I was wondering when someone would mention the cat-a-combing.

That's one advantage of virtual orchestras -- if you're playing third trumpet and only have two notes to play in the movement, you can throw in something like this instead of sitting on stage doing nothing!

JohnG said
I find this amazing! Who could have anticipated such a thing even 5 or 10 years ago? 

  

I love living in the future. I never would have had the chance to make music with most of the people in the Socially Distant Orchestra if not for the pandemic and people taking advantage of technology to keep playing music together, because the orchestra doesn't exist in any physical place and the members are from all over.

Pics or it didn't happen, you say?

Here it is: the final movement of Pictures at an Exhibition.

I'm at bottom center for most of the movement. All 135 musicians from the entire Pictures project join in for the very end of the piece, starting around 5:00 of the video.

I put all eleven videos into a single YouTube playlist so you can watch them all at once without going back through this thread. As mentioned before, I'm in parts 4, 5, 8, 9, and 11.

Bob said
@AndrewH Beautiful work. 

I'm going to watch the whole playlist again today.

Thank you. Let's see more recordings on youtube, especially once you guys can get together in person. 

  

Thank you!

Unfortunately, this is probably the last month of the Socially Distant Orchestra's existence. It was created during the pandemic, and was only ever meant to last as long as live performances were heavily restricted in the US. We are wrapping up after one more project (which I've already recorded my part for), because most of us are going back to our regular ensembles for in-person rehearsals and performances. After that, there's been some talk of recording occasional "reunion" videos but it won't be anywhere near as frequent as this past year. This group of musicians is unlikely to ever play together in person, because it never existed as a real-world orchestra in any one location. The people appearing in Pictures at an Exhibition are in 23 US states, 4 Canadian provinces, and 5 other countries. Including the group's other projects, someone on every continent except Antarctica has been in a Socially Distant Orchestra video at some point.

That said, the Socially Distant Orchestra is planning a single in-person performance in New York City, in late June during the annual Make Music NY festival. (NYC is where the orchestra's founder/organizer lives, and the largest concentration of orchestra members.) It will be only about 40 musicians, basically just people who are within a reasonable driving distance and available that day. I won't be there, I'm too far away.

And I will definitely perform with a few people from these videos this fall -- four other musicians from Camellia Symphony, my regular orchestra, also appeared in this project. I might also get the chance to play music with a few others, though not all at once. It'll probably be more along the lines of knowing people to play chamber music with when traveling.