Organic Collaboration: A Self-Conducted Orchestra

A flock of birds. A school of fish. A vast herd of migrating wildebeest. Nature is full of elegant examples of groups working together to achieve highly complex results, but with no clear leader. Beautiful when you think about it, but also a little strange, as there aren't as many examples of leader-less triumph in human society.

But, if you head to South Street in Jamaica Plain, you'll find a storefront where organic collaboration is producing beautiful results. It's the rehearsal space for A Far Cry: a group of 17 young classical musicians who came together in 2007 to form a conductor-less ensemble.

A Far Cry is pushing the bounds of classical music. So we listened in as the group rehearsed "Heiliger Dankgesang" from Beethoven's Opus 132 to understand just how a musical group conducts itself without a conductor.

A Far Cry kicks off its sixth season with its "Dreams and Prayers" program, and begins its term as the resident chamber orchestra at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum this weekend.

Listen to A Far Cry in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum's online music library.