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Digital orchestra makes its debut

York: Technology’s relentless advance has finally invaded the timeless world of the cello, bassoon and other orchestral instruments, with the debut of the largest digital orchestra in the world.

Fifty music students at York University staged a hi-tech twist on the traditional symphony on Thursday night by sitting on a concert hall floor and playing nothing but laptop computers.

Floods of amplified music filled the building in York, while conductor Ambrose Field used a range of new gestures to draw out mouse movements and triple clicks. Other music was activated by players making hand movements which were filmed and turned into music by the laptops’ inbuilt cameras.

As well as the conducting novelties, this involved laptop liaison which allowed each musician to hear the others and not to get entirely absorbed in the screen. Dr. Field said: “There was a danger that it might end up looking like 50 people writing e-mails together, but we think we’ve avoided that.”— © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2007

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