Hip-hop and orchestral music are worlds apart to some, the former the antithesis of the latter.

It’s composer-arranger Alex Turley’s job to make comfortable bedfellows of them in his new project, one that brings together the ARIA-winning Ghanaian-Australian rapper and vocalist Genesis Owusu with 40 of the country’s top orchestral players for one-off, classical concert hall gigs in Brisbane and Sydney.

“For me, it’s about more than adding the odd orchestral flourish or decorating what’s already there,” Turley tells Limelight. “I want to get into the structure of a song and take it to a new place and that often means tweaking its architecture to add space for a solo or to showcase a certain instrumental part. But at the same time, you always have to keep the song and the artist at the centre of the experience.”

Genesis Owuso, Alex Turley and members of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. Photo supplied.

Turley trained at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA) and completed a Master of Music at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. He has also created new music for the Sydney, Melbourne, Darwin and Perth Symphony Orchestras, Omega Ensemble, the...