In continuation to my last post about the Pittsburgh Symphony’s Extraordinary Measures, an initiative to allow their audience members to consume new symphonic content at home, I’ve decided to look at what other symphonies across the country are doing.
This week I’ve decided to spotlight the New York Philharmonic, one of the “Big Five” American Symphonies. Like the Pittsburgh Symphony, they have recently unveiled the New York Philharmonic Plays On, “a new portal for free-content to provide comfort and connection to the millions of classical music fans worldwide in isolation.”
According to the information page that the organization has posted on their website, in this portal, you can find resources such as their radio show, on-demand video recordings of various works they’ve performed over the years and even a series titled We Are NY Phil @ Home, where videos of the musicians “prove that music is still possible in a world of social distancing.”
Upon visiting the portal myself, I noticed that there were all of the things I had listed above plus more. One of the most memorable and most different from other programs like this I’ve seen recently was the children’s resources that they have (linked here). In addition to a video of the symphony, playing Dvorak’s New World Symphony from their “Young Persons Concert”, they have video lessons that break down the music and themes and activity guides related to the video lessons. There’s also a portal where children can play a desktop computer and tablet game that allows them to compose music and variations on themes. I myself played it and would highly recommend everybody give it a try. There also is a lesson and curriculum plan for teachers from grades 3-12.
I believe that everybody should check out both the educational and non-educational resources that these orchestras are putting out. The educational resources provide a really great way to be exposed to classical music and at least growing up emersed in classical music, I really wish that I had resources like this when I was a child and am really getting a lot of enjoyment out of it as an adult. Their non-educational resources are really great as well, because the NY Phil, as I mentioned prior, is considered a highly prestigious orchestra, and the fact that there is free and legal access to their performances in a time when people need the connection and community that music brings us is truly amazing.
Resource Links:
https://nyphil.org/whats-new/2020/march/ny-phil-plays-on?clicklocation=hp_grid1
Joseph Harrington
April 16, 2020 — 12:48 pm
This makes me think about the ways in which artists or artist organizations, such as the New York Phil or the Pittsburgh Symphony, are using this time to connect to a wide and potentially new audience online. I’ve never followed either of this organizations but after watching a few of the videos made by musicians in the New York Phil I feel a connection the organization that I otherwise would not have (probably just because of the intimate and vulnerable nature of the videos).