About the Orchestra

Mission

Using digital instruments The Fauxharmonic Orchestra’s mission is to bring fresh and artistically meaningful experiences of orchestral music to a diverse, world-wide audience.

The Fauxharmonic Orchestra is committed to:

  1. Advancing the state-of-the-art for the digital performance of orchestral music by contributing to, and sharing knowledge about the development of tools, software, instruments, techniques and aesthetic foundations of digital musical instruments.
  2. Increasing the awareness of, and support for, music composed for orchestra.
  3. Preserving and cultivating the rich heritage of orchestral music—from Bach to the composers of our day—at the highest artistic level.
  4. Developing new audiences of all ages for classical and contemporary orchestral music.
  5. Producing outreach programs that elucidate the inherent connections between of the creative processes of performance and composition.
  6. Performing significant new orchestral music.
  7. Promoting and encouraging orchestral composers.
  8. Providing artistic opportunities for aspiring and experienced orchestral conductors from anywhere in the world.

Paul Henry Smith

Paul Henry Smith
Paul Henry Smith studied conducting with Gustav Meier and Leonard Bernstein at Tanglewood and with Sergiu Celibidache at the Curtis Institute of Music and in Munich. He has studied orchestration and composition with Richard Hoffmann, Lukas Foss and Steven Scott Smalley. His career is devoted to promoting and improving the digital performance of orchestral music.

In the 1980s, as a visiting researcher at MIT’s Media Lab, Mr. Smith worked on early digital orchestra systems and one of the first computer-controlled Bösendorfer pianos created by Wayne Stahnke (The 290 SE). His high-quality orchestral performances are increasingly sought for film and television scores, as well as for insightful interpretations of concert music.

Mr. Smith has an MFA in musicology from Brandeis University and a BA in composition and theory from Oberlin College. He lives in the Boston area with his wife and two children.

13 comments

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April 8, 2007 at 5:22 pm

Anonymous

Are you trying to put musicians out of a job? Or is that just an added bonus? Digital recordings that sound like an orchestra just put the final nail in the coffin on an already dying classical music.

April 8, 2007 at 9:10 pm

Paul Henry Smith

Anonymous,

Consider these points:

1. No musician has been put out of a job due to my work.
2. I am a musician and I now have a job.
3. That’s net job growth for musicians!

Also, if classical music truly were dying, then a smart way to prolong its life would be to reduce the cost of producing it. Fortunately, I don’t buy the premise that the music is dying. Instead, technology is making it possible to make even more music. Just as video did not wipe out theater attendance, and CDs did not wipe out concert attendance (and, by the way, neither did radio and LPs), neither will digital orchestra recordings. This truly is an old saw. I would wager that you would not have a problem with digital orchestral music if it were to create more jobs for musicians. My point is that it does.

Hey, instead of thinking of the market for classical music as a fixed-size pie, why not think of it as expandable? And why not expand it in whatever way produces great musical experiences? Is there something wrong with that?

April 10, 2007 at 1:59 am

Dmitry Liss

I’ve listened to samples- it’s terrible! No heart, dead sound… It might be a good device for composers to introduce their new works to orchestras and conductors, but to record complete Beethoven’s symphonies… Come on, Maestro, having such a teachers you must understand what’s the real value of any real orchestra, even not a perfect one.

April 10, 2007 at 12:17 pm

Paul Henry Smith

Dimitry, I agree with you. The value of a real orchestra is far superior.

Some people hear how digital orchestra music falls short and stop at that.
I hear the same thing and imagine how much better it will become.

What would have happened if, when wax cylinders came out, people just said, “no heart, dead sound” and gave up? Wait, that actually did happen. Well, despite that, others saw potential and made huge improvements. That is precisely what will happen with digital orchestra instruments. If music played by them falls short now, it is only a matter of time before it improves vastly. The economic and artistic incentives are too great.

April 24, 2007 at 4:27 pm

Carlos Caicedo

Congratulations for your initiative Mr. Smith! I am a young classical composer and I know by experience how difficult or expensive is to get a new work performed by a real orchestra. Economical and ideological issues difficult so much to get performed new works of composers. Is a kind of monopoly. Tech and science are now allies of musicians. Internet and computers are the most powerful tools of the entire history.

My language is very tonal. I use software to aid the task of composing, and for previewing my works. I hope we can talk more anytime you wish.

Good luck and congratulations for your efforts! Long live to classical music!

April 25, 2007 at 6:18 pm

Allen Worthey

I do not criticize you for using samples of real instruments to produce music. It is a wonderful age in which we live, when aspiring composers have within a short reach the means to produce very good recordings of their creations. During no other time in history have composers been afforded such an opportunity to reach an audience or an abundance of new timbres for which to write. And I applaud you for your efforts to improve the technology. Perhaps the day will come when the listener can be placed in a concert hall and, with closed eyes, be able to detect no difference between the playback of a sampled orchestra and a performance on the real instruments! In the meantime, for me the difference between a sampled orchestra and a real orchestra is like the difference between motor-boating and sailing.

April 30, 2007 at 8:47 pm

Lonnie Leik

well - if I understood Maestro Celibidache correctly there is on the one hand sound that stays as sound (forever) and on the other hand sound that transcends to music. so where is the “parameter” for that transcendence in a complete virtual environment?

btw: I was a student of Celi 1987-1996, sadly I never met you in Munich

best regards//Lonnie
Prof.Leik[at]gmail.com

May 1, 2007 at 6:57 am

Paul Henry Smith

Prof. Leik:

Yes, I remember very well the notion that “sound is not music, but sound could become music” and so forth. And, indeed, you raise a good question: is there the opportunity for transcendence in a “complete virtual environment.”

The problem is, it is not a “complete” virtual environment. There can be no music without the mind of a listener. But even with a digital orchestra, there is still a listener who is decidedly not “virtual.” It is in the mind of that listener where music may (or may not) take place.

As I recall, there was nothing Celibidache ever said that would suggest that only sounds made by certain technologies could offer the opportunity for a transcendant experience (say, only wood, metal, horsehair and plastic — but not loudspeakers).

And, even if he did say that, it would not have been true precisely because the “transcendance” or whatever you want to call the “musical experience” takes place in the mind of the hearer. The sounds only present the conditions or possibility for that experience emerging.

May 11, 2007 at 6:18 pm

Donal Rafferty

Kudos to you, Mr. Smith. Having some experience with sequencing my music with hardware MIDI synthesisers, I can only imagine how much work it is to have a digital orchestra sounding this real!

This is an excellent idea for the likes of film scores where the realism of the orchestral sound is often secondary to dialogue or onscreen events. I don’t suppose you care to divulge the computer setup you are using?!? The samples (although skillfully tweaked by yourself) are the best I’ve heard. I’m planning on investing in a software synth library soon and am interested to know about real-life (websites are vague!) system requirements for the higher end libraries.

In response to others comments, I am doubtful if a digital orchestra would ever replace a real orchestra in the forseeable future (although I know this is not what you are aiming to do). Personally, I listen to, or more importantly, watch real musicians play for the combined visual-aural experience. The joy of a live performance for me has a lot to do with the “human” triumphs of the individuals involved in creating the music. These human triumphs make physical, mental and emotional demands of the players/conductor. Computers can only mimic what humans tell them to do, they don’t feel emotion (as far as I know!) and they are not subject to the same physical/mental constraints as humans - therefore, the experience is incomparable with a real orchestra’s performance. Does this make sense?

August 11, 2007 at 2:03 pm

Davis Gloff

I respectfully submit that there are some basic realities some folks seem to be missing.

The number of groups, venues and concerts is very small compared to the number of available works. If I were to try to get my pieces performed by a live orchestra, it would be an uphill struggle at best. I could try to hire an orchestra, but the cost of that is prohibitive.

If people really care about musicians working (and I certainly do, because I am a working performer) the solution is not to decry digital performances, but to find a way to fund live performance.

Whether people want a finished product, or something to serve as an audition presentation, my best guess (although it doesn’t say anywhere here what the cost is,) is that the Fauxharmonic will bring a quality performance within the reach of people who aren’t wealthy, like… say…. musicians.

December 14, 2007 at 6:16 pm

J. Morello

Mr. Smith, I was extremely impressed with the sound quality of your remastered works. I have submitted to you a sample of one of my own compositions, and I look forward to hearing it remastered. I am very well considering purchasing the full recording. I disagree with anyone who says that this idea is hurtful to music; it is a very great addition, and I am very impressed with what you have done.

Thank you, and I look forward to hearing from you soon!

J. Morello

April 14, 2008 at 9:10 pm

Christian Fernando Perucchi

Mr. Smith, your digital orchestra sounds great, are you using a private librar? perhaps modeling? or are you mixing with any comercial tools?

thanks and cheers from Argentina!

Christian Fernando Perucchi

April 23, 2008 at 6:19 pm

Kyle Beckham

I completely disagree that sampled instruments are cold and dead or whatever. Anyone who spends enough time with samplers knows that a sample of instrument is not an imitation of an instrument–it is a recording of the instrument itself. If you want a crescendo and the distinct changes in an instrument that comes with it, record one and use it. Want multiphonics on wind instruments? Record them. There already exists prepared piano libraries. Automation and digital effects such as low pass filters can make even classical scores come alive in the digital domain.

And what about CD’s? TECHNICALLY all digital recordings ARE samples, they just take up more time than short one-note or one-phrase samples. But do we complain that CD’s have replaced live musicians? If we complain about “virtual” orchestras, then we have to do something about the CD problem as well.

Finally, composers like myself have the impossible task of paying live performers if we’re even able to find them at all. Where I live, it isn’t possible or practical to find musicians willing to try something new. Come on, when was the last time a computer complained to you about the difficulty of a piece? I had one passage that called for a tremolo played “sul ponticello” that my quartet refused to play because “it doesn’t sound pretty.” I may not be a string player, but I could have easily gotten to some string instruments, played it myself, and had it triggered in time with the computer with no questions asked.

If musicians feel threatened by digital instruments (and they shouldn’t), let them be reminded that the survival of their livelihood ultimately rests in their friendliness towards contemporary composers and their openness to new forms of expression.

My kudos to you, Paul, for providing an invaluable service. Maybe one day I can send some business your way.