Watch the London Symphony Orchestra perform Tan Dun's Symphony for YouTube

We all know what to expect from YouTube. A four-minute skive in the form of archived George Bush gaffes, or a deviant dog owner encouraging his three-legged pet to play hopscotch. Perhaps even a chihuahua dressed as James Bond if you’re lucky, but not exactly what you’d call a platform for high culture.

Or is it? This week, YouTube and the London Symphony Orchestra launched the first collaborative online orchestra, sending out a searchlight for the world’s undiscovered musical geniuses.

You’d be forgiven for thinking that it’s not the most natural match. But according to the world-renowned conductor Michael Tilson Thomas, who will conduct the final line-up, classical music and the internet are already best pals. “There’s an astonishing amount of classical music available on YouTube of enormous archival importance, and I know legions of very serious classical artists and students who as a first resource go to check out YouTube. We’re hoping to expand that potential of the platform.”

So how will the scheme work? Musicians — and wannabe musicians — are invited to practise and upload two performances: a “talent video”, playing a piece of their choice, and an interpretation of their instrument’s part in a new orchestral composition by the Chinese composer Tan Dun.

The entrants will be reduced to a shortlist by a panel of experts from leading orchestras, and the “YouTube community” will then vote on the winners, who will be flown to New York for a three-day classical music summit (led by Tilson Thomas), culminating in the final performance of the symphony at Carnegie Hall. And, in true web-geek fashion, selected entries will also be “mashed together” to create a single video of the symphony.

Online, applicants will find video lessons from LSO players to help them to prepare their entries, as well as the opportunity to check out the competition or simply to comment on it themselves. Go to youtube.com/symphony

But given that they are vetting the entrants before they let the public pick from semi-finalists, what exactly are the judges looking for? Tilson Thomas’s wish list isn’t very specific — “a creative approach and a level of real technical excellence” is about as far he’ll be drawn — but one thing that does shine through his aspirations is how much the YouTube Symphony Orchestra can do to bring together classical music’s increasingly far-flung devotees. “It’s been extraordinary to see the way people in Asia, the Middle East or South America have made this music part of their lives and have been thinking about its future. I think this is going to be an amazing way of starting to understand just how many people there are out there.”

Five great classical performances on YouTube

1. Jascha Heifetz plays Paganini

2. Fritz Wunderlich sings Mozart

3. Cult Chinese pianist Lang Lang plays Liszt

4. Birgit Nilsson sings Wagner

5. Thomas Ades's Asyla, conducted by Simon Rattle

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