I’ve been selected as a finalist!!!! YES! The people from YouTube Symphony Orchestra had contacted me today to congratulate me on being one of the 300 people as a “Potential Finalist”. The audition process is now more than half way through.  They have evaluated me based on my interpretation of the classical music composition, musicality, originality, vitality, creativity and how well I pulled it off as a whole!  The judges varied from both competition administrators to professionals from London Symphony Orchestra/other musical organizations. They emailed me a bunch of agreement and release forms that I have to get back to them by December 7. This is so exciting! Please don’t forget to vote for me!

Thank you guys so much for the wonderful comments on audition videos. If I could, I’ll just reach out from the internet and hug you all. But seriously, I really appreciate it. I’ve been getting a lot more views than I did a year ago and it just makes me so happy hearing people comment on how much I’ve improved. Tomorrow, the judges are going to pick the finalists for voting so I’m really excited. I think my audition videos are pretty decent compared to some of the other ones. Oh btw, I saw this really awesome solo improvisation audition. The guy was using this clarinet thing but except it wasn’t a clarinet, it’s a MIDI wind controller. The way he played it sounds really jazzy and I think he portrayed the whole atmosphere of the piece really well. Mason Bates really did a good job on Mothership and I guess the YouTube community didn’t disappoint him by coming up with these amazing ideas!

Hey guys, I’m finally back. After a busy and extremely eventful summer, it’s so great to be able to blog again. I hope everyone had a great vacation (met cute guys, got tanned etc). Anyways, since this is a blog about music, I want to share with you guys some ideas I had in mind for the coming 2011 year.

As you guys can probably tell from my entries back in 2009, I had tried out for the YouTube Symphony Orchestra and failed miserably. So when they called out for another audition on October 12, I knew I had to try again. This year’s requirements are almost the same as last year’s except this time it’s one video on solo improvisation and a classical audition video. The classical audition video is pretty simple. You just go on the competition website, find your instruments, and play the repertoire of classical music specifically listed for your instruments.  I already downloaded the music sheets and it’s not that difficult to play (I practiced a lot over the summer!). The second part of the audition is the solo improvisation. I’m not sure what it is so I looked it up. Apparently it’s something like a new music statement over the harmony of the original piece, almost like a variation except you’re playing while the original music is in the background. The competition requires you to do a solo improvisation on a piece called Mothership by Mason Bates. He’s an American composer who likes to include electronics in a symphony orchestra, which I think is pretty creative. He got a PhD from UC Berkeley in composition and is always commissioned by big-shot symphonies like the London Symphony Orchestra and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He has worked closely with conductors such as Leonard Slatkin, Michael Tilson Thomas, and composer/conductor John Adams. He was hired by Google in 2010 for the YouTube Symphony Orchestra and did the Mothership piece. I listened to Mothership and from what I can tell, it’s like a sci-fi kind of thing but with techno and classical music all jumbled together. Strange, but pretty cool. The improvisation video will be quite challenging for me to do but I also think it will be a whole lot of fun.

The prize for this year will be an all-expenses paid trip to Sydney, Australia to perform at the Sydney Opera House! Considering I’ve never been anywhere outside of Ontario, it’s a pretty big thing for me!

Anyways, I think I’m going to go practice violin now. The audition ends on November 28 so that doesn’t really leave me with much time. Be sure to come support my videos when I post them!

I didn’t make it. Life sucks. 

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! :)

Sorry for the late update, but life has been quite unfriendly to me lately. Now that I’m back though, I have some BIG news! I’m not sure if anyone reading my blog had heard but yesterday, the YouTube Symphony Orchestra had just revealed that they’re going to hold an audition, digitally, on the YouTube website! Isn’t that so amazing? I know it’s not really a big fancy thing to be so excited about, but just the idea of being able to communicate about music online with other music-lovers completely fascinates me. Their official YouTube website states that they are a “global endeavor devoted to share the love of music with the world’s diversity”. I think that it’s a really great goal and it depicts very well that when it comes to music, there are no borders.

I remember first hearing about the orchestra near mid December last year. An article from the L.A. times said that the age for violinists and other instrumentalists had finally come, and that YouTube was going to launch the first ever online-collaborative orchestra. Being a violinist myself, I was of course excited to the extreme, but did not really look much into it due to my eventful (hectic) Christmas break.

So they just announced that they’re going an audition. Being the music fanatic I am, you can bet that this blog will follow closely to the various audition videos that is going to soon flood YouTube. If any of my lovely followers wants to participate, be sure to tell me!

Love and kisses to you all! Expect another update sometime next week!