Jecorey Arthur

Who bears the curse — the puppet or its master? Steve Hackman’s Stravinsky X Kendrick Lamar confronts this question in a daring fusion of Stravinsky’s Petrushka and Kendrick Lamar’s Pulitzer Prize–winning DAMN., two works linked by their “show-within-a-show” format and their protagonists’ struggles with identity and reality. As Stravinsky’s puppets awaken to human emotion, the score weaves seamlessly through corresponding tracks from DAMN. — including “LOVE.,” “FEAR.,” “XXX.,” “FEEL.,” “LOYALTY.” and “HUMBLE.”

Jecorey Arthur is a musician from the West End of Louisville, KY fusing conscious hip hop, classical minimalism, and free jazz. His recording and composition work spans theatre, film, television, radio, podcasts, and studio albums, while his live performances include soloist appearances with professional orchestras in Baltimore, Brooklyn, Calgary (Canada), Cincinnati, Columbus, Dallas, Dayton, Destin, Detroit, Indianapolis, Miami, Nashville, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Portland, Richmond, San Diego, San Francisco, and St. Petersburg. Notably, Arthur was the first hip-hop artist to perform with the Louisville Orchestra, premiering his original compositions as well as the folk opera The Way Forth and starring as Muhammad Ali in the rap opera The Greatest: Muhammad Ali. Arthur is currently the Director of Percussion Studies at Simmons College of Kentucky, an endorsed artist with Salyers Percussion, and an artist roster member of the Inner-City Muslim Action Network (IMAN). His unique performances follow the IMAN principles of being spiritually rooted, spatially relevant, and socially conscious. Arthur is a proud union member of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) KY120 United, the American Federation of Musicians (AFM) Local 11-637, and United Musicians and Allied Workers (UMAW).