TT trivia

WHAT DO MUSICIANS

JEFF BUCKLEY, RUFUS WAINWRIGHT AND BRANDA CARLILE HAVE IN COMMON?

st. louis

This season, St. Louis Symphony Orchestra will not be able to open in Powell Hall, with groundbreaking for its $100 million revamp projected to begin this April. The orchestra, which will start its fifth year under the baton of music director Stéphane Denève, is to split performances between Stifel Theatre downtown and the Blanche M. Touhill Performing Arts Center on the UMSL campus. Holiday concerts, to be staged at J. Scheidegger Center for Performing Arts at Lindenwood University in St. Charles, will also feature a special Lunar New Year concert in February 2024. Stifel Theatre began its long life in the 1930s as the Kiel Opera House, and SLSO performed there until the 1960s. Can’t get enough of maestros, you say? Enjoy a private screening March 7 of the Oscar-nominated film Tár, which stars Cate Blanchett and is based on a true story, featuring a Q&A before the movie with Stephanie Childress, SLSO’s assistant conductor. Ticket includes the Q&A and movie, plus popcorn and a fountain drink. More food and beverage options will be available for purchase at the Alamo Drafthouse in the City Foundry entertainment complex. For ticket info, visit classic1073.org/tar.

LAST ISSUE’S Q & A

What group’s 1979 left-field rap ditty is widely considered to be the first hip hop song? What was the 1982 song that steered hip hop toward social relevance? Extra credit: What is Chuck D’s real name? Many count “Rapper’s Delight,” a 1979 song by Sugarhill Gang, as the first hip hop single. Eventually peaking in the Top 40 at No. 36 in January 1980, it’s how the genre got its name: “I said a hip hop, a hippie to the hippity hip hip a hoppity don’t stop rockin’…” Hip hop’s first stab at social relevance came in 1982, when Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five released “The Message,” about inner-city poverty. Extra credit: Chuck D’s birth name is Carlton Douglas Ridenhour.