Pop-up orchestra performance on a delayed plane! Violinist Juliette Kang, violinist Daniel Han, violaist Che-Hung Chen, and cellist Yumi Kendall of The Philadelphia Orchestra were traveling from Beijing to Macao on tour. 

When their flight was delayed on the tarmac for three hours, they decided to play some uplifting music to pass the time: Antonin Dvorak’s “American” String Quartet No. 12 Finale.

You can read more about the quartet’s 2013 Residency & Fortieth Anniversary Tour of China at PhilOrch.org.

On a technology side note: How many phones and cameras can you count in the audience?

h/t ITN. 

Google Creative Director Alexander Chen composes a song by filming some solo viola melodies on Google Glass and then weaving the video clips together in overlapping loops.

What results is not only a catchy musical piece, but a peek into the first-person visual perspective of the instrument player as things continue to happen in the room. It’s as if the music is being scored for that moment, as the dog and baby play in the background.

Watch more videos featuring instruments and music.

via explore-blog.

In this 2012 viral video out of Sabadell, Spain, a street musician plays Beethoven’s Ode to Joy. And then something starts to happen… 

Thanks, @kvetchup.

Cateura, Paraguay’s residents live on top of a landfill that gets 1,500 tons of solid waste each day, exposing the impoverished communities to unhealthy conditions. Most of the town works in the dump as recyclers, including many of the young people. 

When local teacher Favio Chavez decided to teach the town’s children to play music using his own instruments, he soon had more students than instruments. The solution? He started teaching the students on instruments upcycled from trash and the Recycled Orchestra was born.

This trailer for the 2014 documentary, Landfill Harmonic, introduces the story of this youth orchestra and their community’s inspiring resourcefulness. The filmmakers also hope to bring attention to Cateura’s need for improved living conditions. You can follow them here: @landfillharmoni and facebook.com/landfillharmonicmovie

via Shareable.

What’s better than watching an orchestra and its conductor — and all of those instruments! — up close? From the BBC Proms 2012:  

Hervé Niquet leads Le Concert Spirituel in the Prélude from Handel’s Water Music Suite No 2 in D Major… with eighty players, including no less than 18 oboes, all playing specially made instruments that reproduce those used in Georgian England.

One more with recorders and drums: Water Music Suite No 3 in G Major.