MC Mozart’s Classical Smackdown brings young audiences to classical music in a way never seen before
Jenna Al-Ansari is dressed in 18th-century Viennese costume, her hair curled and a beauty spot painted on. Her colleague Tamsyn Kelly, AKA the evening’s compere MC Mozart, is wearing a powdered wig, a red frock coat and a frilly lace shirt. We’re not in a theatre but at The Book Club, an east London bar, and the pair are hosting MC Mozart’s Classical Smackdown – an informal night where some of the city’s best young classical musicians compete for prizes in front of an audience.
It started life as friends getting together at each other’s houses to play classical music and have a few drinks. Then they thought it would be fun to bring an audience into the enriching, irreverent atmosphere, and so MC Mozart’s Classical Smackdown was conceived. It’s a response, Al-Ansari says, to “a lack of imagination when approaching introducing new audiences”.
Classical programmers either offer cheap tickets for young people to attend concerts or play pop covers
The atmosphere might be bawdy and camp – MC Mozart also coaches drag queens – but there's respect during performances
In the classical world, you go on, you bow, you play: you don’t get to interact
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