Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Second Life, now

The hot news today is that the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic is going to play in 'Second Life' on the internet on 14 September.

Hang on. If soprano Kate Royal is to be represented by an 'avatar', how does that approximate a live concert? If only 100 people can watch, does that really constitute 'reaching a new audience'? And why should anybody want to nip to a virtual online loo? We waste enough time queuing for the damn things in real life. Forgive me, but there's too much I don't understand about the point of this little exercise, so will refer you straight to The Times, which admittedly isn't all that informative for the uninitiated.

The rest of us can stick with the orchestra's beautiful Elgar Violin Concerto recording with Philippe Graffin and Vernon Handley - and look out for another next month, the Cello Concerto with Natalie Clein on EMI.