Hannah Pauline Tarley, a ponytailed 17-year-old violinist, smiles for the camera. Then she plays the opening notes of an excerpt from Brahms’ Symphony No. 4 as she sways in a room decorated with stickers and posters of the Beatles and the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra.
Tarley filmed herself in her bedroom in Cupertino, Calif., using a computer placed atop several volumes of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. She is one of approximately 3,000 professional and amateur classical musicians in countries from Bermuda to Azerbaijan who auditioned by video in December and January for the YouTube Symphony Orchestra. This groundbreaking ensemble, the first to screen members entirely online, will debut on April 15 at New York City’s Carnegie Hall in a concert conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas, music director of the San Francisco Symphony. The project is the brainchild of Google, which hopes to both foster online classical-music communities and cement YouTube’s reputation as a repository for quality content. After dreaming up the idea in late 2007, Google approached prominent musicians and ensembles such as the London Symphony Orchestra and Tilson Thomas, a new-media pioneer in his work with the San Francisco and New World Symphonies. “Classical music is often perceived as something which is traditionalist and perhaps even a little élitist,” says Ed Sanders, a YouTube marketing manager. But the industry response, he says, was overwhelmingly positive. Google is paying all costs–a sum Sanders wouldn’t disclose–including visa and travel expenses for the musicians, who come from 30 countries. Musicians submitted videos of themselves performing repertory staples as well as a new work composed for the occasion: the Internet Symphony No. 1 “Eroica” by Tan Dun, who wrote the sound track for the film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. The clips were evaluated by members of the London Symphony Orchestra and the Berlin and New York Philharmonics, among other ensembles, who selected 200 finalists. Those videos were posted on the YouTube Symphony Orchestra channel in February. YouTube users then voted for their favorites, American Idol–style–and in Idol-like droves. Since the launch of YouTube.com/Symphony in December 2008, organizers say, the site has received more than 14 million views. The Making of a Virtual Orchestra Tilson Thomas, who made the final selection for the April 15 concert, says the project is one way to “widen everyone’s conception of what classical music is,” a point he’ll underscore with an eclectic program including works by Bach, Mozart, Brahms, Villa-Lobos, John Cage, Tan Dun and the DJ-composer Mason Bates. He hopes the project will demonstrate how important the genre is to people of different ages, nationalities, backgrounds and professions–and that performers will learn how to use the Internet and YouTube to better market themselves, just as budding writers can blog to gain publicity. Eric Moe, a 35-year-old trumpeter from Spokane, Wash., who made the final cut, says it’s essential for musicians to be techno-savvy. Moe, who filmed his audition in a church, experimented with several laptops and Web cameras before creating a video he was happy with. He compares the YouTube audition process to online dating: you don’t know if you’re actually going to meet the person or what he or she is really like.
