The YouTube Symphony Orchestra

Getting to Carnegie Hall used to take practice, practice, practice. Now, all it takes is a camcorder and access to the Internet.

Google made a splash in the classical music world when it recently announced the creation of the YouTube Symphony Orchestra. (The story was picked up by the New York Times and the Washington Post, among others.) Essentially, the initiative has two main components. First, YouTubers can download the sheet music to a four-minute orchestral piece written for the occasion by Tan Dun and record themselves performing it on their instrument. The best submissions will be mixed together, creating--in theory--a complete performance of the entire score. Second, users can record "auditions," which will be uploaded to YouTube and judged by professional musicians from the Berlin Philharmonic, London Symphony, and other major orchestras. The best performers will be flown to New York City--on Google's dime--to perform Tan's piece at Carnegie Hall under the baton of Michael Tilson Thomas. 

So maybe it will still take a little musical talent to get to Carnegie Hall.

More information on the YTSO can be found on this newly launched Web site. It also includes videos from Tan, pianist Lang Lang, and two dozen instrumental masterclasses with members of the London Symphony.

The program sounds intriguing, at the very least, though I'm not sure if it will make classical music any cooler with the YouTube Generation. But it certainly can't hurt. Anything that can help orchestras get even a handful of young people interested in their performances is overwhelmingly positive. 

As a committed music nerd, however, I love YouTube. It's an invaluable archive for historic performances and legendary performers. Carlos Kleiber conducting Strauss? No problem. Not that Strauss, the waltzing Strauss. That's here and here. How about Sir Georg Solti and the Vienna Philharmonic performing their epic Ring cycle? Here are some outtakes and rare looks at the recording process. There's also a wealth of rehearsal footage from nearly all the major conductors of the last century. The four-part series with Hebert von Karajan and the Vienna Symphony working on the first movement of Schumann's Fourth Symphony is a master class on efficient rehearsal technique--a conductor who knows exactly what he wants and exactly how to get it.

I, like many others, have gotten lost on YouTube for hours, and the YouTube Symphony will surely be just one more way to lose track of time.