A virtual orchestra, including Northwest School, recently played Astor Piazzolla’s Libertango. Courtesy Northwest School
Northwest students played live at Seattle’s Plymouth Church in front of a video of performances from student music groups and orchestras from Colombia, Thailand, Israel, Ethiopia, Italy, and Washington, DC. Each group played Libertango by Argentinian composer Astor Piazzolla.
“I was inspired to explore what it means to be a global citizen in terms of orchestra,” says Northwest Orchestra Director Jo Nardolillo, who launched the virtual orchestra project at the beginning of the 2017–2018 school year. “If music truly is the universal language, then we should be able to transcend all barriers.”
The project began with the students introducing themselves to each other through video postcards. After practicing in their respective countries for five months and sharing their lives through many more digital postcards, the students from all schools submitted recorded videos to Nardolillo. She edited them together, and the Northwest orchestra played along with that compilation video.
Watch more videos from the event here.
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