Legacy: CBSO announces new concert where orchestral music meets grime, hip-hop and rap

A celebration of the city’s music scene, ‘Legacy’ will include live performances by 15 of Birmingham’s leading music icons: BIG DOG YOGO, BRIXX, C4, CREEZON, JAYKAE, LADY LESHURR, MAYHEM, NODB, PRESSURE0121, ROXXXAN, SAF ONE, SOX, T ROADZ, TRAPPY and TRILLA, alongside the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra led by the multi-award winning conductor Phil Meadows. The concert will mix grime & rap songs such as “Murdah”, “Woo Riddim”, “Toothache" and “Moscow” with orchestral music.

The collaboration stems from Punch's full length documentary and book entitled ‘Legacy’ that explores the untold stories of Birmingham’s grime, hip-hop, and rap scenes - the artists who have been responsible for, and have influenced the city’s Black music scene; allowing new sub-genres and artists to follow in their footsteps.

The concert coincides with a significant audience ‘listening campaign’ that the CBSO is running through 2025-6 – the most broad-based study of its kind to giving everyone in and around Birmingham the opportunity to talk about the importance of live music in their daily lives, and a chance too for orchestral music to better understand the terms of engagement of a wide range of new and young audiences in the region. The findings of preliminary research in autumn 2024 (representative sample of 2,000 adults) revealed that people in the West Midlands (82%) were more likely than the national average (76%) to regard themselves to be active music fans, but there was also a strong sense from people in the West Midlands that classical music needed to modernise (33%).

Emma Stenning CEO at the CBSO says: “The orchestra is still flush with energy following a fantastic year of creative milestones. From their spectacular performance at the BBC Proms - under the baton of our cherished Music Director Kazuki Yamada - our players then raced home to begin a week of free concerts across Birmingham, ranging from full ensemble performances at the Bullring shopping centre and New Street Station to pop up chamber groups and quartets in the city’s parks, libraries, cafes and galleries. Our special offer of £1 tickets for Birmingham residents was a remarkable success in terms of attracting new audiences to experience the joy of orchestral concerts for the first time – and now we finish the year announcing a collaboration with Punch Records for the ‘Legacy’ project in early 2025, which will see the CBSO collaborate with 15 of Birmingham’s leading music icons, including Big Dog Yogo, Lady Leshurr,Creezon, Jaykae, Pressure0121 and many more. Framed by our far-reaching listening campaign through 2025-6, which will welcome the viewpoints of thousands of Birmingham residents and workers, we are committed to presenting exciting, inventive and joyful music experiences that bring together the wonderful and varied facets of the city’s rich cultural heritage. In doing so, we continue to show how symphonic music is for everyone, and that the CBSO truly is Birmingham’s orchestra.”

The Legacy website can be viewed here: https://www.legacybirmingham.com/