YouTube selects online orchestra

Jim Moffat will join more than 90 others in the "YouTube Symphony Orchestra"

Video sharing website YouTube has announced the players in the symphony orchestra it recruited online.

Two UK-based winners will join musicians from 30 countries to participate in a three-day classical music summit in New York City.

The YouTube Symphony Orchestra will then perform at Carnegie Hall on 15 April under San Francisco Symphony Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas.

All of the winners' videos have been posted on YouTube.

The effort began in December 2008, when YouTube solicited entries from musicians to submit their interpretations of a composition by Oscar-winning composer Tan Dun called Internet Symphony No 1, "Eroica".

The YouTube Symphony Orchestra channel on the site received some 13 million views since then.

A panel of members hailing from a number of world orchestras narrowed down the field of more than 3,000 entries from more than 200 countries.

The shortlist of 200 entrants was published on 14 February, and the YouTube community then voted for its favourites to play in the world's first online orchestra.

Comprising the orchestra are two musicians based in the UK: Owain Williams and Jim Moffat.

"I'm quite chuffed and very excited," said Mr Williams, who is a postgraduate student at the Royal College of Music in London.

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