Daniel Bernard Roumain

Daniel Bernard Roumain

Many classical composers have integrated elements of jazz, rock and pop into their music, but until Daniel Bernard Roumain bounded onto the scene - cutting an unconventional appearance with his waist-length dreadlocks and nose ring - hip hop and classical music were rarely mentioned in the same sentence.

But Roumain - or DBR, as he brands himself - has changed all that. His chosen works adroitly combine his eclectic musical passions - ranging from concertos and orchestral works, some including turntables, to a recent disc featuring soulful chamber collaborations with musicians such as Philip Glass. A violinist with a highly charged stage presence, Roumain often defies convention, sometimes holding the bow in his mouth as he strums his instrument.

Roumain initially kept his musical worlds strictly separate, however. The friendly, down-to-earth 37-year-old grew up in Margate, a small town in south Florida, the son of Haitian immigrants. He began playing the violin at age five at his local primary school. 'There is a certain intelligence and intuition that one has when you are very young, naïve and innocent,' he explains. 'Somehow the violin started off as something that was very comforting and attractive and cool. It was hip to me, and then I quickly realized in middle and high school that it was none of those things to other people!'

'My violin became a drum kit, bass, singer, two turntables and a microphone'

While Roumain was studying classical music, he also explored his interest in hip hop and other popular genres and in his late teens worked for Luther Campbell and the infamous rappers 2 Live Crew in Miami. But he segregated the two strands of his musical life. 'During the school year it was violin and the Margate strings and youth orchestras,' he says, 'and in the summer forget the violin, it was garage bands, hip hop and jazz.'

His epiphany that his two seemingly disparate musical loves could be merged came in high school, when a teacher asked him to write a work for the school orchestra. Roumain brought in members of his band with a drum kit and electric guitar and performed the work for the school assembly. Students would sometimes loudly boo during orchestra performances, he says, recalling that he couldn't sleep the night before. 'I was already kind of an outcast at school and worried that this would push me out even further! High school students can be really malicious, which is all about insecurity. But they reacted very positively. It was a true revelation, as I was combining my two loves, classical and popular music, and doing it in an original composition for my peers. Right after that concert I stopped that separation. I plugged in and learned to play Mötley Crüe solos on my violin.

'From that point on,' he continues, 'if I wanted a drum kit I didn't get a drum kit, I played it on the violin. My violin became a drum kit, bass, singer, two turntables and a microphone. I really made it a personal statement.'

• Print
• Email to friend
• Discuss