Much was made of the recent Twitter experiment of a Beethoven concert featuring the National Symphony Orchestra under Emil De Cou in which Tweets were sent out highlighting moments in the score.

Royal Opera House Covent Garden, London

You might call that a “passive” experiment in modern communications compared to an idea cooked up by the Royal Opera Covent Garden. Tweetsters are invited to help create the world’s first opera written through Twitter, yes, 140 characters (or less) at a time.

“It’s the people’s opera and the perfect way for everyone to become involved with the inventiveness of opera as the ultimate from of storytelling,” said Alison Duthie, Head of ROH2, the arm of the Royal Opera House in charge of creating original projects.

The tweets will be set to original music by composer Helen Porter along with some familiar opera pieces.

Excerpts will be performed at the Royal Opera House as part of the Deloitte Ignite festival in September.

You can participate by following this link.

Glenn Donnellan is a violinist with the National Symphony in D.C. and apparently quite an inventor.  He has come up with a violin made from a baseball bat!  Glenn  recently played his bat-fiddle at a Nationals baseball game.  Here he is with the National Anthem as you’ve never heard it before:

The wonderful pianist Yefim Bronfman joins the SFS this Tuesday on KDFC performing the Brahms Piano Concerto #1.  But who knew that the classical star is a foodie extradinaire?  He will be judging an episode of Iron Chef this Sunday night on the Food Network.  “Fima”, who hails from Uzbekistan originally, says that food and wine have become a hobby for him as he travels around the world performing.

Here is a Youtube video of Edward Elgar conducting the Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1 from November 1931. He was 74 at the time.

Enjoy.

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I”m not sure Washington Post columnist Anne Midgette was expecting so much feedback on her column last week about the National Symphony Orchestra’s Twitter experiment with Beethoven. The classical purists, the  techies, the Luddites and more chimed in. The amount of discussion is exciting to me because it speaks to a great passion for classical music. It isn’t a dead art form, but constantly evolving with new audiences and, yes, technology. Addressing the Tweets from conductor Emil de Cou during the Beethoven performance last Thursday, Ms. Midgette writes that ” I don’t think that the Tweets are meant for those who listen with total concentration; they’re meant for people who aren’t concentrating and would like some help getting into the music.” That is very much the spirit here at KDFC. We want to bring as many people to the “party” as we can. Read the “‘New Technology’ and How We Listen” response here.

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