Everyone's a maestro with new Wii software

UBS Virtual Maestro, which allows the player to conduct a virtual orchestra, was developed by Teresa Nakra and a team of programmers at the College of New Jersey, Ewing, with financing from Swiss bankers UBS.

The software impressed audiences at the Philadelphia Orchestra's Kimmel Center and the Seattle Symphony earlier this month, and will feature at the Cleveland Orchestra and the Ravinia Festival in coming months. A European tour is planned for the autumn, but there is no word on a commercial release.

The setup consists of a 42-inch plasma television screen, a large speaker and a Nintendo Wii running the software. Using the Wii remotes as a conductor's batons, the player guides the orchestra's tempo through either Rossini's William Tell Overture, Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony or Berlioz's Symphony Fantastique.

'There's an educational component to it,' said Peter Dillon of UBS. 'But it's also a lot of fun. We think it's sort of like the orchestra version of Guitar Hero, the video game.'

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