{"id":12365,"date":"2024-01-08T16:57:25","date_gmt":"2024-01-08T16:57:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/?p=12365"},"modified":"2024-01-08T16:57:25","modified_gmt":"2024-01-08T16:57:25","slug":"hilarious-tradition-conductor-birthday-pranks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/2024\/01\/08\/hilarious-tradition-conductor-birthday-pranks\/","title":{"rendered":"The Hilarious Tradition of Conductor Birthday Pranks"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_12366\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-12366\" style=\"width: 1200px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12366\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2024\/01\/Birthday-prank.jpg\" alt=\"David Robertson\" width=\"1200\" height=\"628\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2024\/01\/Birthday-prank.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2024\/01\/Birthday-prank-300x157.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2024\/01\/Birthday-prank-1024x536.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2024\/01\/Birthday-prank-768x402.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-12366\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">David Robertson (NYO USA)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The National Youth Orchestra of the United States of America surprises their conductor on his birthday.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What\u2019s Up:<\/strong> \u00a0Orchestral pranks on conductors are a longstanding tradition. A few years ago, the National Youth Orchestra of the United States of America <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/WDn0sIsSQmc?si=21jP1yCTLQWrgAIr\">pranked their 65-year-old conductor<\/a>, David Robertson, on his birthday. The conductor was in the midst of conducting Britten\u2019s Violin Concerto with the acclaimed violinist Gil Shaham. After the first few bars of the Britten, the music faded into an arrangement of \u201cHappy Birthday.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/WDn0sIsSQmc?si=bUuaVu1GTCXMnuk0\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>This trend has continued far and wide. Four years ago, members of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and Toronto Mendelssohn Choir interrupted Sir Andrew Davis\u2019 conducting to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=6wZCHFIplXE\">serenade him on his 75th birthday<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Digging Deeper:<\/strong> And it\u2019s not always \u201cHappy Birthday.\u201d In 2015, the Florida Orchestra <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=8SzBWh4021k\">pranked their British conductor<\/a> Michael Francis by playing \u201cGod Save the Queen\u201d in lieu of \u201cThe Star Spangled Banner.\u201d The Florida Orchestra is particularly skilled at such pranks &#8211; check out their <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=YqeO4VBgrqs\">Imperial March invasion<\/a> in the middle of Prokofiev\u2019s Romeo and Juliet.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Bottom Line:<\/strong> Anyone claiming classical musicians don\u2019t know how to have fun would benefit from checking out these silly videos. It turns out even Mahler can be morphed into \u201cHappy Birthday.\u201d Check out the Berlin Philharmonic\u2019s impressive rendition <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Gb5HdJjwoXM\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The National Youth Orchestra of the United States of America surprises their conductor on his birthday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":12366,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false},"categories":[360,2,231],"tags":[371],"yst_prominent_words":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2024\/01\/Birthday-prank.jpg","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12365"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/48"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12365"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12365\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12368,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12365\/revisions\/12368"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12365"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=12365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}