Orchestra Repertoire

Note

This project now has a full team.

Client

Graeme Bailey, Computer Science Department
<bailey@cs.cornell.edu>

Project

For orchestras ranging from community upwards there is a perennial problem of finding suitable repertoire. In this instance, 'suitable' is defined in large part to include the feasibility of the individual parts for the individual players.

Most conductors have a good idea about a smallish subset of music that might fit a particular orchestra (imagine for example that the oboe players are really good but the clarinetists are weak, that the violinists are weak but the viola players are strong and easily bored, etc). However, after a few seasons they run out of ideas for what to program for that group. The problem is that there exist lists of orchestral music which indicate the instrumentation needed, but not the level of trickiness of the individual parts.

The core value of the proposed web database is that conductors (and others) can 'grade' the difficulty of the parts for the pieces they know, and that consolidating this knowledge over a wide set of conductors could lead to a 'grading' of a wide spectrum of orchestral music. Essentially this is a case of constructing a 'key' representing a specific orchestra with which to search for matches within the repertoire. There are a number of other natural features which would come with this webapp, and much more detail can be given about the algorithmic details associated with this project. There are a number of conductors (from community directors to high profile professionals) who have indicated a very strong interest in participating once this has reached alpha stage.