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Getting to Carnegie Via Youtube

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Traditionally, auditioning for an orchestra means appearing alone onstage in a nerve-jangling performance before grizzled veteran musicians. In the Google way, it means posting on the companys video-sharing site, YouTube, for online judging by the professionals and then, ultimately, the YouTube universe.

That second option is the main feature of a new marketing project by Google to bolster the organized presence of classical music on YouTube and promote the idea of online communities. And orchestras and professional musicians, poking around in the murky but fecund possibilities of the Internet, have jumped on board as a way to further their own educational and musical missions.

The project, called the YouTube Symphony Orchestra (www.youtube.com/symphony), was announced on Monday in London and New York.

Boiled down, it has two essential parts. The composer Tan Dun has written a four-minute piece for 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 projects 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 Google says 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 flown to Carnegie Hall 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.

Officials of the project refused to discuss any aspect of the overall cost, but the Carnegie Hall concert alone is likely to be well into six figures. Mr. Thomas and Mr. Tan said their fees were not beyond the ordinary.

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