If you tuned into NBC around 9 p.m. Friday, you may have thought you heard a rock band playing the opera classics.
Your ears did not deceive you.
The East Village Opera Company rocked the Miss USA pageant and was the first band to do so. Live entertainment for its audiences is new to the competition.
If you weren?t watching, don?t let the name fool you. EVOC is anything but traditional opera. Instead, their 11-member band ? which includes a five-piece band, string quartet and two vocalists ? takes operatic classics and turns them into hard-driving rock ?n? roll.
“With modern recording technology and a wide variety of musical styles at our disposal, our goal has been to approach these songs the way we feel the composers would were they alive today,” lead singer Tyley Ross announced recently on the band?s Web site.
Arranger and multi-instrumentalist Peter Kiesewalter says the band has a “profound love and respect for the opera” but that it?s “over the top” and needs some “irreverence.”
For more information about the East Village Opera Company and its original musical creations, visit www.eastvillageoperacompany.com.
