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The Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra performs the Music of Green Day

On June 1, the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra will take on one of America’s best-known punk bands: Green Day. Part of the Philharmonic's Rockin’ Orchestra Series, the concert will feature the orchestra alongside a live rock band performing 21 songs from across Green Day’s 37-year musical catalog.

Neil Gittleman, Artistic Director of the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra (DPO), said that the show presented a unique challenge for the orchestra. Gittleman admitted he was not a Green Day expert before preparing for the performance. “I’ve been on a crash course of some of the music I’ve missed since the late ‘80s,” he joked. Yet he found in Green Day’s songs some of the same tensions that he observes in classical music, including the balance of honoring and challenging musical conventions.

“[Green Day’s] basic DNA is 3-chord rock and roll… But sometimes there’s a chord, or a change in the color, that you don’t expect. The interesting thing about all music is, how does it follow the expectations of its genre, and how does it push against those expectations?”

Green Day skyrocketed to mainstream success after the release of their hit 1994 album Dookie, which remains one of the best-selling albums of all time by any artist. Gittleman said that some DPO members already had an appreciation for the band’s music, but many, including himself, had to push themselves to match the energy of a ruckus pop-punk band.

“We’ve trained for more than 10,000 hours on Mozart and Beethoven, but Green Day is a little bit off the beaten track. Part of my job as conductor is to show them the music in the music, so that they can play it with the same level of commitment that the band is playing it.

Gittleman said that the orchestra will emulate Green Day's sound as closely as possible, enlisting a full rock band to lead the concert. “Green Day's music is supposed to be kind of basic—no fancy stuff,” he said. “And the orchestra is kind of ‘fancy stuff,’ so the question is, how do you use the orchestra in music that is aesthetically the opposite of what the orchestra does?” To blend the sound of the orchestra with that of the rock band, Gittleman turned to guitarist Walter Ino, who created orchestral arrangements for the show. “He keeps to the proper aesthetic of the music, just much fuller by virtue of the orchestra,” Gittleman said. “He did a really good job of not turning the music into something that it isn’t.”

Gittleman told Evan he hopes the concert will feel like a Green Day show, with one notable exception: “We don’t have a mosh pit, so the risk of injury is smaller.”

The Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra will perform The Music of Green Day at the Schuster Center at 7:30pm on Saturday, June 1. Tickets, and the DPO’s full 2024 concert schedule, are available at daytonperformingarts.org.

Text by Peter Day, based on a live studio interview hosted by Evan Miller on May 30, 2024.

Evan Miller is a percussionist, lover of sound, and is probably buying too many cassette tapes online right now. Evan got his start in radio in 2012 at WWSU at Wright State University, where he was studying percussion performance. He followed through with both endeavors and eventually landed a lucrative dual career playing experimental music at home and abroad, and broadcasting those sounds to unsuspecting listeners Sunday nights on The Outside. Maintaining a connection to normal music, Evan also plays drums in bands around the area, and hosts WYSO's Midday Music show. When not doing something music-related, Evan is most likely listening to podcasts or watching food videos at home with his cat.