Questlove’s ‘4U: A Symphonic Celebration of Prince’ concert will feature the late music icon’s original arranger Brent Fischer.
The 47-year-old star has curated the forthcoming one-day event, described as "the first and only official Estate approved symphonic presentation of Prince’s music", which is to be held at London’s Royal Albert Hall on December 13, in honour of the ‘Purple Rain’ hitmaker.
The 54-year-old composer, together with his late father, Dr. Clare Fischer, worked closely with Prince – who died last April at the age of 57 from a fentanyl overdose at his Paisley Park estate – over three decades.
Among their credits are the star’s albums ‘Sign O’ The Times’, ‘Graffiti Bridge’, and ‘Parade’.
The duo also co-wrote the arrangement for the ‘Raspberry Beret’ hitmaker’s famous 2004 ‘Prince Medley’ at the Grammys, which saw Brent join Beyonce and Prince as an orchestra percussionist during the ceremony.
On welcoming Brent on board, Questlove said: "In that respect, it feels completely apropos for the production to welcome Fischer’s orchestral arranging talents and production experience."
And Brent added: "Questlove is one of the most innovative artists of today. Between his encyclopedic knowledge of and my history with Prince, we see eye-to-eye on so many creative levels and have a deep respect for preserving Prince’s amazing output."
A full 27-piece orchestra will perform Prince’s timeless classics at the performance later this year.
Meanwhile, on September 14, the Prince Estate, in partnership with Warner Bros. Records, will release the ‘Piano & A Microphone’ LP.
The nine-track record features a previously unreleased home studio cassette recording of Prince at his piano captured in 1983.
Meanwhile, Prince’s estate and Legacy Recordings/Sony Entertainment Music have joined forces to release 35 of the legend’s previously released records, dating between 1978 and 2015, over the next few years.
Last month, 23 of the late music icon’s albums were made available on major streaming services.
Prince pulled all of his music from Spotify and Apple Music in 2015 leaving it only on Jay-Z’s TIDAL platform, before removing it entirely.
His music did return to most streaming services but a raft of rare songs and LPs from the star’s back catalogue were unleashed, as well as the greatest hits album ‘Prince Anthology: 1995-2010’, which is comprised of songs he recorded in that period.
The Anthology contains 37 of his most influential songs from that period which followed him breaking ties with Warner Bros. Records and it opens with ‘Emancipation’, the title track from the seminal 1996 triple album of the same name which celebrated the end of that business relationship.
Over 300 songs are available to stream online for the first time ever and there is also a brand new music video for ‘Black Sweat’, from 2006 LP ‘3121’.
Tickets for ‘4U: A Symphonic Celebration of Prince’ go on sale on September 14 at 9am via LiveNation.co.uk.
4U: A Symphonic Celebration of Prince features original arranger
