Metro Weekly

Thievery Corporation at the Kennedy Center

A 22-piece orchestra performs the trendsetting act's experimental music

Thievery Corporation — Photo: Jen Maler

It sounds like a perfect fit: Eric Hilton and Rob Garza have teamed up with Kennedy Center Composer-in-Residence Mason Bates for a symphonic/electronic presentation of the D.C. musical duo’s classic Thievery Corporation sound.

Teddy Abrams leads a 22-piece orchestra performing from the trendsetting act’s catalogue of experimental chillout music, merging world sounds such as bossa nova, dub reggae, Afrobeat and jazz with electronica. Launching with Bates and his instrumental/electronic work The Rise of Exotic Computing, the concert also features new arrangements from young classical composers.

“It just blows my mind that we still have any sort of relevance,” Hilton told Metro Weekly in 2011. And yet, the one-time Eighteenth Street Lounge house band has garnered a Grammy nomination, released eight studio albums — including new album The Temple of I&I — and recorded with the likes of David Byrne, Perry Farrell of Jane’s Addiction, Lou Lou, Femi Kuti, and Anoushka Shankar.

Monday, May 15, at 7 and 9:30 p.m. Kennedy Center Concert Hall. Tickets are $29 to $59. Call 202-467-4600 or visit kennedy-center.org.

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