco record, a new rap record, R&B or a house beat, they were matching it all together, which was so cool.”
As his musical fluency developed in high school, it was as though he already was a musical director, because he tried to get his friends to appreciate the juxtaposition between classical compositions and bands like Phish, Beastie Boys, Radiohead and Pearl Jam. “It was always my mission to say, ‘Hey, if you like that, you might like Stravinsky because of this,’” Hackman says.
These kinds of conversations helped Hackman manifest his first orchestral fusion, Brahms X Radiohead, where he leaned heavily on the counterpoint, improvisation, arranging and composition skills he’d perfected during his graduate studies at Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute of Music. Since, he has reimagined the music of some of popular music’s most recognized artists, including The Beatles, Queen, Coldplay, Drake and Björk, which set the stage for him adding a classical dimension to live performances for Charlie Puth, Steve Lacy and Doja Cat.
In 2019, Hackman collaborated with Kanye West and the Sunday Service Choir’s production of the opera Mary, for which he conducted, arranged and composed music. Hackman has also written numerous original scores and compositions. He was part of the writing team for the 2024 Academy Awards. Additionally, he co-arranged the “In Memoriam” segment for the 2004 Emmy Awards along with Puth, The War and Treaty, and legendary music director Rickey Minor.
The crowd swaying with phone flashlights on to a fusion of Mahler, Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac Shakur at January 2024’s Resurrection Mixtape with the Cincinnati Pops. Credit: Charlie Balcom
Hackman hopes audiences enjoy Beethoven X Beyoncé’s celebration of dance, which he says includes three powerhouse female soloists. He has also added a guest drummer, guitarist/keyboardist and bassist to the orchestra.
“This one was so much fun to write, I chose Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony because that piece was famously dubbed by Richard Wagner as ‘the apotheosis of the dance,’” Hackman says. “It’s Beethoven infusing all the dance rhythms of the time into this symphony, and I think that that’s a perfect backdrop for Beyoncé’s music, which of course is not all dance, but it has heavy dance influences as she’s evolved.”
Beethoven X Beyoncé comes to the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra on February 11, 2025, at 7:30 p.m.