Eastman School of music freshman Jennifer Zhou has been chosen as one of only three flutists in the 2011 YouTube Symphony Orchestra and will be performing under renowned conductor Michael Tilson Thomas at the Sydney Opera House.
The YouTube Symphony Orchestra is made of up musicians from across the globe who went through an online audition process. Zhou, who studies with Bonita Boyd at Eastman, will be flown to Australia in March for a classical music summit of rehearsals and concerts beginning March 14. The orchestra’s final performance on March 20 will be streamed live online.
The approximately 100 members of the 2011 YouTube Symphony Orchestra come from more than 30 countries, including the United States, Canada, Australia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Brazil, Ecuador, Spain, Germany, Italy, Poland, Russia, and others. They went through a process that included an online audition period on YouTube last fall. An international judging panel, consisting of representatives from the London Symphony Orchestra and other musical experts, then selected more than 336 finalists. In December, the YouTube community voted on their favorites. Thomas, the music director of the San Francisco Symphony, selected the orchestra members, taking the voting into consideration.
Zhou is the daughter of Winnie Jin and Xiaoping Zhou of Columbus, Ohio, and graduated from Upper Arlington High School.
The first YouTube Symphony Orchestra in 2009 included then-Eastman sophomore Nicholas Fitton, who played piccolo in the 2009 orchestra.
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