2010 Nobel Prize Concert at www.medici.tv
World-renowned American violinist Joshua Bell performed Tchaikovsky’s unabashedly romantic Violin Concerto in D at the annual Nobel Prize Concert, held on December 8 at the Stockholm Konzerthuset. That concert was recorded live and will be available for free streaming beginning Friday, December 10 at www.medici.tv. Sakari Oramo conducts the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra in a program that features Sibelius’s craggy, majestic Symphony No. 5. The 2010 Nobel Prize Concert will also be available for 60 days of free streaming-on-demand at www.medici.tv.
Soon after, Bell will be featured on another program at www.medici.tv, once again playing a great masterpiece for violin and orchestra. The concert on December 17 from the Cité de la Musique in Paris will be webcast live (and available soon after for video-on-demand streaming) and features Bell performing Mendelssohn’s Concerto in E minor, Op. 64 – complete with Bell’s own cadenza, written for the occasion – with Vladimir Jurowski conducting the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. The program, which also presents a waltz by Glinka and Schubert’s Third Symphony, can also be watched at the website citedelamusiquelive.tv.
With each live webcast at www.medici.tv, more music lovers around the world learn how to experience superlative classical music and opera performances 24 hours a day in the comfort and intimacy of their own homes. Recent programs made available at www.medici.tv for streaming on demand include Giorgio Strehler’s legendary production of Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro from the Opéra National de Paris (available through Dec 31) and the Paris-based Ebène Quartet performing its genre-bending “Fiction” program.
On December 16 – just in time for the holiday season – Serge Baudo conducts Berlioz’s luminous oratorio, L’enfance du Christ (The Childhood of Christ), which will be webcast live from the Auditorium de Lyon and available afterwards for streaming on demand.
www.medici.tv is also home to a complete Mahler Symphonies cycle available for streaming on demand until June 2011. The programs mark the twin occasions of the 150th anniversary of Gustav Mahler’s birth and the centenary of his death, as well as Christoph Eschenbach’s 70th birthday. www.medici.tv’s Mahler cycle features Eschenbach, one of the world’s pre-eminent Mahler conductors, leading the Orchestre de Paris in performances recorded over the past three seasons (available until June 2011).
Additional information about these programs follows below.
About www.medici.tv
Since its official launch in May 2008, www.medici.tv has gained international recognition, bringing together a community of music and arts lovers from 208 countries, who have watched more than seven million videos to date. The site currently averages more than 50,000 individual visitors each month.
Building on the success of webcasts from the Verbier Festival in 2007, www.medici.tv has since offered high-definition webcasts from many other leading festivals, including Aix-en-Provence, Saint-Denis, Aspen, Glyndebourne, and Lucerne, as well as from such music venues as the Opéra National de Paris, Auditorium du Louvre, Cité de la Musique, and Salle Pleyel in Paris, and Milan’s famed La Scala. Many operas and concerts performed by the world’s top-flight artists and orchestras have been webcast both as live events and later as video-on-demand (VOD) – all available for free. The list of artists who have been seen and heard at www.medici.tv is a “who’s who” of today’s stars, including Claudio Abbado, Martha Argerich, Daniel Barenboim, Pierre Boulez, Plácido Domingo, Gustavo Dudamel, John Eliot Gardiner, Valery Gergiev, Bernard Haitink, Riccardo Muti, Anna Netrebko, Maurizio Pollini, Thomas Quasthoff, and Simon Rattle. Among the featured orchestras are such ensembles as the Berlin Philharmonic, Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, London Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw, Orchestre National de France, Orchestre de Paris, Filarmonica della Scala, and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe.
As well as its webcasts of more than 80 live concerts each year, in partnerships with the world’s top artists and music institutions, www.medici.tv also offers subscriptions giving music-lovers the opportunity to watch more than 400 VOD programs – increasing to 1,000 programs over the next two years – including concerts, operas, recitals, documentaries, master classes, artist portraits, and archive material. Featured artists include legendary musicians such as Leonard Bernstein, Maria Callas, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Glenn Gould, Herbert von Karajan, Yehudi Menuhin, David Oistrakh, Sviatoslav Richter, Mstislav Rostropovich, Artur Rubinstein, and Georg Solti, as well as leading film directors such as Bruno Monsaingeon, Paul Smaczny, and Frank Scheffer.
www.medici.tv subscriptions start at $10 per month and $99 for a year.
A list of upcoming live webcasts and VOD offerings, available this fall from www.medici.tv, follows below.
Upcoming live events, webcast free on www.medici.tv
Thursday, December 16 at 6:30pm – live
Auditorium de Lyon
Orchestre National de Lyon; Choeurs et Solistes de Lyon-Bernard Tétu / Serge Baudo
Berlioz: L’enfance du Christ (The Childhood of Christ)
Berlioz’s L’enfance du Christ (The Childhood of Christ) is perfect holiday listening, especially for those who prefer to forego the season’s ubiquitous performances of Handel’s Messiah (gorgeous though it is). Conductor Serge Baudo conducts the Choir and Soloists of Lyon-Bernard Tétu in a performance webcast live at www.medici.tv on Thursday, December 16 at 6:30pm, which will be available afterwards for streaming on demand. Described by Berlioz as a “sacred trilogy,” the work for vocal soloists, chorus, and orchestra is based on the story of the Holy Family’s flight into Egypt. Unlike so many of the French composer’s works, L’enfance met with great success at its premiere in Paris in 1855. Some commentators were relieved to hear a Berlioz score free of bombast, and congratulated the composer on his radically new style. Berlioz rejected the notion, however, explaining, “The subject naturally lent itself to a gentle and simple style of music, and for that reason alone was more in accordance with their taste and intelligence.”
In addition to these and many more free offerings, www.medici.tv offers an extraordinary catalogue of video-on-demand programs featuring a host of legendary artists in concert, recital, and opera performances, documentaries, and portraits – all for the exceptionally low price of $10 per month and $99 for an entire year.
Plus, an exclusive holiday offer: a gift card from www.medici.TV! For only $55 you can offer your friends a 6-month membership that gives them access to over 500 programs at www.medici.TV. They’ll enjoy concerts, operas, recitals, artist portraits, outstanding archival footage, documentaries, and a selection of concerts broadcast live from the most prestigious halls. The perfect gift for the classical music lover on your holiday shopping list!
Some concerts to watch again, free of charge, at www.medici.tv
Marking the twin occasions of the 150th anniversary of Gustav Mahler’s birth and the centenary of his death, as well as Christoph Eschenbach’s 70th birthday, www.medici.tv’s Mahler cycle features Eschenbach, one of the world’s pre-eminent Mahler conductors, leading the Orchestre de Paris in performances recorded over the past three seasons. From the hushed and portentous sounds of nature that open the First Symphony, to the heart-wrenching leave-taking in the finale of the Ninth, Eschenbach’s Mahler cycle is an unforgettable musical and spiritual journey. Mahler’s Nine Symphonies are available for streaming at www.medici.tv, as well as at www.christoph-eschenbach.com and www.orchestredeparis.com, until June 2011.
Giorgio Strehler’s production of Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro debuted 37 years ago in Paris. The current revival of the production – filmed by Don Kent – was broadcast on French TV network France 3 in early November, when it met with great success. Conductor Philippe Jordan, Music Director of Opéra de Paris, leads a superb cast including Ludovic Tézier as Count Almaviva, Barbara Frittoli as Countess Almaviva, Ekaterina Syurina as Susanna, Luca Pisaroni as Figaro, and Karine Deshayes as Cherubino. The program debuted at www.medici.tv on November 22 and is available for free-of-charge streaming there, and at www.operadeparis.fr, until December 31.
The Paris-based Ebène Quartet performs its genre-bending “Fiction” program, which features improvisations and arrangements of themes from film soundtracks, jazz standards, and rock classics, with special guest artists Stacey Kent, Natalie Dessay, and Luz Casal. The program was recorded live from Paris’s famed Folies Bergère.
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