System of a Down frontman Serj Tankian’s orchestrated performance of his solo record Elect The Dead is currently sitting high on the Billboard Classical Music Chart

Tankian performed and recorded the majority Elect The Dead on his own and earned grudging respect from FasterLouder’s reviewer for the effort. Though he noted that “I have no doubt millions of System of a Down fans will sit down to the new solo album over the next few months with no regret from their purchase.”

The blame for the Elect The Dead Symphony lies with Auckland Philarmonia Orchestra who approached Tankian with the idea and recorded the album with him in March 2009.

New Zealand composer John Psathas wrote the orchestrations for the record, as Tankian explains “we collaborated but at my end it was all piano, guitar, vocals – so John was able to add the horns and violin and any ideas I had he fleshed out.”

Last week the Elect The Dead Symphony album debuted at number two on the Billboard Classical Music Chart though it has now slipped to ninth place behind albums for Il Divo, The Priets, The Canadian Tenors and The Irish Tenors.

In related news Tankian has completed work on his non-orchestral follow up to Elect the Dead. The new self produced record Imperfect Harmonies was self-produced by Tankian at his home studio in Los Angeles and is due for release in late winter.

Watch Serj Tankian performing with the Auckland Philarmonia Orchestra