12 Classical Music TikTok Accounts to Follow

TikTok has overtaken Google as the most popular website of 2021. Here are 12 accounts to follow for classical music content, from a mix of organisations and musicians. You’ll find behind-the-scenes videos, funny skits, answers to questions you’ve always wondered, and impressive performances. We’d love to hear about your favourite accounts too - tweet us @alterclassical! We’re on TikTok @alternative_classical but haven’t yet posted anything…follow so that you’re the first to see when we do! If you enjoy our content, you can support us on Ko-fi, where anyone who feels like it can gift us the price of a coffee with no strings attached. Thank you.

TwoSet Violin

@twosetviolin

TwoSet Violin is a comedy duo, comprising Australian violinists Brett Yang and Eddy Chen. They are best known for their YouTube channel, which has 3.5 million subscribers and over 1 billion views as of January 2022. They are, of course, on TikTok as well. Visit their channel for relatable and irreverent videos about being a classical musician.

Leonardo Frigo

@leonardofrigo 

Leonardo Frigo is an Italian artist and violinist who takes inspiration from historical literature to create intricate hand-illustrations in fountain pen with hand-made ink. Follow him to watch timelapses of him painting violins and cello bridges with striking symbols, vivid patterns and strategically-placed embedded text. This channel has 11k followers and 130k likes.

Spencer Rubin

@sprubin

Spencer Rubin is the centre of the oboe TikTok world, if such a thing exists. He’s a 17-year-old classical oboist at Julliard Pre-College with over 1 million TikTok followers. He told the New York Post: “I think that with social media, we’re able to de-stigmatize the sense that classical music is super fancy and needs to be perfect. One of the main ways to keep classical music alive is to just keep people talking about it, and so if we can do that through social media, I think it’s a great way to get more people involved.”

London Philharmonic Orchestra

@lporchestra

The LPO is currently the most successful orchestra in the world on TikTok. Most of their posts offer close ups of different sections of the orchestra, and share epic moments from dress rehearsals with the world. You can also follow the sheet music of pieces while the orchestra plays them in real time. 

Music Teacher

@tiktokmusicteacha 

“Just a music teacher trying to survive in a TikTok world.” Funny and relatable videos posted several times a week about being a school music teacher and conducting ensembles. This account has under 2k followers but deserves a lot more, so you heard it here first!

Royal Opera House

@royaloperahouse

The Royal Opera House brings a beautiful world of pirouettes, arabesques, tutus, ballet practice and opera snippets to your TikTok timeline. Their account currently has 510k followers and 7.8 million likes to date.

Nathan Chan

@nathanchancello

One for the cellists out there: 27-year-old Nathan Chan is the Assistant Principal Cello of the Seattle Symphony and boasts over 25 million views between TikTok, YouTube and Instagram. He shares “warm, exciting, relatable” TikToks using the hashtag #cellotok as a way of making classical music more relatable and meaningful, while also trying to make the genre more transparent by showing the playing process.

Her Ensemble

@herensemble 

Her Ensemble is the UK's first women and non-binary orchestra (find out more in Organisations Supporting Women Composers & Performers). Follow them on TikTok for videos about being a woman in the classical music industry and snippets from concerts. Topics include trying to find something ‘appropriate’ to wear for orchestra and female composers. 

Anastasiia Mazurok

@mmm_anastasy

Russian violinist and Julliard grad Anastasiia Mazurok is the person to follow for violin TikToks. Her top videos include ‘classical music is a cult’, what people think is difficult on the violin vs what is actually difficult on the violin, anxiety over posting performance videos on social media, types of music students on Zoom, and playing the violin blindfolded. This account currently has 30k followers.

Seb Thomas

@seb_thomas_ 

Seb Thomas is an Oxford-based composer who posts several piano, choral and conducting TikToks every week. You can find him duetting with himself, recomposing the Bach preludes with jazz harmony, sharing music theory, and demonstrating overtone singing. He has almost 300k followers and over 12 million likes on his videos.

Joseph Conyers

@weatherclef 

Joseph Conyers is acting associate principal double bassist of the Philadelphia Orchestra and teaches double bass at The Julliard School. He uses TikTok to provide top tips and information on all kinds of music topics including working with a living composer, finding the best bowing, and using the weight of your bow. He currently has 17.8k followers and over 200k likes on his videos. 

Anna Lapwood

@annalapwoodorgan

Anna Lapwood is a Cambridge-based organist and conductor who uses TikTok to share what it’s like being an organist. This is the place to go for organ enthusiasm, behind-the-scenes detail about the job, embarrassing stories, and answers to the very niche questions you may have wondered about being an organist. This channel has around 80k followers and almost 3 million likes.

Hannah Fiddy is a creative entrepreneur, developing new audiences for classical music. She has created and promoted numerous concerts outside of traditional spaces, including warehouses, pubs, clubs, museums, hospitals, prisons and even in Primark. Hannah is also an interviewer, writer and guest lecturer, and runs the Avon Chamber Choir in Bristol. In a past life she founded London Flashmob, producing quirky events from wedding proposals to cultural pranks for up to 1,000 people.

Follow Hannah on Twitter @Hannah_Fiddy.