Smackdown: Virtual Orchestras

From Broadway theaters to opera houses and Hollywood production studios, digital orchestras are providing controversial alternatives to real-life musicians. The most recent example concerns the Broadway revival of West Side Story, which will soon lose half of its string section for a synthesizer.

Today: a Soundcheck Smackdown debate on digital orchestras. Joining us are Paul Woodiel, a violinist who plays in the pit orchestra for West Side Story, and Paul Henry Smith, the creator of the Fauxharmonic, a computer program that uses digital versions of musical notes to replicate conventional instruments.

Also joining us is mezzo-soprano Tynan Davis, who performs a selection from Handel's opera Xerxes with the Fauxharmonic in the Soundcheck studio.
Smackdown: Virtual Orchestras

Are they talking about pre-recorded synthesizer music or someone actually in the pit playing a keyboard live? I'm confused about that.

I heard some of the broadcast. From what I could tell the "Faux Harmonic" is a computer running the "Vienna Symphonic" sample library with some real-time tempo control. The sound was very impressive, but the sustained legato string passages they chose didn't reflect much of the challenges of a score like West Side Story.

Unfortunately this broadcast did little to clarify the situation with electronic music and live theater. The term "Virtual Orchestra" is commonly used to refer to any sequencer/sampler combination that can reproduce orchestral scores, regardless of whether it can be manipulated in real time. The "Virtual Orchestras" that are seen in some touring shows are designed to change tempo and hop around as needed in a live performance.

---