On the stage of the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen, Torben Petersen performs conductor-like hand movements to make his eight-year-old dog Sophos bark.
Sophos, along with two other heavily trained dogs, Cookie and Sika, bark in time with the Danish Chamber Orchestra in a highly anticipated Sunday performance of the short “Hunting Symphony” by Leopold Mozart, father of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
This piece is rarely played with dogs on stage, because bands usually prefer to use recorded barking.
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The three dogs were chosen as a result of a test conducted last spring for their barking skills, and underwent training with their owners, who did not skimp on any food they liked, to bark in sync with the rhythms played by the band.
“The piece includes three sections, and in the last section we hear chasing sounds, then gunshots, then the dogs start barking,” orchestra chief Andreas Vito said, in an interview with Agence France-Presse during a training session.
And the Danish orchestra has shown no hesitation regarding the use of dogs on stage.
“Our main conductor, Adam Fisher, had hoped for years that dogs would be used to play this particular piece, because he would be able to add this element of participating dogs,” says Vito.
And in 2014, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra in the United States performed the piece with dogs on stage.
During the training session, the dogs listen to the first part of the piece from the back of the stage before their owners bring it to the front.
“If I had to be alone, I would be very nervous, but all eyes are on the dog, she is the star,” Hailie Lovering, owner of four-year-old Cookie, told AFP. “I’m behind her with all the foods she loves,” adds the 60-year-old, who makes motions with her fingers to prompt Cookie to bark.
(AFP)
