You Can Play The Bucket For A Global Orchestra During Earth Hour

This Saturday, a cacophony of clarinets, castanets and upturned containers will become the Global Orchestra and play along with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra during Earth Hour.

The initiative, co-conceived by Global Orchestra Founder and Artistic Director Charlie Chan, seeks to involve performers from around the world in a “Concert for the Planet.”

It's intended to continue Earth Hour’s mission to raise awareness of climate change by encouraging people to turn off their electricity for sixty minutes.

Global Orchestra’s musicians will range from acclaimed experts to absolute novices, each playing along with the SSO’s live rendition of Holst’s “The Planets” from the Sydney Opera House on everything from flutes to oboes to buckets.

The movement will begin at 8:30pm EST on March 28, with conductor David Robertson counting in the Global Orchestra via ‘Conductor-Cam’.

The seed for the initiative was planted five years ago at an Earth Hour event on the Darling Harbour attended by Chan.

“The lights went out and we were like, ‘Oh my God, now what?’ And I thought, ‘What if we put a soundtrack to it and made it more like New Year’s Eve?’”

The proposal of a musical extension to Earth Hour was initially received by the SSO with caution. “’Wow, it sounds crazy, keep talking to us,’” Chan remembers.

Now, even NASA is involved.

“They said ‘Yeah, well we’ve got 160 rocket scientists here and a lot of them play musical instruments.’

“There’s going to be this fantastic photo of them in front of their rocket science lab, in front of the Mars rover, all holding their clarinets and guitars in their orange spacesuits,” Chan said.

Climate change awareness and accountability is of great concern to Chan, who gets "angry about plastic bottles [and] mad about plastic bags.”

She believes Global Orchestra gives citizens the world over an opportunity to take responsibility for the planet and understand their part in it.

“We all have to contribute to make a difference, and the problem with climate change and sustainability is that everybody thinks it’s somebody else’s problem. ‘Oh, if only the government did more recycling, or if my next-door neighbour didn’t ride motorcycles that used a lot of petrol.’ It all just comes back to us in the end," Chan added.

“We’re on our own super-organism, this planet Earth. We’re on a spaceship really. That’s the idea of “The Planets,” is that we’re part of a solar system. It’s bigger than us.

“We’ve got limited amount of life support on this spaceship, so we have to be very mindful of what we’ve got.”

Unfortunately, the very person who first conceptualised the Global Orchestra five years ago won’t be able to participate. Instead, she'll be busy actually wrangling the broadcast from the Sydney Opera House.

“Maybe next year I’ll get on the double bass,” Chan hoped.

Instructions on how to become involved in the event, as well as sheet music for instruments as refined as the flute and as rudimentary as the bucket, can be found at www.globalorchestra.com.