Greater Newburgh Symphony Orchestra Presents Wit & Whimsy Feat Decora

Newburgh, NY The Greater Newburgh Symphony Orchestra (GNSO) invites audiences to experience Wit & Whimsy, a playful program exploring the ways composers borrow, transform and reinvent music and sometimes turn tradition completely on its head. Stravinsky transforms centuries-old Italian music into the sparkling Pulcinella. Shostakovich sends Tea for Two spinning through the orchestra, while Anna Clyne’s Pivot moves between musical worlds and Khachaturian’s Galop races ahead with irresistible energy. Beethoven’s Eighth Symphony brings its own unmistakable sense of humor. Adding an entirely different musical perspective to the evening is Newburgh’s own Decora, a dynamic hip-hop and rap artist whose performance brings contemporary music to the GNSO stage. His appearance creates an unexpected meeting of musical worlds, pairing the power and precision of a symphony orchestra with the energy, rhythm and storytelling of hip-hop. “Wit & Whimsy is about taking music in unexpected directions,” says Maestro Russell Ger. “Bringing Decora into the program is a perfect expression of that idea. His artistry and musical style offer our audience something they may not expect to hear alongside a symphony orchestra.” PROGRAM Igor Stravinsky — Pulcinella Suite Dmitri Shostakovich — Tahiti Trot (Tea for Two), Op. 16 Anna Clyne — Pivot Aram Khachaturian — Galop from Masquerade — Intermission — Decora — Outta My Own Way, arr. Brigham Philips & Russell Ger Ludwig van Beethoven — Symphony No. 8 in F major, Op. 93 Decora has spent his career moving through rooms artists dream of reaching—and refusing to be defined by any one of them. The Texas-born, New York-raised recording artist and poet has performed internationally, sold out shows at Lincoln Center and the Blue Note, appeared on the legendary Apollo Theater stage, and performed at institutions including Chicago Theatre and Storm King Art Center. Along the way, he has shared stages and bills with Rage Against the Machine, Lenny Kravitz, Run-DMC, DJ Khaled, T.I., Fat Joe, Meek Mill, Kaytranada, Saul Williams, and Living Color’s Corey Glover. His work has been recognized by NPR, MTV, Highsnobiety, AFROPUNK, Genius, and PopSugar, while his music has appeared in Spike Lee’s She’s Gotta Have It, Netflix’s Dogs of Berlin, BET’s In Contempt, The Neighborhood, and FX’s Welcome to Wrexham. His creative world has also intersected with Bacardi, Jordan, Leica, Netflix, Hulu, CBS, and Wieden+Kennedy, with Leica extending into an ambassadorship and visual storytelling. Decora’s practice moves between music, film, photography, design, hospitality, and technology. That instinct for expansion eventually carried him to Harvard University, where he studied at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. His 2026 album, September, marks a creative graduation. After decades mastering writing, performance, recording, and touring, Decora introduced artificial intelligence into his process not as a replacement for authorship, but as a new instrument helping shape sounds he had long imagined. He writes the lyrics. He performs the raps. He directs the creative world. Across that journey, he has built an extensive independent catalog, toured internationally, collaborated across disciplines and continually reinvented the canvas without losing the thing underneath it all: the poet.