They had more than four million YouTube subscribers – so why did TwoSet delete 1400 videos?

“The concept of Sacrilegious Games came from one of our biggest viral videos from a while back where there’s a violinist that claimed to be the fastest violinist in the world [and turned it] into like a media PR stunt,” Chen says. “He played very fast, but he wasn’t really playing the violin. I think he knew that – it was just a PR stunt – but it was effective. It got views. “So Sacrilegious Games became this proxy term for, in some ways, doing something a little bit disingenuous, or not good, for the sake of publicity and views. It’s this constant tension for every artist and every creator to balance making something that feels genuine versus making something that you feel will get views.” Producing 90 minutes of compelling concert material demanded a new approach. “The question was always: ‘How do we turn a 10-minute YouTube video into a one-hour-plus live experience?’” Chen says.

They could have looked to symphonic form as a way of generating material but turned mainly to the movies – scripts, narrative arcs, the journeys characters take. “There’s always some kind of thematic debate,” Chen says. “One of the themes that personally feels very close to us, and we understand a lot, is what it’s like being a classical musician in today’s world. That theme ultimately becomes: how do you choose between views [clicks] and sacrilegiousness on one extreme end of the spectrum – pure entertainment, Hollywood baby, whatever – versus being authentic, being an artist, being true to yourself, creating a respectable, valuable art form that you’re genuinely passionate about?” There’s even a plot twist, Yang adds. “And I think the goal was actually so the people that come – the fans that come, anyone for that matter – will leave wanting to discover more of the classical music world ... We want everyone that comes to generally leave with something – ‘I want to practise tomorrow’, ‘I want to pick up an instrument’ or ‘I want to go to a classical concert and give it a chance’.” They say a show of hands at the concerts has revealed about 30 per cent of their audience are first-timers. “Except for Vienna,” Yang says. “Everyone’s been to a concert there!”