First of all, before I say anything, I just want to say thank you guys so much for the amount of support I got from my awesome followers of this blog and my viewers on YouTube. You guys make me so happy!
Okay, as many of you already know, I posted my two audition videos three days ago. One was of course “The Internet Symphony No.1 Eroica” composed by Tan Dun and the other piece I have chosen to audition was the First Movement of “Concerto in A Minor” by Bach. I think I played both pieces pretty well and have gotten quite a lot of nice feedbacks.
“The Internet Symphony No. 1 Eroica” is actually a rather interesting piece (if you haven’t heard it, go listen to it now!). The beginning starts off with really short and fast notes with a tempo of allegretto, then it suddenly moves into about 19 bars of soft slow music before going super speed at bar 28. It’s actually broken down into four movements and each movement has a different tempo. As a second violin, the majority of the piece is fast-moving staccatos. Both the notes and rhythms are fairly simple. I guess that the judges are just going to focus more on how well your notes sound rather than what notes you can reach. Overall though, I think that the Eroica is a pretty cool piece because it’s quite different than the usual classical pieces people normally hear with orchestras and the style is really unique in the way it was composed. The score is written for a Full Orchestra so there’s a part in there for everyone.
Since I really liked Tan Dun, I did a little bit of research on him. Apparently, he is a Chinese Contemporary classical composer born in China. He loved music when he was young and created his own music group in the village he grew up in. The school he went to was the Central Conservatory of Music located in Beijing and that place really influenced his music style. When he moved to America, he met a bunch of other composers and thus started his composing career. In 2008, he was commissioned by Google to do the Eroica piece for the YouTube Orchestra. I’m not sure what his inspiration for the piece is but if I have to guess, it’s probably about how amazed he is at how fast technology is changing our lives (it’s called “Internet” Eroica for a reason) and about the exciting possibility of an online-collaborative orchestra.
Anyways, I think that’s about it for now. I’m actually pretty nervous because tomorrow the auditions will officially end and a panel of judges will begin to select the few finalists. After that, the YouTube community will cast their votes. Sure hope I make it, make sure you all go and vote for me! :)
