YouTube Symphony Orchestra plays at Carnegie Hall
Orchestra recruited on video sharing site YouTube plays to live audience at Carnegie Hall
Popular video sharing site YouTube?s online orchestra came to a head last night, with the live performance at Carnegie Hall to a sell-out audience.
The orchestra, made of musicians who
auditioned by submitting a video on YouTube, played under the direction of artistic advisor and conductor Michael Tilson Thomas. The YouTube Symphony Orchestra was made up of 96 musicians from more than 30 countries that spent two and a half days in rehearsal.
Michael Tilson Thomas commented that the performance was a meeting of two worlds; the offline and online world. He went on to say, ?Classical music is an unbroken 1200 year-long tradition that spans Gregorian chant to electronics. It?s too vast, too diverse to be defined. But now we don?t have to define it, we can experience it anytime online on YouTube.?
The program featured soloists, chamber groups, guest artists, electronica and a full symphony orchestra with works by Back and Mozart. Tan Tun, an award winning composer conducted an original piece called ?Eroica? that he wrote especially for the YouTube Symphony Orchestra. The performance of Eroica was accompanied by a video mash-up of the more memorable entrants. The video mash-up was
described as, ?a visual journey projected onto the historical Carnegie Hall architecture creating an immersive video experience.?
The
YouTube Symphony Orchestra practiced virtually in the lead-up to the live performance, where the musicians were flown from all around the globe for a three days summit. Tan Dun says, ?Now, after so many months of only meeting via the internet, we finally met face to face and play eye to eye for the first time in Carnegie Hall. I feel so honoured to participate with all the online heroes to invent a new era of classical music, to educate and pass along the traditions of classical music.?
One of the orchestra members, Lauren Brigden a violist from Australia, comments, ?YouTube put ninety people from every corner of the globe in the same room and asked them to play Mozart. I had no idea what to expect. Michael Tilson did a magnificent job in bringing out the best in all of us, and I will leave New York having helped make some amazing music and a whole lot of new friends.?
Orchestra members were also encouraged to
video blog (vlog) their experience in the lead up to the concert in New York.
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