One thing I came across that was particularly striking was a post regarding a virtual choir. This is Eric's second project of this type, and I think it is a neat idea. His first run at the choir was with his piece Sleep, one of my favorites. What he did was post a series of blog entries containing the idea, the sheet music, some instructions for singing, and a video with the piano playing and Eric conducting the piece. People of all voice types were encouraged to submit youtube videos of themselves singing their appropriate part of the song. Once the deadline for entries passed, the videos were all put together and posted as the virtual choir! Check it out!
While it has its faults as far as togetherness is concerned, I am definitely impressed. I am thinking of getting the music for the second project and submitting a video myself if I can find the time to do it.
This may not be something that will pull in new audiences or attract new people to participate, this is a new track for classical music to take. Could this idea be applied to Mozart or Renaissance madrigals? Would it would with instrumental pieces? It can definitely serve as a form of networking and of uniting fellow musicians to say the least. I wonder what Eric Whitacre would think about our class and what his thoughts on the future of classical music are. I do think he is doing his part to keep it alive and to be involved in new technologies to access a wider scope of people.
Thought this was definitely worth sharing. His website again is soaringleap.com.
1 comment:
That's definitely a great video and is something that I think is great for classical music. Something like this was actually done for instrumentalists a short while ago via Youtube. The project was called the Youtube Symphony. Tan Dun composed a piece that was to be directed by Michael Tilson Thomas, who is the conductor of the San Francisco Symphony, and performed by the winners in Carnegie Hall. Anyone could download the sheet music from the site and upload a video to the website, they even had videos of London Symphony Orchestra members going through the piece as a sort of "masterclass." I can't say how much publicity it got in other areas (I'm assuming it was pretty large) but it was definitely a big deal in Spokane, partially because a local trumpet teacher was one of those chosen to perform.
I think that these acts of blending the classical world with the internet can make it much more accessible to everyone and show that classical musicians are normal people.
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