Royal treatment: Orchestra Iowa, guests unite to bring music of Queen to U.S. Cellular Center

By Diana Nollen

Orchestra Iowa is ready to rock you.

In a big way.

Last year, Jeans 'n Classics teamed up with the orchestra to pitch the Eagles' hits on the Kernels' ball field. This year, they're bringing the music of Queen to the U.S. Cellular Center on Saturday night (4/10/10).

With 230 area high school show choir singers adding their voices to the mix, nearly 300 people will be onstage.

“I think it will be staggering for an audience to experience,” Peter Brennan, founder and arranger of Jeans 'n Classics, says by phone from headquarters in London, Ontario. “The only thing missing are the elephants.”

The British band churned out epic hits in the '70s and '80s, until charismatic lead singer Freddie Mercury died in 1991. Compilations and greatest hits albums followed, as did the hit film “Wayne's World,” driving “Bohemian Rhapsody” into the consciousness of younger generations.

But do the show choir kids from Iowa City High, Linn-Mar and Cedar Rapids Kennedy and Prairie singing in the concert know this music?

“Of course they do,” Timothy Hankewich of Cedar Rapids, Orchestra Iowa's music director, says. “I sometimes worry about that time when we'll have that generational shift. But everybody knows ‘Bohemian Rhapsody,' ‘We are the Champions' and ‘We will Rock You.' (This music) defines the age of Queen and has transcended its time.”

The guest artists have changed since the concert was announced last spring.

“We had originally engaged (a show) with one of the original band members of Queen touring throughout the States, but they canceled the national tour after our (promotional) materials went out,” Hankewich says.

Queen's Web site says original members Brian May and Roger Taylor are regrouping for a six-week European tour this spring.

Not to be deterred, “We picked up the phone to call Peter Brennan, our old friend at Jeans 'n Classics, who did such a nice job with the Eagles program,” Hankewich says.

“For those who attended the concert at the Kernels stadium, it's the same premise. Jeans 'n Classics will come with the great standards of Queen, with orchestral arrangements in the background.”

But the orchestra won't be in the background, Brennan says.

“The orchestra will be quite busy, quite involved with it,” he says, “especially with those impact points where Queen would have layers and layers of overdubs.”

He's also looking forward to working with his friends in Cedar Rapids again.

 “It's a great orchestra,” Brennan says. “... Of course, it's always wonderful to work with Tim Hankewich. He gets it and digs right in and is such a pleasure to work with. He will be the ultimate master of this. It will be great.”

Both Brennan and Hankewich discovered the music of Queen in their youth.

“When I first heard them, just everything that I personally liked in a band was there with them,” says Brennan, 58. “It was a really spontaneous, totally emotional reaction. They had vocals like I'd never heard, Brian May played guitar like nobody else played. I was in a mall in the early '70s, hearing ‘Killer Queen' playing. It was a work of art, with how sophisticated the changes are and wonderful vocal harmonies. I bought the album; game over. Then I went back and bought Queen I and II, then ‘A Day at the Races' and ‘A Night at the Opera.' ... I'm a sucker for a good hook. Queen, the way they did it, I thought, ‘Wow, this is magical.'”

“I was a little kid, but I did grow up with it,” Hankewich, 42, says of Queen's music. “I remember when my sister came home with the initial album of ‘We are the Champions.' It had a sort of robot holding one of the band members.”

Hankewich and Brennan also agree the band's music transfers naturally to an orchestral setting.

“Freddie Mercury was classically trained as a musician,” Hankewich says. “When you're dealing with virtuosic rock, it had its heyday in the '70s. It lends itself to sophistication. It's interesting in the way (Mercury) was able to craft his music. It lends itself to orchestral accompaniment, with tight harmonies and virtuosity in his instrumental interludes. It's just first-rate craftsmanship.”

“Apart from the fact that it sounds so enormous, orchestras love to play the Queen shows,” Brennan says. “It's kind of a real moment for them. The audience is getting that impact, too. Because the music was so well written and so uniquely written in the first place, this can be pulled off. ... It's not that big a leap to bring chorus and orchestra in to do the material.

“It would have been down the road for Freddie to tour that way.”

FAST TAKEInformation: www.orchestraiowa.org or www.jeansnclassics.com

What: “Queen ... A Rock and Symphonic Spectacular”

Who: Orchestra Iowa, Jeans 'n Classics, high school show choirs from Iowa City High, Kennedy, Linn-Mar and Prairie

When: 8 p.m. Saturday, April 10, 2010

Where: U.S. Cellular Center, 370 First Ave. NE, Cedar Rapids

Tickets: $14, $24 or $39 through U.S. Cellular Center Ticket Office downtown, www.ticketmaster.com, Ticketmaster outlets or 1-(800) 745-3000