Posted on 04/16/2009 9:33:06 AM PDT by Borges
Edited on 04/16/2009 10:06:03 AM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
So, after all the buzz about the YouTube Symphony Orchestra altering the audition process forever, after months of interactive computer chat about the world’s first collaborative online orchestra, after 96 winning players were selected from among the more than 3,000 musicians who submitted audition videos and were brought to New York for a group summit and Carnegie Hall concert, how did the YouTube Symphony Orchestra finally play?
Quite well, actually, from what could be assessed during the three-hour concert the orchestra presented on Wednesday night at Carnegie Hall, mostly conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas. The program was a potpourri, just movements and excerpts from 15 wildly diverse works.
The mixed-bag repertory was intentional, Mr. Thomas explained in introducing the program. With the chosen musicians coming from more than 30 different countries and vastly different backgrounds, the program needed to touch as many eras and styles as possible, he said. So there was everything from a Renaissance canzon for brass by Gabrieli to a new, hard-driving piece for orchestra and electronica by Mason Bates.
For those of us hoping to discover what an orchestra of eager and gifted players could accomplish in just a few days’ work, it was frustrating to hear the YouTube Symphony play only single movements from two staples: the joyous third movement of Brahms’s Fourth Symphony, to start the program, and the impetuous, blazing finale of the Tchaikovsky Fourth Symphony, to conclude it.
Subtlety? Well, that takes more rehearsal time. The orchestra had basically two days to work. Monday they rehearsed from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., which is what a conductor can do when freed from union work rules with an ensemble of unpaid players.
Classical Music Ping
Tubular, man! :)
Cool, I’m listening now
My daughter would have auditioned for this had she known about it. The first we ever heard was last night.
Don’t ya read the NY Times??? /sarc
Not sure how legitimate this approach to classical music is, but at least it is an attempt to bring the hundreds of years of cultural wealth that Western music embodies to today’s younger audiences. I think all can agree that young people today need all the culture they can get.
As a professional classical musician, I must give some props to Michael Tilson-Thomas for taking the initiative here. He seems to be at the forefront of the push to give classical music a new breath of life, and although the performance at this first concert may have been shaky here and there, I think the gesture and effect will be the thing that people will come away with.
Everyday! /sarc back at’cha!
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