Pete Tong’s Classic House with The Heritage Orchestra conducted by Jules Buckley is out now via Astralwerks. This landmark album is a companion to Tong’s Ibiza Classics shows that is touring the UK this month and next, with a performance at London’s O2 Arena coming up on December 1st that sold-out in just two hours. Classic House is available for purchase on iTunes HERE and streaming on Spotify HERE.
This union of classical music and iconic dance tracks is another bold, brilliant move from one of the most influential figures in dance music. The album and shows are a follow-up to last year’s triumphant Ibiza Prom, where Tong worked with arranger and conductor Jules Buckley and the innovative Heritage Orchestra and its artistic director Chris Wheeler to pioneer a show that melded the world of dance music with an orchestra. “It resonated with people in a magical way,” says Tong. The Proms had approached Radio 1 a few times about doing something at the event, but when they asked in early 2015 just as the station was pondering how best to celebrate 20 years of Radio 1 being embedded in Ibiza’s dance culture, everything clicked into gear. The idea was simple: classic Ibiza dance tunes but performed by an orchestra. It made se! nse that the station’s dance music trailblazer Tong would team up with the most exciting talents in orchestral music Jules Buckley and The Heritage Orchestra to curate and present the Ibiza Prom.
Jules Buckley is a musical pioneer who pushes the boundaries of orchestral music. He has collaborated with artists as diverse as Arctic Monkeys, Benjamin Clementine, Emeli Sandé and Dizzee Rascal, picked up a Grammy for his work with Snarky Puppy earlier this year, and is one of the most in-demand conductors and arrangers working today. This summer, he is conducting three Proms, including the highly-anticipated night that will celebrate the career of music and pop icon Quincy Jones. Buckley co-founded the acclaimed Heritage Orchestra in 2004 with Chris Wheeler; who has produced numerous orchestral shows with artists ranging from Björk, Aphex Twin, Goldie, Massive Attack and Giorgio Moroder. Together, Jules and Chris have pushed orchestral music into new territory and established one of the most refreshing independent orchestras in the world bridging the gap between electronic music and the concert hall. It helps, no doubt, that The Heritage Orchestra first came to being in the clubs of East London amidst the underground dance music scene.
Together, these three forces put on a night that will go down in Proms folklore. The Ibiza Prom broke BBC iPlayer records and had 500,000 YouTube views in the first week. Tong, Buckley and The Heritage Orchestra had no idea what the reaction would be, but the night’s massive success and appeal to both veteran dance fans and a new generation convinced them that it needed to go beyond being a one-off event.
They are taking the show to the next level with three UK arena shows in late November and early December and the accompanying studio-recorded album Classic House, produced by Mark Ralph and featuring Katy B, John Newman, Ella Eyre, Jamie Principle and Cookie, captures the magic of a formula that reinvented and reinvigorated a number of club classics. The album includes several special guests - one of Tong’s favorite things about the original Ibiza Prom was how contemporary artists joined the dots between the past and present - and also features some of the songs that lit up the show. These include the euphoric take on Fatboy Slim’s Right Here Right Now, a track earmarked to open the show, and the mesmerizing version of Faithless’ Insomnia. Insomnia was the most repeated part of the set on iPlayer and ended up summing up the captivating chemistry between the two musical worlds. “Jules said to me on the day, ‘if you want to make something a bit longer, give me a sign.’ On Insomnia, what happened during the performance was literally on the fly. Then I couldn’t stop him, he’d turned around and was looking at the crowd instead of his orchestra!”
Tong’s main aim at the beginning of this project was that the Ibiza Prom wouldn’t be an “oldfest of reminiscing”. The event set out its stall and Classic House takes it striding into the future. Dance music’s most potent game-changer has just reset the rules again.
Classic House Tracklisting:
1. Right Here Right Now
2. Pjanoo
3. Lola’s Theme feat. Cookie
4. Children
5. 9pm (Till I Come)
6. Go
7. Your Love feat. Jamie Principle
8. Good Life feat. Katy B
9. Belfast
10. Smokebelch II
11. Where Love Lives
12. Rachel’s Song
13. Porcelain
14. Waiting All Night feat. Ella Eyre
15. Insomnia
16. Medley (Strings of Life, Knights of the Jaguar, Nightmare, Café Del Mar)
17. Feel The Love feat. John Newman
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