The fans that have filled arenas across the United States for reggaeton/pop superstar Bad Bunny’s hotly anticipated “Most Wanted” tour this spring encountered something they did not expect: a conductor leading a 23-piece orchestra in a soaring blend of pop and classical music forged at the Frost School of Music.
The conductor is Frost School of Music triple graduate Carlos Lopez, while nearly half the orchestra are current or former Frost students or alumni. Lopez, a Colombian native with a bachelor’s in production, a masters in classical composition, and a doctorate in classical conducting from Frost, had already parlayed those disparate degrees into success as both a Grammy and Latin Grammy-winning pop producer and a classical composer and conductor.
But the Bad Bunny tour has enabled Lopez to connect what are generally considered completely divergent genres on a massive cultural platform—bringing wide attention to the Frost School’s capacity to shape groundbreaking music artists.
“I had an instinct I needed to bridge those two worlds and build an intersection between the classical concert world and pop music for mass audiences,” says Lopez. He credits the Frost School for not only giving him the skills, but fostering the mindset that enabled him to do so. “The school has something unique and important,” says Lopez. “The landscape and curriculum allow people to connect with very different fields and navigate many different musical languages.”
Lopez’s talent led Maestro Gerard Schwarz, Frost’s distinguished conducting and orchestral studies professor, to accept him as one of just four doctoral conducting students. “For me the most important thing is to have people with extraordinary potential, and Carlos has that,” says Schwarz. “What Bad Bunny has understood is that Carlos can add a new dimension. This is huge. It really speaks to who we are at the Frost School of Music.”
The musical bridge-building began last year, when Bad Bunny asked Lopez to compose music for the Puerto Rican rapper’s show at the Coachella festival, which Lopez recorded with Frost students and alumni in Weeks Recording Studio. The singer followed by asking Lopez to create orchestral music for two tracks on his new album, “Nadie Sabe Lo Que Va A Pasar Mañana” (No One Knows What’ll Happen Tomorrow), with Lopez credited as co-producer, co-writer, and performer on the title track. Bad Bunny then asked Lopez to organize and conduct an orchestra for the tour. Shortly before launching, Lopez was tasked with writing an overture for the concerts – which he composed in just two days holed up in his hotel.
Adding a formal, top-notch classical ensemble to his concerts aligns with other ways Bad Bunny has been expanding his artistic profile beyond the urban pop world: hosting Saturday Night Live; walking the red carpet at the style-defining Met Gala; and doing an interview with film star and fellow Boricua Benicio Del Toro for hipster bible Interview Magazine.
“He’s a visionary,” says Lopez, who’s impressed by Bad Bunny’s adventurousness. “He wants to expand the limits of his creative landscape.”
The Most Wanted tour kicked off in Salt Lake City on February 21, and winds up in Miami May 24-26. Concerts open with what’s named the Philharmonic Orchestra Project playing the 9-minute overture on a separate stage, then accompanying Bad Bunny on several songs. At one point the musicians even play from the audience. The star’s PR team has included the orchestra in tour promotion, while press reviews have noted the ensemble and fans have posted enthusiastically about it on social media.
The 'Most Wanted' tour has been hugely popular, with more than 500,000 people attending more than 30 concerts so far. Promotors believe that by the 49th and final show, close to 800,000 fans will have seen 'Most Wanted' - and the Philharmonic Orchestra Project.
Dean Shelton G. Berg is proud of how Lopez and the other Frost musicians are triumphing on this new stage. “If you have this opportunity to be part of Bad Bunny’s music, your role is to make people think it was better because of the orchestra,” says Berg. “They understand their job is to play great and connect to the audience. That translates.”
Their experience on a massive pop stage has dazzled the Frost players.
“Every time the strings went up in the register or the music got more exciting people were screaming and going crazy,” says Guillermo Ospina, a percussionist and fellow Colombian who played under Lopez while earning his doctorate at Frost in 2023. “This is bringing classical music to a more diverse audience.”
“It’s been a whirlwind,” says trombonist and composer Connor Frederick, who put off finishing his doctorate at Frost to join the tour. “The roar of all these people is not like anything I’ve experienced.”
“Frost is the place I needed to be to have an opportunity like this,” he says.
