Now it's YouTuba

Published on Thursday 4 December 2008 15:53

TRADITIONALLY, AUDITIONING for an orchestra means appearing alone on stage in a nerve-jangling performance before grizzled veteran musicians. In the Google age, it means posting on the company's video-sharing site, YouTube, for online judging by professionals and, ultimately, the YouTube universe.

That second option is the main feature of the YouTube Symphony Orchestra, a marketing project announced by Google earlier this week to bolster the organised presence of classical music online.

Boiled down, it has two essential parts. The composer Tan Dun has written a four-minute piece for orchestra. YouTube wannabes are invited to download the individual parts for their instruments from the score, then upload their renditions. After the entrants are judged, a mash-up of the winning parts will be created for a final YouTube version of the piece.

In the project's other prong, musicians upload auditions from a prescribed list – for trumpeters, for example, an excerpt from the Haydn Concerto – for judging by a jury that Google says will include musicians from major orchestras such as the Berlin Philharmonic and the London Symphony. Entrants have until 28 January to upload their videos, and the winners will be flown to Carnegie Hall in New York in April for a concert conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas, the music director of the San Francisco Symphony. Google will arrange for visas and pay costs.

Plus, London Symphony musicians will provide online instruction on how to play the Tan parts, in the spirit of masterclasses.

"The idea is to put together the world's first collaborative online orchestra," says Ed Sanders, who is in charge of the effort. Another aim is the "serendipity of discovery", he says. "It would be a dream come true to find a trombone player in Hong Kong who had a rare talent, but nobody knew."

What's in it for Google? Potentially, says equities analyst Scott Kessler, it "takes the edge off" recent perceptions that the company is not living up to its credo of "do no evil". It's also in keeping with Google's strategy to make YouTube more attractive to advertisers. Disappointed by revenues from YouTube, which it bought in 2006, Google has already sponsored a US presidential debate and made a deal to put MGM films and television on YouTube, to move it past associations with lowest-common-denominator material like pranks, pratfalls and cats drinking out of toilet bowls.

"We see a great symbiotic relationship with this project, and we see great potential to inspire a kind of new worldwide interest and enthusiasm for classical music," says Eric Latzky, spokesman for the New York Philharmonic.

"I really do applaud Google for trying this, and I'm sure there are benefits for them. If they're successful, then maybe it can help make classical music more successful."