Needs Moar Beauty

Flash mobs as a phenomenon, I think, have faded in popularity a bit.  The once unique and even stupendous displays of crowdsourced performance art were everywhere, or seemed to be.  The fact is, they still are, but now are passe and even quaint.  So it seems to me.  But one specific kind of flash mob still catches me off-guard when I encounter it on YouTube and once in downtown Portland during my commute: the classical music flash mob.

Strictly speaking, these aren't probably flash mob qua flash mob.  I think it's safe to say a fully symphony orchestra meeting in casual clothes to play a public space might more properly be called a "free concert."  And I'm sure much of the impetus behind world-class organizations like Opera Philadelphia performing their roving "Random Acts of Culture" across the cityscape is the result of the YouTube epiphany of some hip middle-aged marketing maven who saw delighted audiences in some of Improv Everywhere's uploads and thought, "Hey, that could maybe put butts in seats...."

However it comes to be, I love these videos.  I love them to death and back to life again.  They're beautiful and powerful, and seeing the people standing right in the middle of powerful, professional performances like the Copenhagen Phil's rendering of Bolero in the passenger concourse at Copehnagen Central Station makes me happy.  So maybe it makes you happy.

Here are my five favorites.

1.  Ravel at the Copenhagen Central Station

2. A friggin' BANK COMMERCIAL, Ode to Joy

3. Icelandic hymn, Hear Heaven's Carpenter in Wuppertal Hauptbahnhof, Wuppertal, Germany

4. Handel's Hallelujah chorus in the Philadelphia Central City Macy's

5. The Vienna People's Opera (Volksoper Wien) Playing Carmina Burana at...yup...a train station.