The chimes of a piano can echo through the ears of classical music audiences worldwide this weekend, thanks to a new program allowing TCU’s music department to broadcast concert events online. TCU alumni Adam Golka, and Jose Feghali, artist in residence and professor of piano, will perform a Beethoven sonata Sunday, which will be broadcast live online using Internet2, a new high-speed Internet program.

Working along with network engineers, TCU network engineer Tony Fleming said Feghali has used the Internet2 program to aid with some of the online musical computing.

Fleming said this is the first time a project of this type has been done in the music school.

“This is one of Beethoven’s craziest experimental pieces, and we will be playing it together,” Golka said.

Golka, 19, is the spotlight musician in Jose Feghali’s online broadcasting project for the TCU music department. Golka began studying under Feghali at TCU when he was 15 as part of an in-depth program for piano.

Online video and audio of concerts from 2004 through the present have been available through the TCU Web site, but the work to put Golka’s performances online began in spring 2006.

“People can experience a live concert with almost the same immediacy as being there,” Feghali said.

The use of Internet2 with the music department has also opened up new possibilities in the classroom, Feghali said.

“It will give the ability for concerts, and master classes and lessons to be taken from far away,” Feghali said. “And students can audition from afar as long as the other group has Internet2.”

Feghali said two other music institutions have adopted Internet2: The Cleveland Institute of Music and the Real World Symphony in Miami.

Golka said the online broadcasts have brought him responses from people who couldn’t attend his performances.

“People form Japan and Poland have watched the concerts and have e-mailed me about my performances,” Golka said.

In order for the global music community to be more accessible, Feghali said, The Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, one of the most prestigious piano concerts in the world, is working to stream audio and video online.

Archived audio of the 2005 competition as well as video of some of the soloist performances are available through the Van Cliburn Foundation Web site, he said.

Feghali said the first global Web cast of his work was his performance of a Samuel Zyman piano concerto.

“Parents and family were able to watch across the world including in my home country of Brazil,” Feghali said.