YouTube Orchestra hits the Sydney Opera House
Richard Morrison - March 17 2011 12:01AM
They auditioned on the internet. Now the YouTube Symphony Orchestra has come together to play in Sydney
Did a collision of new and old technologies ever produce such an exhilarating noise?
Below the soaring sails of the Sydney Opera House, 101 musicians from 33 countries rehearse Stravinsky’s The Firebird under the direction of the American conductor Michael Tilson Thomas. But “rehearse” doesn’t begin to describe the urgency and energy of this process. Until four days ago the 101 had never met, except in cyberspace. Some had never left their own country, let alone performed in the world’s most recognisable opera house. In four days’ time they will never meet again — at least, not en masse. But in this frantic week they must rehearse and perform five different concerts, including a Grand Finale on Sunday that will be streamed live round the world. Will they get on? Will they find enough in common to outweigh differences in culture, language, levels of experience, and age (14 to 49)? “This is like meeting someone via an online dating service — but multiplied by 100,” Tilson Thomas quips wryly during a break. They were brought together partly by a love of music, but chiefly by the power of Google.
For this is the YouTube Symphony Orchestra, the most delightfully incongruous alliance of the arts and the internet yet to emerge in the 21st century. It began three years ago. “At Google they have these Dragon’s Den sessions where even junior employees can suggest fantastic new ways of using Google technology,” says Chaz Jenkins, the new-media guru at the London Symphony Orchestra, which was involved from the start. “Someone in the London office had the notion of using YouTube as a way of auditioning people from anywhere on the planet for a symphony orchestra.” To the incredulity of most in the classical-music world, Google ran with the idea. “I don’t know if I’m mad, but it really resonated with me,” says Ed Sanders, the YouTube executive who has masterminded the project . “Classical music transcends geographical, linguistic and cultural boundaries, which is exactly what we try to do at YouTube. The two fit.” The first YouTube Symphony gave just one concert: two years ago, in Carnegie Hall, New York. This second edition, with completely new personnel, is far grander: an eight-day festival in the Sydney Opera House involving masterclasses by such luminaries as the trumpeter Håkan Hardenberger, and a special appearance in Sunday’s concert — via video link — by Renée Fleming. But the unique auditioning process was the same. “Most musicians get into orchestras not just by having talent, but by going to the right college and being in the right place,” Sanders says. “Our thinking was: why not give people practising in a bedroom in Moscow a shot at playing in Sydney Opera House?”
Anyone could download the masterclasses (given by members of the LSO) showing how to play the set pieces, then submit a video of themselves playing the same music. Thousands did. Experts whittled them to a shortlist of about 300. But then those who had taken part voted for who should go to Australia, with Tilson Thomas having the last word. And Google (with sponsorship from Hyundai) paid for all 101 — plus mentors from the LSO, the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics and other top orchestras — to be flown to Sydney. Nobody is saying what the total cost of all those air fares and hotel bills is, but it must run to millions. So what’s in it for Google? Well, so far an incredible ten million people have watched the YouTube Symphony Orchestra channel. Who said classical music was dead? Because of the online voting, the players have all seen each others’ videos. “It’s really weird,” says Ali Bello, a Venezuelan jazz violinist who will be improvising solos in a specially written piece by Mason Bates called Mothership. “I’ve just met all these people for the first time. Yet because of YouTube I feel that I know them already, and even how they play.” The chosen 101 are certainly a mixed bunch. Some are fully fledged professionals, tickled by the notion of being flown to Sydney and working with Tilson Thomas. The first trombone, for instance, is taking a busman’s holiday from the Spanish National Orchestra. Some, by contrast, are amateurs. “People from all walks of life get through,” Jenkins says. “Lawyers, teachers; we even had a goat-herder and a professional poker-player.”
But most are like Desmond Neysmith from Muswell Hill: young music graduates on the cusp of breaking into professional orchestras. One of two Brits in the YouTube Symphony, Neysmith is already getting trial engagements as a cellist with the BBC Concert and Bournemouth Symphony Orchestras. So why did he audition? “I was surfing through YouTube one afternoon, saw the announcement, and thought: why not?” he says. “I think Google should be commended on having the vision to do this when funding for music is really suffering. I can’t imagine any classical concert in history having such a huge global audience.”
Google is certainly doing everything in its colossal power to make that come true. “We get two billion video views a day, and in the hours leading up to Sunday’s concert every YouTube page on the globe will have a ticker across the top telling people to tune in,” Sanders says. That’s not all. Dozens of cameras and technicians are being used to project footage from the concert on to the famous facades of Jørn Utzon’s iconic building, while simultaneously projecting what’s outside back into the hall. At the same time the images will be mixed into a show that millions will see online — or on mobile phones, via a new YouTube Symphony app. “Video mapping and 3-D projection excite us, and curved white canvases don’t come any better than the Sydney Opera House,” Sanders says. Tilson Thomas echoes this enthusiasm. “This is an enormous consciousness-raising exercise for classical music,” he says. “It’s astonishing for an orchestral concert to be given this level of technical spectacle on such a global platform.” But will the music-making be good? “The first rehearsal was decidedly uncomfortable,” says Ian Bousfield, the Yorkshire-born principal trombonist of the Vienna Philharmonic, who is a mentor. each day brings improvements — it’s starting to sound like an ensemble now. But this is a mixed basket, and we are throwing it on the table and instantly trying to make a meal out of it.”
That race-against-time feeling was still evident yesterday, as Tilson Thomas strove to bring a sense of teamwork to players who are in Sydney because, paradoxically, they shone as sparky individuals on YouTube. “There are quite a few who perhaps haven’t performed in an ensemble at this level before,” he observes. “And many don’t understand English too well. I’ve just had another go with the help of a Chinese interpreter.” Thus far, however, the nightly chamber concerts — in which each section of the orchestra gets a chance to show off — have been hugely entertaining. So hopes are high that the big
one on Sunday will exceed all expectations. In a way, though, its ultimate quality is less important than its symbolic meaning. It attests that the power of the internet is now so vast that nobody, especially those working in supposedly esoteric artforms such as classical music, can ignore it. “My orchestra’s YouTube channel has had three million hits,” exclaims Andrew Marriner, the LSO’s principal clarinet, who is a mentor in Sydney. But it’s not only big ensembles that are benefiting. Individual musicians are too. Everyone I meet in Sydney — eminent professionals, students, even schoolkids — now uses the internet to exchange musical ideas, to teach or be taught. “I use Skype for rehearsing now,” says Tilson Thomas. “I recently did Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex with an Oedipus I had never met. We discussed it over Skype for six weeks — me in one city, him in another. When we finally got together, it was almost effortless.”
Most of all, however, the YouTube Symphony Orchestra project has reassured classical musicians that, far from being a dwindling band in a hostile world, they are part of an impressively large global network. “At YouTube we’re not purporting to be the definitive meeting-place for classical music,” Sanders says. “But it struck us that, though classical music’s worldwide following runs into millions, there was no glue keeping it together. If we are now supplying the glue for communities of trombonists and viola players to communicate with each other, that’s fabulous for everyone.”