British singer/songwriter/pianist/composer Kate Bush recently scored her first No. 1 single in 44 years — a record — by way of Netflix’s Stranger Things streaming series. A Canadian pianist has taken the song and given it a classical crossover treatment that is racking up hundreds of thousands of viewers online.
Winnipeg based pianist Katherine Cordova is a self-taught musician. Her specialty is creating original arrangements of popular hits for piano, which she releases on her popular social media channels, as well as in the form of sheet music. Her YouTube channel has more than 70K subscribers, and she’s racked up more than 18 million viewers with her video series.
She uploaded her version of Bush’s song “Running Up That Hill” 11 days ago, after the latest instalment of Stranger Things dropped on the streaming service. Cordova’s video currently sits at over 550K views on YouTube.
For the uninitiated, Stranger Things is a science fiction series set in the 1980s, and its period soundtrack has been one of its most popular features. In the most recent episodes, Bush’s 1985 song plays a key role in saving one of the characters. Since the episode was released, and 37 years after its original release, “Running Up That Hill” has shot up to the top of the charts in the UK. It hit the US top 10 for the first time ever.
While Cordova stays close to the melodic and harmonic bones of the original song by Bush, she uses the piano’s colours and range of expression to explore its haunting theme. With so many views and a flurry of media interest, it seems to have struck a nerve with listeners.
Cordova released an album of her covers on Spotify in 2021.
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