“Black Violin is changing stereotypes about who plays the violin and what gets played on it,” writes Annie Alleman in Monday’s (10/10) Naperville Sun (Illinois). “Black Violin consists of Wil Baptiste and Kev Marcus—two young, hip, black guys who are just as comfortable busting out some Bach or Vivaldi as they are playing Kanye West. You can see their brand of classical, hip-hop, jazz and R&B as performed on the violin when Black Violin performs at … Wentz Concert Hall in Naperville…. The violins are amplified, and there’s a drummer and a DJ backing them.… Baptiste and Marcus met in high school in the late 1990s. Post-college, they … set out to change the music world by challenging stereotypes [of] the violin…. ‘Playing violin over hip-hop was very easy … we got more opportunities,’ [says Baptiste]. Some of those opportunities include performing with Kanye West, Aerosmith and Tom Petty…. Baptiste started playing the viola at 14 and immediately fell in love with the instrument. Marcus and Baptiste both continued playing in college, majoring in performance. ‘That was the idea, to perform and play in orchestras,’ he said. ‘But we never really fit in…. So we figured, let’s just create our own lane.’”
Posted October 13, 2016
In photo: Wilner “Wil B” Baptiste and Kevin “Kev Marcus” Sylvester, of the classical/hip-hop duo Black Violin
