Carnegie Youtube

Now you can play Carnegie Hall via a virtual concert or a virtual audition. Times have changed. (thx for the tip WC)

From the New York Times...

This past Monday a project called the YouTube Symphony Orchestra was announced.

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

In the project’s other prong, musicians will upload auditions from a prescribed list — for trumpeters, for example, an excerpt from the Haydn Concerto — for judging by a jury that will include musicians from major orchestras like the Berlin Philharmonic and the London Symphony. Entrants have until Jan. 28 to upload their videos. The panel picks a short list of finalists, and YouTube users, “American Idol”-style, choose the winners, who are then flown to Carnegie Hall in April for a concert conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas, the music director of the San Francisco Symphony.

Time to tune up those old instruments gathering dust sitting in the back of your closet!