Police Derange for orchestra. Concert by Stewart Copeland. With the symphony orchestra, Eruca Sativa and the singers Sarah-Jane Musiq, Alta Gracia and Rachel Melanie. address: Nicolas Sorin. room: Gran Rex Theater. Our opinion: Very good.
TO Stewart Copeland All he needs is an Argentine football team jersey to compile a complete compendium of demagogic gestures during a show in Buenos Aires (of course he doesn’t know football codes because, like a good North American, he calls it football). But this apparent demagoguery is part of an intensified production that he uses as short interludes in his concerts. Because this hilarious way of speaking, contrasted with the most snarky comments and a good poker face, defines the person, the character and the artist. The one who is a drummer (and was part of The Police, the most famous rock trio in the world); the one who composes soundtracks and contemporary opera; That’s kind of standard, but when he picks up the microphone. And he does it often.
In 2023, he recorded a project that combines two of his worlds (drums and academic music) in an album. With this motto, he recorded covers of The Police classics (or at least some of them). Deranged for orchestra. And although the literal translation in Spanish would be “disordered,” Copeland used the Anglophone sound of the word because it actually refers to “arrangements,” which are commonly associated with orchestrations in music.
He replaced Sting’s voice with that of three singers, sat behind the drums, and brought harmonic functioning (the one that guitarist Andy Summers so elegantly developed) to an orchestra. The result has nothing to do with the disorder, since this term is used to define psychological states, generally human, and has a negative connotation. It’s also not disruptive since it doesn’t interrupt a process to produce something else. It’s just an orchestral arrangement, unusual.
And when the music is already playing, those sitting in the stalls or at the Pullman of a theater have two very clear paths ahead of them. Try to find loyalty to The Police in this family of bows, brass, woodwinds and percussion (and die doing so), or simply let yourself be carried away by the songs, recognizing them in their lyrics and melodies and rediscovering them in new arrangements and textures.
Copeland will rhetorically ask what Deranged is just minutes into the concert. Then, perhaps to dispel doubts in a confused look (although the public has already become aware of the calamity), he will say that there is a lot from The Police that was not recorded but that inspired him to do this work. And he will waste no time in asking Andy and Sting, his old bandmates, for applause, injecting his sarcasm and, above all, reconciling through music what cannot be reconciled in a coffee conversation between the three musicians of The Police.
He does this and even accepts differences. Because when faced with songs like “Murder by Numbers”, a song written by his former partners with a jazzy touch that Copeland never adhered to, he makes the decision to transfer it to his area of expertise (not that of the drummer, but that of the composer and arranger) and creates the “craziest” song in the repertoire.
Although in some ways they all have been since the program began. “Demolition Man” originally has a fanfare in the background. “King of Pain,” which Sting wrote after his first divorce, showcases the touches that only a symphonic body like this can add. It should be made clear that when Copeland planned a tour of Mexico, Chile and Argentina, he was faced with the impossibility of having some of the musicians who recorded the album. For this reason, he called on the Argentine director, composer and orchestrator Nicolás Sorín and the group Eruca Sativa. And the orchestra led by Sorín is a reduced version of the organizations that usually play symphonic repertoire (but with the same color palette), in this case with stronger accents in brass and woodwinds than in strings (an original fact).
As part of his chosen program, he provokes The Police’s most devout and puritanical audience with songs like “Spirits in the Material World” and “Roxanne” that lie completely outside their canon. The mastery is evident in songs like “One World (no Three),” where the reggae pulse is completely undermined, but it underlies the symphonic prowess Copeland achieves and the percussive determination he addresses in this song.
And there will always be a hint of comedy between the compositions. For example, you can say that Sting’s songs are very sophisticated, as a prelude to songs like “Walking on The Moon”. But he puts in Tutti Orchestral music from the start (distortions that he knows how to handle with great grace). The truth is that “Walking…” has an unusual shrillness, with an audience singing the famous Io-io-ioio, but also very subtle thematic reinterpretations and bass and drum solos. “Every Breath You Take” has a cinematic intro. “The Bed’s Too Big Without You” takes place in the original sequence. In addition to the rock power, “Message in a Bottle” also has little details like the subtlety of transporting the fourth finger of Andy Summers’ guitar chords into the string section.
In this way the concert goes through all its nuances. It’s not just Lula Bertoldi and Brenda Martin. Even “Eruco” Gabriel Pedernera gets his turn as he replaces Copeland on drums. These are moments in which the protagonist takes over the baton or picks up the guitar.
As for the voices, the trio of singers moves fluidly, always in the same key, which forms a harmonious basis of the soul sisters, but with more current accents and flourishes, of the female stars of pop music (their sound fits very well into the orchestra). The rest modulates into crescendos that explode towards the end of the show and are punctuated by hilarious commentary. (“Where is mine?” cabaio”is the prelude to a sip of mate at the time of the encore.) In short: the police are there, in a sense; especially his songs, reinterpreted in a very special way.
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