Introducing....The YouTube Symphony Orchestra

This is so cool! I love music and dig the idea of bringing talented musicians (professionals and amateurs talented people) together from across the world to perform at Carnegie hall...by harnessing the power of social media/Web 2.0. Here is the deal:

Musicians from 33 countries brought together by YouTube performed as a symphony orchestra at New York's famed Carnegie Hall Wednesday night.

The New York Daily News said the performers earned a standing ovation from the sold-out crowd assembled to see the orchestra, whose members auditioned through YouTube and met for the first time five days ago. The group of nearly 100 musicians performed pieces by Bach, Brahms and Mozart at the concert.

"It's been like a summit conference and a scout jamboree, with elements of speed dating," conductor Michael Tilson Thomas, who directed the orchestra, told the Daily News.

Thomas quipped that the new way to get to Carnegie Hall is to "upload, upload, upload" rather than the age old adage of "practice, practice, practice."

The mix of professional and amateur musicians, who range in age from 15 to 55, were selected by judges representing the world's greatest orchestras, the newspaper said. (from UPI)

Here is the video of the performance (60 minutes...leave it on for a great soundtrack for your day - classical music is a nice change). Act One:



Act Two:



This is my favorite part - "The Internet Symphony" Global Mash Up. Initially, YouTube called for professionals and amateur musicians of all ages, locations and instruments to audition for the YouTube Symphony Orchestra by submitting a video performance of a new piece written for the occasion by the renowned Chinese composer Tan Dun. Here is the piece as selected and mashed up from thousands of video submissions from around the globe:



> Learn more and watch/listen more at the YouTube Symphony Orchestra channel