Jay-Z And Rutgers Symphony Orchestra Music Video To Air Minutes Before Super Bowl Kickoff

New Brunswick, NJ – The Rutgers Symphony Orchestra and Maestro Kynan Johns will be throwin’ it down Jay-Z style Sunday evening as they appear with the legendary rapper in a Super Bowl XLIV music video. The 2-minute teaser is set to air just minutes before the 6:28 p.m. ET kickoff between the New Orleans Saints and the Indianapolis Colts.

Appearing in a music video is “outside the mainstream of classical music,” admits Johns, director of orchestras at Mason Gross School of the Arts. “It doesn’t happen in our realm.” Johns says the arrangement of the song is a fusion of rap and rock injected with a substantive orchestral presence.

Johns says the video shoot, taking place this week in New York City, will help his classically trained students to see that “it takes a lot of time to get pop music to that level.”

The Rutgers Symphony Orchestra is scoring prime face time on what is largely considered the biggest TV event of the year. According to The Nielsen Company, last year’s Super Bowl attracted, on average, nearly 99 million viewers.

Even Mason Gross Dean George B. Stauffer, known as an expert in the early life and work of J.S. Bach, is impressed: “We’re extraordinarily proud to have our students rubbing elbows — and touching knuckles — with Jay-Z,” he says.