Lectures For Lifelong Learners!

Since the Middle Ages, people have gathered in large groups in public spaces for street theatre and political demonstrations. But not until 2013 in New York did gatherings proliferate as spontaneous, playful social experiments to temporarily take over commercial and public areas simply to show that they could. These gatherings have spread all over the world and have become known as flash mobs. But the idea caught the attention of professional musical groups, symphony orchestras, and opera companies who saw it as a way to promote their concert hall performances by giving free samples of their work to audiences in town squares, shopping malls, and transportation hubs. This presentation takes an in-depth look at the flash mob phenomenon by tracing its origin and watching well-known classical and popular musical works performed in the streets, town squares, shopping malls, and supermarkets of Europe, Asia, North and South America, and Israel. Visual images, audio and video will be used throughout the program.