Playing with student orchestras is a new thing for hip-hop pioneer turntablist Grand Mixer DXT. In fact, when he comes to Cleveland this week to play with the Contemporary Youth Orchestra, it will be the first time he's done it since his own student days. But the gig will feel familiar for another reason, too. It has to do with the program.

DXT grew up poor in the Bronx and was a percussionist with his junior high school orchestra. One day he brought in a transcription for orchestra of Bob James' smooth jazz version of George Bizet's "Farandole," and got kicked out of the band, supposedly for chewing gum. "The teacher was more mad at me for my improper transcription than anything," he says.

When he came to school the next day, the teacher called him into the class. "He said, "Come up here. Your rest is wrong. Your quarter note was wrong. Your treble clef is in the wrong place. Now go take a seat.' Then he handed me some music and said to pass it out. I looked at it and on the top it said "Farandole.' I was elated. That became the song for the school for the next five or six years."

With that incident, DXT figures he was the guy who introduced Bob James to hip-hop. (James' work would subsequently become among the most sampled by hip-hop djs, including Run-DMC, Wu Tang Clan, LL Cool J, Will.i.am, the Beastie Boys and others.)

This week with the Contemporary Youth Orchestra, DXT will play drums on "Farandole" and switch to turntables on the song that gave him his first big break at the age of 21, Herbie Hancock's "Rockit."

It was a combination of DJ practices at the time and his background as a drummer, that led to DXT's improvised "scratching," the use of the turntable as a percussion instrument.

"I was inspired to DJ after seeing Kool Herc. Kool Herc caused me to put sticks away and get my turntables. When [Grand Wizard] Theodore and [Grandmaster] Flash started doing cueing in the speakers, I started thinking of improvisations. One of my inspirations was Ella Fitzgerald scatting over rhythm. In the process of [wood]shedding, thinking of time, rhythm and tempo, I started doing these patterns that mutated the concept of cueing into a rhythmic and velocity-based approach. Like a cuica or a violin, and mouthing rhythms. I'd find the place where I could talk with the turntable. I call it a beautiful mistake."

In the last concert of its 13th season, Farandole: Classically Celebrating Hip Hop, the Contemporary Youth Orchestra will explore different aspects of hip-hop and be joined by a list of local hip-hop stars, from break dancers to graffiti artists, to emcee RepLife (former Free Times columnist and Urban Dialect founder Daniel Gray-Kontar), whose album The Unclosed Mind was recently released by Futuristica records. CYO's earlier concerts this year have included two world premieres and works of Respighi, Shostakovich, and movie composer and DEVO founder Mark Mothersbaugh.

Farandole: Classically Celebrating Hip Hop: Contemporary Youth Orchestra with Grand Mixer DXT and Rep Life, 7:30 p.m. Friday, May 23, at CSU Waetjen Auditorium, 216.241.5555.