Its not often that you come across genuinely interesting ideas in age where even the youth of today are jaded by the monopoly of sites like facebook. The YouTube Symphony Orchestra summit performed their first live concert yesterday at the Carnegie Hall under the direction of Michael Tilson Thomas in New York, check out the results here.
This is no normal concert, all 96 members of the orchestra won their seat at the table through an extensive audition process that was facilitated through YouTube. Check out the 1st mash-up symphony piece created from contestant entires here.
The YouTube symphony Orchestra performed to critical acclaim recently in New York bringing together the 96 winners from all round the world. Whilst some may not have been impressed with the mash-up results there is no doubt that the Orchestra summit has been a success, the YouTube channel is currently no 5 in the Global View rankings (sponsors will no doubt be doing backflips).
Its work like this that reminds me what is really great about the internet. Just spending a few short minutes browsing through some of the comments associated with these videos shows you that ideas like these are engaging not just fans but people who previously would never have had an interest in classical music.
I like and hope more people embrace the idea that new media can be used to reinvigorate old media formats. It will be interesting to see how this event gathers momentum over the next 2 weeks. A final thought, how long before the makers of Rock Band or god forbid Simon Cowell try something similar…I’m off to find my saxophone!