When L'Orchestra di Piazza Vittorio Meets the World Online

Editor's Notes

1. The Orchestra di Piazza Vittorio (OPV) was conceived and created by Mario Tronco and Agostino Ferrente and was established in 2002 within the Associazione Apollo 11, a project developed and supported by artists, intellectuals and professionals in the field of culture to save the historical Apollo Cinema in Rome from becoming a bingo hall
2. So far, the OPV has toured the world performing over 800 concerts in cities on all five continents including New York, San Francisco, Santa Cruz, Los Angeles, Toronto, Buenos Aires, Tunis, Melbourne, and Bahrain as well as all over Europe.
3. In addition to five albums, a documentary that has won numerous national and international awards and was the first docu-musical to be released in movie theatres in Europe, the USA and South America, the ensemble has produced many projects
4. including a self-financed theatrical concert (Il Giro del Mondo in 80 minuti) and the adaptation of two operas: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s The Magic Flute, with 150 world-wide performances, and Georges Bizet’s Carmen, which opened the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma 2014 summer season at the Terme di Caracalla and was later restaged in 2015 and produced by the Teatro Olimpico di Roma, the academia Filarmonica Romana and Vagabundos srl.
5. Social media management started in October 2013 when OPV performed “Carmen“ at the Opéra Théâtre Saint-Étienne in France. Since then, the OPV has worked hard to avoid one-way interaction and has been promoting dialogue and the exchange of opinions with its audience. Social media is about communicating with the audience, not at the audience so we try to combine the power of social media and storytelling in order to get the best results. In an attempt to connect with a worldwide audience, the main communication channels used are Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
6. Music videos, trailers, and behind the scenes are available for streaming on YouTube and Vimeo. Plenty of musical content is already accessible on platforms such as Spotify and SoundCloud and all OPV albums, including the latest studio work, CREDO, can be purchased on all the leading online stores.
7. What We Like to Share pictures of journeys on the road, OPV in the studio, during rehearsals, and even just friends in life; thank you notes to fans who follow and support OPV; newspaper articles about performances and productions; pictures and videos of the OPV doing funny things backstage.
8. Contents are provided mainly in Italian and English. In an attempt to connect with audiences in countries where OPV performs, some posts are also written in French, Spanish, Portuguese and Arabic.
9. FAQ When are you going to perform in my city? Do you have an email address where I can contact you? I am a university researcher; I would like some information for my research.   But the main question is Can I have the phone number of one of the musicians? And that's where a lot of community engagement falls apart, because it is not an answer I can give!
10. Facebook Insights is a powerful tool that tracks user interaction on Facebook Fan Pages. The People section of Page Insights gives information about the audience and the people the page reaches by gender, location and even language. It allows you to see the type of people who engage with your page and where they come from.   According to Facebook Insights the majority of fans that connect to the OPV page are from Rome, Milan and Naples. But it is very interesting to note that the cities that follow are Karachi and Lahore in Pakistan and then Rawalpindi and Islamabad, also in Pakistan; in fact these cities are placed higher on the list of engaged users than London, Lisbon and Paris, cities in which OPV has performed many times.
11. The Coke Studio Pakistan Factor Coke Studio is a Pakistani music television series which features live studio-recorded music performances by various artists. The show was produced by Rohail Hyatt up until Season 6 and is now produced by the Pakistani band, Strings. It is sponsored by Coca Cola Pakistan. Since it began in 2008, Coke Studio has been popular throughout the country, receiving critical acclaim and frequently being rebroadcast on numerous television and radio stations. The program focuses on the fusion of diverse musical influences in Pakistan, including eastern classical, folk, qawwali, bhangra, Sufi and contemporary hip hop, rock and pop music. The show provides a platform for renowned as well as upcoming and less mainstream artists of various genres, regions and languages, to collaborate musically in live studio recording sessions. OPV took part in the 2013 edition of the show performing 5 songs, but the musicians never left Rome. They recorded the songs in a studio a few months before the show aired and the tracks were later mixed by Coke Studio producer Rohail Hyatt with other performances by international artists. The fact that OPV is known in Pakistan, even though it has never been there, clearly demonstrates the power that the web and social media has on diffusing culture and music.
12. Engaging with Arab Speaking Countries Using Twitter’s internal search engine, it is possible to see that the OPV songs in Arabic are shared daily on this platform. An analysis of users who Retweet and comment positively on the content showed that these users engaged primarily from North African and Middle Eastern countries. Notwithstanding OPV has never held concerts or promoted their work in Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait or Saudi Arabia, this data was also confirmed through an analysis of the OPV audience using Twitter Analytics.