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Arts and Culture

Introducing the YouTube Symphony

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Posted on Apr 16, 2009
YouTube symphony
youtube.com

Thanks to the magic of the Internet, we can do all sorts of things we couldn’t before, like post countless reaction videos to others’ reaction videos on YouTube! However, some enterprising and musically inclined types found a more productive use of the medium and took their act all the way to Carnegie Hall.

New York Daily News:

Meeting in the city for the first time five days ago, the so-called “YouTube symphony” practiced up to 12 hours a day for Wednesday night’s performance.

“It’s been like a summit conference and a scout jamboree, with elements of speed dating,” said Grammy Award-winning conductor Michael Tilson Thomas, who directed the concert.

He joked the group showed the new way to get to Carnegie Hall is to “upload, upload, upload.”

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Watch Act 1 of the YouTube Symphony performance below:

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By Stephen Smoliar, April 17, 2009 at 12:46 pm Link to this comment

Paracelsus, I think the video on the other end of your link makes a good point;  but I am not sure it is particularly relevant to the role that sites like YouTube may play in the future of classical music.  I am sure that I am not the only one who tracked the YouTube Symphony Orchestra on the basis of very specific links and/or search terms.  Indeed, I have probably spent more YouTube time with the YouTube Symphony Orchestra than the entirety of the time I have devoted to any other videos there!  (Also, the only rating I did was the up-or-down voting on audition material, which is why I wrote the first blog post cited in my previous comment.)

Think of it this way:  Classical music videos can “homestead” on YouTube without bothering anyone, particularly since they are not really competing for advertising-susceptible eyeballs.  Would it be nicer if those of us who like that sort of thing could go to a more conducive site?  Sure it would, but it is unlikely that anyone is going to invest resources in building up such a site.  (I say this on the basis of having raised this question to a few of the more rabid evangelists for Web 2.0.)  As long as we do not suffer the fate of cable channels like A&E and Bravo (created for “arts” content, which has now been entirely abandoned), we shall probably continue to make content-specific visits to a site where we can see new performers whom we would not be able to see in a “live” concert.

Having said all that, I should now point out that there is one good thing about your video link.  My primary argument has been that the YouTube Symphony Orchestra was an experiment from which we can learn things, but everyone seems so smitten with the idea itself that there has been no discussion of lessons learned.  Your video link adds to that non-existent discussion by raising the matter of whether there is a down side to YouTube.  If the classical music community WERE to begin the discussion, they might benefit from viewing your video, even if, like myself, they did not seen an immediate connection.

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By Paracelsus, April 17, 2009 at 12:05 pm Link to this comment

There is no “you” in Youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYob1UKjBME

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By Stephen Smoliar, April 16, 2009 at 1:39 pm Link to this comment

I have been following this story ever since the project was launched.  I even did some voting on audition tapes and blogged about what it was like being a judge:

http://therehearsalstudio.blogspot.com/2009/02/sympathy-for-judges.html

I think it is important to view this as an experiment that may tell us something about the future of classical music.  My primary source for information (other than the videos themselves) has been THE NEW YORK TIMES.  My post-concert thoughts are at:

http://therehearsalstudio.blogspot.com/2009/04/where-does-project-go-from-here.html

Hopefully the hyperlinks will be useful to those who want to dig deeper.

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