RO: What dictates the choice of classical music you cover?
TGK: The choice of classical music that The Great Kat shreds must be exciting, virtuoso, powerful and recognizable to the world, like Beethoven's 5th Symphony.
RO: Have you ever played your interpretations in classical-music settings?
TGK: Not yet. The Great Kat has performed this blistering virtuosity for metal audiences! The repressed classical audiences need a bit more time.
RO: Have you considered shredding classical vocal pieces as well like Mozart's "Requiem" or DuBois's "Seven Last Words of Christ?" If you ever do, would you sing like you do on your originals of would you prefer to let your guitar do the talking?
TGK: The Great Kat used a real opera singer on Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries" on the Wagner's War CD, along with The Great Kat's blistering guitar and violin shredding. The Great Kat stays true to the original scores by keeping the composer's original orchestrations and vocals the same, but editing and arranging the piece to include guitar and band and of course making it much faster.
The Great Kat, Guitar Goddess, will be shredding Mozart's Requiem and Handel's Messiah on future Great Kat masterpiece CDs, using opera singers and choruses.
RO: Why aren't there more Beethoven pieces on your CD? Bach Shreds would've been more accurate.
TGK: Wake up! Just one Beethoven masterpiece is enough to send you soaring into the universe with virtuosic, brilliant, powerful complexity. Bach is brilliant, but Beethoven rules.
RO: How closely related are the worlds of metal and classical?
TGK: Very close. After graduating from The Juilliard School as a violin virtuoso, The Great Kat realized that classical music was dead and desperately needed to be updated for the masses.
After listening to popular music forms and seeing a metal music video, The Great Kat discovered speed metal and quickly picked up the electric guitar. The Great Kat simply took Paganini-style violin technique and transposed it to the guitar.
RO: Do you feel your originals match up to the works of the great composers?
TGK: The Great Kat, High Priestess of Guitar Shreds original music, is specifically designed to be fast, short, to-the-point and energizing to match this global, 24-hours-a-day, fast-thinking, Internet-driven world. The Great Kat's original shred/classical music will get more complex, with contrapuntal insanity and, of course, more shredding virtuosity, as the masses wake up and advance.
Beethoven Shreds is available now.
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