NINETY-six musicians from 33 countries have come together in New York to create musical harmony when the YouTube symphony orchestra makes its world debut at Carnegie Hall on Wednesday evening. Players aged 15 to 55, who hail from countries as diverse as Cuba, Australia, South Korea and Sweden, have convened in New York to perform works from composers including Bach, Mozart and John Cage. And they have been given only three days with Michael Tilson Thomas, the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra music director, to get it right. In a first for the music world, the orchestra was chosen from 3,000 applicants in 70 countries who auditioned via YouTube, the video sharing website. In honour of the occasion, the programme will also include the specially composed Internet Symphony No. 1 Eroica by Tan Dun, the Chinese composer. Telegraph At a practice session on Tuesday, the gamble of trying to turn complete strangers into perfect music partners seemed to be paying off. I was astonished because I thought it would take a lot longer to get ready, said Pierre Charles, a 27-year-old Paris-based cellist. The sound was right straight away. Others said that, regardless of how the performance goes, playing at Carnegie was an experience of a lifetime. I am an amateur player and for me, it is a very honourable and valuable experience to be here and broaden my life and my music, said Koichi Osada, an oboe player from Yokohama, Japan. John Wilson Gonzalez, a 27-year-old trombonist from Colombia, also described a marvellous experience being in New York. It was unimaginable that I could get to play in Carnegie Hall, a mythical theatre where only the great musicians play. Telegraph