Green Piece – Camerata’s Virtual Venice Link
Posted on October 30, 2009
Manchester Camerata performed to a European Audience on 2 October without even leaving the UK. The orchestra linked up with an Italian ensemble to create a joint performance relayed to a climate change conference in Venice.
| Using Manchester’s high-speed broadband network, Manchester Camerata and the Venetian ensemble Ex Novo created a unique collaborative concert premiering a new work called Green Piece by Michele Dall’Ongaro which was composed especially for the event.
The concert was seen by politicians and delegates attending the Venice World Forum on Climate Change based in the Doge’s Palace in St Mark’s Square. This was the first time that the two orchestras have worked together at all, let alone in this innovative way. The combined performance, simultaneously working across a time delay, has been made possible thanks to technological help from Manchester Digital Development Agency (MDDA) working with Manchester University and Feedback Italia. The concert in Manchester was part of a free lunchtime concert featuring music by Charles Ives and Oliver Knussen, with a trumpeter in Venice contributing the trumpet solo for Ives’ ‘Unanswered Question’. Manus Carey, Head of Artistic Planning at Manchester Camerata, commented “We are a 21st century orchestra embracing the issues of our time and raising awareness of environmental concerns through the power of music. We are incredibly proud of this groundbreaking event which we hope will raise the profile of the work of the International Academy of Environmental Sciences here in the UK. “ “Manchester Camerata has an international outlook and we’re eager to make an impression in Europe; this way we can do it without carbon emissions or incurring air-miles.” |
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Watch a video about the Green Piece project which beamed the music of Manchester Camerata across Europe, in a unique collaboration with the Ex-Novo Ensemble, to climate conference delegates in Venice. |
| Read more about the preparations for the concert in the Manchester Evening News |
| See a Slide Show of the event |