#InstaConcerto is a five movement Concerto for mandolin and strings in which each one of the movement is 15 seconds long.
Composer: Peter Breiner
Mandolin: Avi Avital
Orchestra: Kremerata Baltica
Harpsichord: Olivia Friemel
InstaConcerto is an experiment in art, music, social media, and composition, born of a casual discussion between Avital and Breiner. The idea was to see whether a concerto - traditionally thought of as a presentation and working out of themes by a soloist in alternation and collaboration with an orchestra - could retain its essential identity within the context of a time-restrictive social media platform. Social media outlets have attracted artists for as long as they have existed, in spite of, or perhaps due to, their limitations. Twitter immediately tempted poets to test the expressive potential of 140 characters; Instagram is an open invitation to distribute samples of visual art, but initially permitted only a square frame. Though it has now expanded the allowable video length to one minute, Avital and Breiner chose the iconic 15 seconds original allowable time on Instagram as their venue. Within those parameters, the composer tried to maintain a musical structure, a tension-release relationship in each movement that was perceptible despite the micro-miniature format. As Avital says: “We wanted to raise questions with this project, both about the artistic value of the composition within the given restrictions of the time-frame, and about the attention span of our generation and its relationship to classical music.”
the InstaConcerto was first premiered exclusively on Instagram ( aviavital) on July 18th 2016 with the first movement, followed by the other four movements in the four consecutive days.