YouTube has announced that 101 musicians have been selected for the 2011 YouTube Symphony Orchestra, which will rehearse in Sydney, Australia for a week before performing at the Sydney Opera House on March 20; the performance will be live-streamed at http://www.YouTube.com/Symphony. The orchestra includes 97 amateur and professional musicians from more than 30 countries, ranging in age from 14 to 49 years old; four soloists—one on electric guitar, violin, the guzheng, and electric double bass—were also selected to perform in an improvisation to a piece composed for the orchestra by Mason Bates. Auditions were conducted online at YouTube last fall, with a panel of experts choosing more than 300 finalists, followed by a week of public online voting in December. Online votes were taken into consideration by Conductor and Artistic Advisor Michael Tilson Thomas in making final selections for the orchestra. More information on orchestra members can be found at http://www.YouTube.com/Symphony.
Orchestras are invited to upload their own performance clips to the YouTube Symphony Orchestra channel, which is watched by people from around the world. The areas YouTube is most interested in: “Classical 101”; “Unsung Heros”; Community Outreach Projects. To get your video on the YouTube Symphony Orchestra channel, send a link to the video and a short description to Damian Fowler at fowlerdamian@gmail.com. For more information, contact Jessica Lustig at jlustig@21cmediagroup.com.
Posted January 12, 2011
