medium: how an iraqi orchestra found a home online — medium

26/09/15 12:44How an Iraqi orchestra found a home online — Medium

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How an Iraqi orchestrafound a home onlinethe National Youth Orchestra of Iraq was born — and continues to thrive — on the web



When we decided to do a crowd-funding campaign for the National YouthOrchestra of Iraq’s upcoming U.S. tour, we thought of Kickstarter first. Theplatform had just received its billionth dollar in pledges, and everyoneknew that crowd-funding was not just a fad or a niche.

But was it right for us? An orchestra seems out of place in the digitallandscape, but for this group, it was a natural choice. The group was bornonline, and that’s how it continues to thrive.

Back in 2008, when founder Zuhal Sultan first conceived of the NYOI, shespread the word of her idea on Facebook. She found and interviewed aconductor via Skype. A tweet got her into the office of the Ministry ofCulture, and the orchestra had its first sponsor. Despite terrible internetconnection, Zuhal managed to gather enough musicians from throughoutthe country to upload audition videos to YouTube.

YouTube had played a major role in the orchestra even before the groupexisted. Because of the exodus of artists and teachers in 2003, young Iraqimusicians turned to the web for instruction. They watchedperformances and masterclasses online, and even managed to take lessonson Skype from time to time. In a country where learning Western classicalmusic was widely reproached, the internet was a free, safe place for themusicians to study.

So even with connection that required up to 10 hours to upload 5 minutesof video, students submitted their auditions online — the method still used

Individual instruction ishard to come by in Iraq:one of many reasons the

orchestra travels abroad tostudy and perform.

http://kck.st/1fI8FlE

http://nyoiinfo.wix.com/nyoiraq

http://youtube.com/user/nyoiinfo



by the orchestra today. With members from all throughout Iraq andcollaborators around the world, why not turn to the internet? It’s the sameplace where a small group of supporters first gathered together andshared the news of the project.

Kickstarter was a perfect match for so many reasons. It’s become ahousehold name in a country where NYOI was virtually unknown. It’sfocused on arts and innovation, which is what this orchestra is all about — uniting disparate peoples and genres, performing classics alongside worldpremieres. And NYOI shares so many of the values already prominentamong Kickstarter’s creators and backers: creativity, community, self-expression, and, of course, boot-strapping.

To launch an all-or-nothing campaign is an incredible leap of faith. Wetook that leap because we know firsthand the transformative power ofmusic and the value of our project. (And we have five years of internationalsuccess to back us up on that.) Now we’re thrilled to come to the U.S. inone of our biggest and most important leaps yet.

Join us on Kickstarter.

NYOI performs atBeethovenhalle (2011)

http://21stcenturyconductor.blogspot.com/2012/10/management-by-faith.html

http://issuu.com/nyoiraq

http://kck.st/1fI8FlE

medium: how an iraqi orchestra found a home online — medium

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