Q&A: JUNO-NOMINATED POP PRODUCER AARON PARIS ALSO ON MISSION TO MAKE CLASSICAL MUSIC RELATABLE

February 19, 2025

By Karen Bliss 

Classical musician, producer, composer and string arranger Aaron Paris has managed to cross over into the chart-topping pop world, hired to work on tracks for the likes of Ariana Grande, Drake, DJ Khaled, Kanye West, while taking time for his own music too, like his contemporary classical EP, Lotusland, recorded over two days with a 16-piece orchestra at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Toronto. 

Signed to a publishing deal with Toronto’s Kilometre Music Group but now living in Los Angeles, the University of Toronto and the Toronto Symphony Youth Orchestra alumnus is also the founder of Strings From Paris, a small mission-driven string collective that aims to inspire and educate a younger generation. They are planning a workshop with U of T later this year on how to compose for modern genres. The ultimate goal is to establish SFP chapters in different cities.

Paris himself, born Aaron Cheung, grew up on classical rock that his dad played for him, but in high school he was in hip hop groups, jazz bands, and got “heavily” into classical music, he tells CSHF. Music was music to him, no matter the genre. This approach, coupled with his production and arranging skills, have led to credits for a range of acts, this year alone three Grammy-nominated artists: pop artist Ariana Grande, R&B singer Kehlani, and rock band Idles. Before that, his name appeared on Grammy-nominated albums by rapper Drake and DJ Khaled.

Last year he was honoured by the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame and Amazon Music with the Breakthrough Songwriter Award and just this month received his first-ever Juno nomination, for Jack Richardson Producer of the Year, for his work on “Intro (end of the world)” by Ariana Grande; “Bought The Earth” by Yeat; “Let It Breathe” by Ski Mask The Slump God; “Tiger Eye” by Loony; “Dishonored” by Sean Leon & Jessie Reyes); and “In The Dirt” by Russ.

As part of The Juno Awards Re/Worked series, Aaron Paris & Strings From Paris cut a classical cover of Tate McRae’s hit “Greedy,” which comes out Feb 28, the performance on YouTube and songs on DSPs.

The Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame talked to Paris about the Juno recognition, his plan to make classical music relatable and what can be done to promote the centuries-old genre. 

How do you feel about being recognized at this year’s Juno Awards in the producer of the year category? 

I feel very grateful to be recognized in this category and to be nominated alongside friends and peers I’ve worked with for a long time. Feels great that we can build together. 

You work on so many varied genres and your album, Lotusland, is infused with so many. Were you always into all kinds of music?

I grew up on classic rock that my dad showed me. I got into classical more heavily around high school, but I was in hip hop bands and jazz bands as well.

Classical music is everywhere. Probably in the last film we watched. You are on a mission to expose young people to classical music and show them it’s cool — because it is cool.

It comes from my own experiences with classical music and the traditional institutionalized classical education system it‘s hard for a lot of kids and a lot of people to quit because it’s focused on the wrong things. It’s not relatable to modern culture in a lot of ways. So, once I started learning about other styles of music, like hip hop and rock and pop and R&B, then I started to understand classical music, which then helped me appreciate it and enjoy it a lot more.

So, it was wanting to share that with people because classical music is so amazing and there’s the education system and the culture surrounding classical music, which is preventing people from really enjoying it and the people playing it, too, end up hating it because of all the other stuff surrounding it. So, I was bringing it back to that: let’s make classical music relatable and fun and realize that it is part of culture in a cool way.

There is a stigma that’s been around for decades that classical music is stuffy, elitist, uncool and for older people. But on your album, I know there’s a lot of other genres in there, but in some of the pure classical parts, I think someone’s being hunted down or this is romantic. It conjures up scenes. Our minds fill them in.

Yeah, it’s super cool. Everyone has different things that they hear, and everyone has things that remind them of, like childhood movies or memories. That’s one thing I love about classical music, too, is that we can kind of make it our own. It’s a very personal thing.

Does there need to be some kind of classical campaign because it is a dying art or genre? I’ve been to the TSO a number of times in recent years and it was never sold out. [They do offer cheaper priced tickets for people ages 15-35]

People running the TSO and my professors at U of T, who were members of the TSO and amazing classical musicians, also had the same mindset of “We want something to change,” but they didn’t know how because they were from an older generation. They’re trying to figure out that thing, too. So, it’s up to us and for the younger generations of classical musicians to create these new things and create new spaces that allow classical music to do something new and to evolve. Because, right now, there are some really cool spaces like that, but they’re all very niche. The overarching spaces are the ones that are rooted in classical and traditional things that have been around for hundreds of years. 

What is the Strings from Paris Collective all about?

It’s a string collective that I put together in the city. It’s a group of friends from U of T and from TSYO, the Youth Orchestra in Toronto. It’s just creating a space where you can do all the things we were talking about, creating a space where classical musicians can learn about the modern world and to bring classical music into a modern context and to share that with other people. Right now, there’s five of us [Paris; Adrian Irvine, violin, viola; Andrew Park, cello; Brendan Thomas, cello; Madeleine Kay, violin, viola] and but there’s an extended family and there’s a social collective of people, too. We’re trying to get more people involved to make it a collective and make it a space where people are just sharing knowledge with each other. The people I started with are all good friends and those are the core members. And yeah, we’ve all been working together for a few years now, building it up together.

As Jann Arden, who just released a covers album of pop songs from the ‘90s reminded me, every time someone performs Beethoven or Bach, they ‘re doing covers. We just don’t think of them that way.

And they’re amazing covers, too. Even someone like Jon Baptiste, who put out his Beethoven Blues album [Nov. 2024], reworks classical in his own way. That’s super cool. Classical music needs more of that and musicians like him are trying to evolve where it came from. 

Who opened the door for you in the pop world? 

I had the pleasure of working with amazing people in L.A. and I’m fortunate that the people I’ve been working with here are working with these amazing artists. Somehow music finds a way; it doesn’t even really matter what the genre is. Like, a lot of big hip hop producers are also big pop producers and vice-versa now. People span all genres. I just keep making music and doing my thing in L.A. and meeting some great people. 

You were given the Breakthrough Songwriter Award by the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame and Amazon Music. You were in a room full of the best of the best songwriters. Did you make any good connections?

It was crazy to see all those legends there. It was cool to see all the generations, from Tom Cochrane to like Metric. I’ve been a fan of all those people for so many years and have been hearing all those songs on the radio since I was growing up, so to see them all in the same place was super cool. And the show was amazing, too. It was like a big honour to be recognized in the same place as all those legends.

Did it result in any tangible opportunities?

I don’t know if I can speak on it right now because there’s something coming up, but yeah, there have been good things. It’s just good for an artist like myself that’s up and coming to start putting my name in there and then to build that up. I think as time goes on, it’s just going to keep building.  

Do you have a main hope? Is it recognition as an artist, as a producer, songwriter or a bigger overarching goal of introducing classical music more into pop or exposing young people to classical music? What’s your main wish?

It’s all about those things. I just love making music in whatever form it is. I’m starting this journey as an artist, but I’m also going to be working with people as a producer and I’m going to be working with more classical things. I’m working right now with Charlotte Day Wilson on her up-and-coming show with the TSO, which is great. So, projects like that I’m super passionate about. It’s really a big platform for classical music and modern culture to coexist and evolve together. So, doing cool projects like this is the dream to just keep doing throughout my career.