Viral TikTok video shows a ‘Happy Birthday’ surprise for Philadelphia Orchestra conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin
An old clip of Nézet-Séguin getting a birthday surprise at a performance in Philadelphia is going viral.
If you’ve seen Philadelphia Orchestra conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin popping up on your TikTok timeline lately, you’re not alone.
A clip of Nézet-Séguin getting a birthday surprise at a performance is going viral on the platform, amassing more than 1.5 million likes since it was posted Monday. In it, Nézet-Séguin begins conducting a piece, only to have the orchestra playing it morph the music into a rendition of “Happy Birthday.”
And judging by Nézet-Séguin’s reaction, he wasn’t in on it.
As it turns out, the clip comes from a performance at the All-City High School Music Festival on March 6, 2019 — Nézet-Séguin’s 44th birthday. Held at the Kimmel Center, that festival featured performances from ensembles in the All-City Philadelphia music program, with Nézet-Séguin volunteering to conduct.
In return, he got the birthday serenade captured in the now-viral clip.
At the time, Nézet-Séguin believed he was conducting the “Hallelujah Chorus” from George Frideric Handel’s Messiah, said Philadelphia Orchestra chief communications officer Ashley Berke. But instead, he got an arrangement of “Happy Birthday” put together by Central High School Orchestra director Benjamin Blazer.
“They carefully orchestrated the arrangement to ‘trick’ Yannick,” Berke said.
And tricked he was. In a longer video of the birthday prank, Nézet-Séguin expresses his surprise to the crowd.
“I really didn’t know what was going on there,” he said after the performance. The tip-off that something was up, he adds in the clip, was the starting notes from the percussion section.
It’s likely not the last public surprise we’ll see for Nézet-Séguin, too. In fact, these birthday moments are becoming something of a tradition in Philly.
“Whenever Yannick is in town on his birthday, these impromptu ‘Happy Birthday’ performances tend to happen on stage,” Berke said.
According to Nézet-Séguin’s performance calendar, though, he’ll be at Carnegie Hall for his birthday this year for a performance with the MET Orchestra Chamber Ensemble.
Your move, New York.