While the internet is great for pornography, poker, time wasting and pop culture, there are more creative benefits of modern net usage. The internet has enabled the cross collaboration of likeminded artists who live thousands of miles away. Taking that idea and amplifying it is the Youtube Symphony Orchestra, a call for professional and amateur musicians of “all ages, locations and instruments” to submit a video performance of themselves playing a part of a new piece written specifically by Chinese composer Tan Dun (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon soundtrack).
Each video submission was judged by panel and the finalists were chosen last week to travel to New York in April to participate and play the piece at Carnegie Hall under the direction of the American conductor Michael Tilson Thomas.
The 90 winners (whittled down from 3,000 auditions), range from the ages of 17 to 55, include musicians from 30 countries and will make up the world’s first collaborative online Orchestra with a makeup of 26 different instruments. There are players like Marco, a balding bass clarinet player from Belgium, David France a frantic violinist from Bermuda, Maki the Marimba player from Japan and Lai Wai Man from Hong Kong who performs one of her crash cymbal auditions with no musical backing whatsoever resulting in her looking like a crazy person banging things together in a hall (The judges obviously spotted a talent somewhere).
The Youtube page offered sheet music and master tutorial videos resulting in a whopping 13 million views to the Youtube channel since December 2008. The auditions will be compiled into a mashup video debuting in April.
No doubt the Y.S.O. has helped increase interest in classical music by dragging an artform with an archaic image problem straight into the 21st century, providing it with relevancy and with a platform that young people can relate to. In these days of X-Factor overload, it’s nice to see another musical culture represented so adeptly.
View the winners
Fri, Mar 13, 2009
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