Grammy nominated beat-boxer and multi-instrumentalist Christylez Bacon and wildly original electric cellist/composer Wytold transform well-known songs into new compositions blending hip-hop, go-go and classical music. Their original tunes blend modern rhythms with classical technique and electronics brought together in a natural and fluid way.

Growing up just a short distance apart from each other in Southeast Washington, DC and Woodbridge, VA, Christylez got his start in music playing the buckets while Wytold entered Strings class in elementary school. Christylez learned about beatboxing and rhyming listening to hip-hop records his mother used as a DJ, while Wytold studied classical repertoire on his grandmother’s cello. In high school, Christylez developed his own original style through improvised freestyle raps with friends at Duke Ellington School of the Arts, and Wytold explored bringing guitar techniques and electronics to his classical instrument while studying physics and philosophy at Johns Hopkins University. ​Christylez taught Creative Writing in DC Public Schools and Wytold worked in HR for the federal government before becoming full-time musicians. After meeting in 2011 and building a unique method of collaboration, the duo released Beats, Bows and Remixes, their first studio album in 2018 in concert with the National Symphony Orchestra at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

Former Artists in Residence at The Music Center at Strathmore, recipients of multiple grants from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, the Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County and the Maryland State Arts Council, the duo has performed in over 70 schools offering ‘Classical Hip-Hop’ educational programs to elementary, middle, and high school students. They’ve been featured performers at the Columbia Festival, The National Gallery of Art and numerous embassies in the District of Columbia. In 2016 the duo co-composed the score for Wooly Mammoth Theater’s critically acclaimed play, “An Octoroon” in which Wytold was a featured performer onstage throughout the show. Twice a year they collaborate with award-winning poets on a weeklong “Music and Words” workshop for wounded warriors at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and Fort Belvoir.