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What Do You Get When You Condense A Classical Concerto? Instaconcerto

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

Keep it snappy - that's what social media is all about. Tweets, 140 characters; Snapchat video, no more than a handful of seconds. You can even catch quick music hits here and there. And now a classical concerto distilled to mere seconds.

(SOUNDBITE OF KREMERATA BALTICA SONG, "INSTACONCERTO")

MONTAGNE: Avi Avital is the classical mandolinist performing this concerto. It's just 75 seconds long.

AVI AVITAL: So the InstaConcerto, like we (laughter) name it, it's not even a miniature. It's like a micro- a nano-miniature.

MONTAGNE: A micro-nano-miniature concerto, but still, one with five distinct movements. Avital has been posting one movement to his Instagram account every day this week.

(SOUNDBITE OF KREMERATA BALTICA SONG, "INSTACONCERTO")

MONTAGNE: This - this is what he posted Tuesday.

(SOUNDBITE OF KREMERATA BALTICA SONG, "INSTACONCERTO")

PETER BREINER: It ends, and everybody goes, oh, oh - is that it? Ah - oh, I want more.

MONTAGNE: That's Peter Breiner who composed the concerto. He's hoping to reach people who might not be classical music listeners.

BREINER: Who never experienced this before and have the feeling, oh, it's actually nice.

MONTAGNE: And since these are so short, we can probably fit in one more movement.

(SOUNDBITE OF KREMERATA BALTICA SONG, "INSTACONCERTO") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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