‘Dancing On My Own’ gets a Philadelphia Orchestra remix

Sure, you might vibe with the original version of “Dancing On My Own” or the one by Calum Scott.

Or, you could embrace this truly Philly version — by the Philadelphia Orchestra.

With a specially recorded video of “Dancing On My Own” released Friday, the orchestra puts a lush Philly remix to the 2010 song by Swedish singer-songwriter Robyn that has become the anthem of Phillies Fever 2022.

When civic moments like this happen, “the orchestra, and of course [music director] Yannick [Nézet-Séguin], want to help celebrate that, to spread that joy, to give something to the city and something for people to rally around,” says Philadelphia Orchestra chief programming officer Jeremy Rothman. “It’s really fascinating that it’s a song that really brings people together, that it’s the soundtrack for what’s happening in the city.”

The abridged take on “Dancing On My Own” is an orchestration by composer and arranger Jim Gray, who got confirmation of the assignment from the orchestra Sunday evening just after the Phillies beat the Padres, 4-3, and advanced to the World Series.

“Yannick said it just needed to be upbeat and powerful,” said the Nashville-based Gray, who knew the song already. He reviewed several versions of it Sunday night, “and had the ideas pretty well formulated when I woke up Monday morning.”

Gray turned in the new instrumental version — which runs a soaring, celebratory 35 seconds — later that day. The orchestra recorded it Thursday in Verizon Hall.

Further staking out their Phillies pride, the Philadelphians laid a wager with what is now their “opposing team,” the Houston Symphony. The musicians and staff of the orchestra from the losing team’s city will have to pose with the winning team’s banner and record a congratulatory video message.

The mashup of sports and classical music isn’t that rare. In 2018, the orchestra turned the solo spotlight on a 6-foot-3, 295-pound baritone sax player named Jason Kelce, who played “Fly, Eagles, Fly” with the ensemble.

“We have the Philadelphia Orchestra, the epitome of high culture, sophistication, art, celebrating a bunch of grown men beatin’ the crap out of each other,” the Eagles center told a crowd at the Mann Center still buoyed by the team’s Super Bowl win.

In 2010, Nézet-Séguin shared the podium with the Phillie Phanatic, leading fans at Citizens Bank Park in a round of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.”

The duo conducted with bats instead of batons.

“I know Philly is a football town, but baseball is very much alive in our tradition here,” says orchestra violist Marvin Moon, a Phillies fan of such deep devotion that on game nights he can be found wearing a Phillies jersey underneath his orchestra concert garb for good luck.

The orchestra even has its own baseball team — the Philadelphia Firebirds — that forms on an ad hoc basis when the ensemble is on the road and finds a likeminded musical group, like the Luzerne Music Center. The Philadelphia Firebirds and Luzerne Chipmunks play in summer when the orchestra is in residence in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.

“We crush them every year,” says Moon.

Moon says he didn’t know “Dancing On My Own” before it became the city’s anthem.

“I think it’s incredible, it’s awesome,” he said after recording the piece Thursday. “I am so glad we had a chance to play it and put it out there. I hope the Phillies listen to it.”