Getting An Orchestra To Play My Piece?

Lets pretend i made a piece for orchestra, kay? ;D (my skills aren't high enough to do that ( ;_; ).... anyways)

How the heck am i supposed to get an orchestra to play it? And how about recording it?

I mean, do i have to hire one? should i conduct them myself? would it be too expensive?

(and before you say "get you friends to do it", i don't have ANY friends who play classic instruments, lol)

Unless you got a lot (and I mean a LOT) of extra cash lying around, "hiring" an orchestra is out of the question. One way is to enter composition competitions (google some) and if you win, they'll probably play your piece and record it. OR if you know a music director/conductor with an orchestra, you can always ask them to perform your work (a little groveling/bribing/greasing doesn't hurt).

Before you do all of this though, I would strongly urge you to hone your orchestral/composition skills so you have a higher chance of getting your work played.

You might want to consider enrolling in some sort of music academy if you can - it's my understanding that the students at these types of schools have many opportunities to have their works played, either at end of year ceremonies by the school or local orchestra or just by students by on the side. This might not be the case everywhere, though.

You can actually get a decent orchestra in eastern europe to do it for a few thousand.

Most commercial 'orchestra' music uses vsts these days

You might want to consider enrolling in some sort of music academy if you can - it's my understanding that the students at these types of schools have many opportunities to have their works played, either at end of year ceremonies by the school or local orchestra or just by students by on the side. This might not be the case everywhere, though.

You will also learn a good deal of music theory, which will help a little bit, and meet a lot of musicians with bright ideas, which will help a lot. Studying music or audio production at a 'regular' uni/college should work as well if you don't want to limit yourself to conservatories.

Save your money and buy all the same music software/technology that Max Castillo has. Then you basically own your own orchestra! ;) (I'm completely jealous of what he has)

Save your money and buy all the same music software/technology that Max Castillo has. Then you basically own your own orchestra! ;) (I'm completely jealous of what he has)

That would be 'saving' money? 

I'm sure all that tech isn't cheap..

I am pretty sure that most "good" orchestral vst cost a lot too :/ not to mention all the tweaking you need to do to make them sound better (and there is the space they occupy in the HDD, holy crap, 20gigs+ of vst)

Where are you WeeGee?  Any chance you could scare up a quartet of fellow composers on craigslist and all take turns playing through each other's compositions?  (Yay craigslist!)  Even if none of you play well enough to really want to perform in public, just playing a piece through together in someone's living room would be a great chance to figure out what works and doesn't work in your compositions.  Start writing solo music for piano.  Add a violin.  Move up to quartets.  Then chamber orchestra.  Then full orchestra.  Keep adding instruments as you make friends.  (:  I'd write for what you've got, not what you wish you had.  It will be less frustrating and you'll be able to get real feedback from friends about what works and what needs to be more clearly marked, or is needlessly difficult.  

Thanks! :D I'll keep that in mind.

If you're serious about hearing a lot of your compositions performed by something other than beeps and boops of GM-MIDI-level sound, a VST library may be your best option.
An orchestra will charge you per composition. A VST library will last you as long as you want it to, for as many compositions as you want it to perform.

A good orchestral VST-capable  computer with SSDs will probably run you ~$2000-$2500 or so.

Decent VSTs can range you from basically $500 (For EWQL Symphonic Orchestra Platinum) upwards to ~$2000 (The Hollywood series in Diamond Editions on sale).

Is $3000 - $5000 for a lot of years of hearing your compositions played back as much as possible worth it or is paying by the performance worth it?
That depends what you want out of the experience.

EWQL Symphonic Orchestra has pretty easy demands on a computer. ~120 GB of hard drive storage, 16 GB of RAM and any i5 will be plenty. You could even get away with 8 GBs of RAM if you needed to. You can build that for under $1000.

The Hollywood Series will force you into the high-end i7 (like a 6-core - 12 hyperthreaded - 4930k or something similar), multiple SSD and 64 GB of RAM territory. Now we're getting closer to a $3000 computer.
 

What I do is record one instrument playing and I then use a sound editing software with multiple audio tracks. I then make multiple copies of the sound with varying tempo and then I got an orchestra of cellos!

Same with percussion instruments, I recorded timpani banging tunes. I then make multiple copies of the sound and again, I use a sound editing program and play with the audio channels and stereo signals to simulate the effect that the drum is all around the listener.

Sorry for my bad English I'm not a native English speaker...