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5. And mostly I wanted to be the fifth member of Depeche Mode or Duran Duran.
10. And when I went to college at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas when I was 18, I was
stunned to find that there was not a Pop Star 101, or even a degree program for that interest.
11. And the choir conductor there knew that I sang and invited me to come and join the choir.
15. The choir people in my high school were pretty geeky, and there was no way I was going to
have anything to do with those people.
16. And about a week later, a friend of mine came to me and said, "Listen, you've got to join
choir.
17. At the end of the semester, we're taking a trip to Mexico, all expenses paid.
19. And so I figured for Mexico and babes, I could do just about anything.
20. And I went to my first day in choir, and I sat down with the basses and sort of looked over
my shoulder to see what they were doing.
21. They opened their scores, the conductor gave the downbeat, and boom, they launched into
the Kyrie from the "Requiem" by Mozart.
22. In my entire life I had seen in black and white, and suddenly everything was in shocking
Technicolor.
23. The most transformative experience I've ever had -- in that single moment, hearing
dissonance and harmony and people singing, people together, the shared vision.
24. And I felt for the first time in my life that I was part of something bigger than myself.
25. And there were a lot of cute girls in the soprano section, as it turns out.
26. I decided to write a piece for choir a couple of years later as a gift to this conductor who had
changed my life.
27. I had learned to read music by then, or slowly learning to read music.
28. And that piece was published, and then I wrote another piece, and that got published.
29. And then I started conducting, and I ended up doing my master's degree at the Juilliard
School.
30. And I find myself now in the unlikely position of standing in front of all of you as a
professional classical composer and conductor.
31. Well a couple of years ago, a friend of mine emailed me a link, a YouTube link, and said,
"You have got to see this."
32. And it was this young woman who had posted a fan video to me, singing the soprano line to
a piece of mine called "Sleep."
35. My name is Britlin Losee, and this is a video that I'd like to make for you.
40. Britlin was so innocent and so sweet, and her voice was so pure.
41. And I even loved seeing behind her; I could see the little teddy bear sitting on the piano
behind her in her room.
43. And I had this idea: if I could get 50 people to all do this same thing, sing their parts --
soprano, alto, tenor and bass -- wherever they were in the world, post their videos to
YouTube, we could cut it all together and create a virtual choir.
45. I actually wrote, "OMG," hopefully for the last time in public ever.
47. And I made free the download of the music to a piece that I had written in the year 2000
called "Lux Aurumque," which means "light and gold."
49. Now I should say, before that, what I did is I posted a conductor track of myself conducting.
50. And it's in complete silence when I filmed it, because I was only hearing the music in my
head, imagining the choir that would one day come to be.
51. Afterwards, I played a piano track underneath so that the singers would have something to
listen to.
58. (Singing)
59. There was even a little soprano solo in the piece, and so I had auditions.
64. (Singing) I love the little smile she does right over the top of the note -- like, "No problem,
everything's fine."
65.
66. (Laughter)
67. And from the crowd emerged this young man, Scott Haines.
68. And he said, "Listen, this is the project I've been looking for my whole life.
75. And then we posted this video to YouTube about a year and a half ago.
77. (Singing)
79. (Applause)
82. (Applause)
83. Thank you.
89. I just couldn't believe the poetry of all of it -- these souls all on their own desert island,
sending electronic messages in bottles to each other.
91. We had a million hits in the first month and got a lot of attention for it.
92. And because of that, then a lot of singers started saying, "All right, what's Virtual Choir 2.0?
93. " And so I decided for Virtual Choir 2.0 that I would choose the same piece that Britlin was
singing, "Sleep," which is another work that I wrote in the year 2000 -- poetry by my dear
friend Charles Anthony Silvestri.
94. And again, I posted a conductor video, and we started accepting submissions.
97. (Video) Soprano: ♫ Upon my pillow ♫ ♫ Safe in bed ♫ EW: That's Georgie from England.
100.
101.Someone did all eight videos -- a bass even singing the soprano parts.
108. And we just closed submissions January 10th, and our final tally was 2,051 videos from 58
different countries.
109.Thank you.
110.(Applause) From Malta, Madagascar, Thailand, Vietnam, Jordan, Egypt, Israel, as far north
as Alaska and as far south as New Zealand.
111. And we also put a page on Facebook for the singers to upload their testimonials, what it was
like for them, their experience singing it.
115.It's so wonderful to sing together again!" I love the idea that she's singing with her sister.
116."Aside from the beautiful music, it's great just to know I'm part of a worldwide community
of people I never met before, but who are connected anyway."
117. And my personal favorite, "When I told my husband that I was going to be a part of this, he
told me that I did not have the voice for it."
118. Yeah, I'm sure a lot of you have heard that too.
119.Me too.
120."It hurt so much, and I shed some tears, but something inside of me wanted to do this despite
his words.
121.It is a dream come true to be part of this choir, as I've never been part of one.
122.When I placed a marker on the Google Earth Map, I had to go with the nearest city, which is
about 400 miles away from where I live.
123.As I am in the Great Alaskan Bush, satellite is my connection to the world."
124.
126.The first is that human beings will go to any lengths necessary to find and connect with each
other.
130.There are people now online that are friends; they've never met.
131.But, I know myself too, I feel this virtual esprit de corps, if you will, with all of them.
133.What I'd like to close with then today is the first look at "Sleep" by Virtual Choir 2.0.
136.You can imagine, with 2,000 synchronized YouTube videos, the render time is just atrocious.
138.And it's a tremendous honor for me to be able to show it to you here first.
141.(Video) Virtual Choir: ♫ The evening hangs ♫ ♫ beneath the moon ♫ ♫ A silver thread on
darkened dune ♫ ♫ With closing eyes and resting head ♫ ♫ I know that sleep is coming
soon ♫ ♫ Upon my pillow, ♫ ♫ safe in bed, ♫ ♫ a thousand pictures fill my head ♫ ♫ I
cannot sleep ♫ ♫ my mind's aflight ♫ ♫ and yet my limbs seem made of lead ♫ ♫ If there
are noises in the night ♫
143.Thank you.
144.(Applause) Thank you very much.
145.Thank you.
146.Thank you.
147.(Applause)