Some background notes on fusions

Fusion is literally the combining of two or more musical genres or styles..

Fusion not only allows the wonders of different musical cultures and colours to be explored
together to make a more exciting end result but also has been instrumental in bringing
different cultures together. Somehow political integration seems easier in a district where
the people are joined culturally by a fusion of musical styles. It makes the world a smaller
place!

Fusion of styles is by no means a new idea. For example the Baroque Period sees many
references to the exotic and this continued through the eras. Take Mozart’s famous ‘Rondo
alla Turca’ or in the Romantic Period Tchaikovsky’s ‘Danse Chinoise’ from The Nutcracker.
These are simple examples of classical composers using their own tries-and-tested styles but
imbuing them with some sort of international flavour. You can find many examples on
firefly.

Any of the following may be interesting examples to use in your essays as wider listening,
especially if they are tracks that you know well
 Hamilton (Lin–Manuel Miranda) fuses Latin American, ragtime, hip-hop, blues,
Motown, musical theatre and rap
 Riverdance (Bill Whelan) – fuses Irish folk and pop
 Afro-celt – fuses Irish, African, Indian and Pop
 Avatar (James Horner) – Swedish cattle herding calls, folk dances from the Naga
people of Northeast India, Vietnamese and Chinese trad working songs, greeting
songs from Burundi, Celtic and Norwegian medieval laments, Persian tahrir,
microtonal works by Scelsi, personal songs from the Inuit..etc etc
 Lord of the Rings (Howard Shore) – fuses Indian, Swedish, Pop folk etc
 Vanessa Mae – her disgusting techno version of the Four Seasons
 DJ Tiesto remixes
 Porgy and Bess by Gershwin – an opera which fuses Classical, jazz and musical
theatre (compare the jet song with the jewel song in Hamilton)
 West Side Story by Bernstein – Latin American, Spanish, Classical and Music theatre
 Jacques Loussier jazz and classical – listen to his versions of the Debussy classics
 Ravel Rhapsodie Espagnol – French music with a Spanish twist
 Slumdog Millionaire (A R Rahman) ..in fact all things Bollywood!
 Beatles – Norwegian Wood
 Rimsky Korsakov – Scheherazade – Russian music with an Oriental twist
 Ratatouille soundtrack – French, folk and Classical
 Rhapsody in blue – Gershwin – fusion of jazz and classical
 Puccini Madame Butterfly – Italian opera with an Oriental twist
 Miss Saigon (Schonberg)– the musical – musical theatre and Vietnamese/eastern