Utopeia is the latest project by cellist and producer Justin Lepard. The spelling alteration on utopia comes from the Cassiopeia constellation, after which the legendary Japanese jazz-funk group Casiopea named themselves. The music, at its core, brings together three things I have spent my whole life working on: Emotional strings-focused beats; a modern feel to underground trip hop production; and topics of politics, philosophy, and existentialism. You could call it conscious rap, you could call it experimental hip hop. The music I’m most drawn to tends to defy labels. We can say the music here is under the umbrella of “jazzy hip hop,” but that in and of itself is a broad category with plenty of room for trying out new things. Reaching for the stars with our full imagination. Hence, Utopeia.
More about Justin.Originally from Nebraska, he studied with Juilliard alumni Greg Beaver of the former Chiara Quartet, as well as studying jazz with trumpet faculty Darryl White. In college he found a niche playing contemporary classical music, and with that won an audition to play in the Lucerne Festival Academy in Switzerland, which subsequently led to a series of short tours in Europe. Always a musician who wanted music to feel good and not just be intellectualized, Justin continued with his own endeavors composing, producing, creating content, and developing jazz improvisation skills as the core of his cello playing. He spent 6 years living in LA, where he got some cool opportunities to play in movies like The Invisible Man (screen credit), and Bad Boys III (as part of an RMA orchestra at Warner Bros). But a love of vanlife and the outdoors led him and his wife to venture up the coast more and more, and are now in-demand private event musicians in the Portland area (Alexis plays violin).
