Superheroes: Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride creates a motorcycle engine symphony

The annual Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride is preparing to ride again for the Movember Foundation, raising funds and building awareness for men’s health issues, like prostate cancer, and mental health issues, like suicide. Helping to make its job successful is Superheroes, the creative agency that’s on a mission to “save the world from boring advertising”.

A motorbike symphony is anything but boring. And that’s what the promotion is. Superheroes Amsterdam enlisted the help of musician, Dominic Seldis, principal double bass of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam, to create the world’s symphony whose “musical” instruments are motorcycle engines.

Dominic Seldis chose Richard Strauss’ famous symphony, Also Sprach Zarathustra, for the project because it has elements with a natural resemblance with the sound of bikes. Together with sound engineer, Hielke Praagman, Seldis recreated the musical arrangement, replacing traditional classical instruments with tones of various exhaust pipes – from high pitched cafe racers to rumbling choppers. The motorcyclist performers volunteered to be orchestra members.