Free on medici.tv Tomorrow (Nov 22): Violinist Leonidas Kavakos and pianist Yuja Wang Live from Carnegie Hall
Following initial webcasts in the partnership between Carnegie Hall and medici.tv of concerts by Joyce DiDonato and Anne-Sophie Mutter, the free series continues live tomorrow, Saturday November 22 at 8pm EST, with a recital by the star duo of violinist Leonidas Kavakos and pianist Yuja Wang. They will perform sonatas by Schumann, Brahms, Ravel and Respighi. The New York Times has praised violinist Kavakos’s playing for its “balance of pyrotechnics and lyricism,” while the San Francisco Chronicle declared Wang “quite simply the most dazzlingly, uncannily gifted pianist in the concert world today.” At Carnegie Hall, the duo will perform Schumann’s impassioned, virtuosic Violin Sonata No. 2 (1851) and Brahms’s warmly lyrical Violin Sonata No. 2 (1888). Also on the program are violin sonatas by Ravel and Respighi. Written during his student years and not published until after his death in 1937, Ravel’s single-movement Violin Sonata isn’t nearly as well known as his bluesy Violin Sonata in G Major; but this early work is melodic and laced with charm. Respighi’s Violin Sonata in B Minor, written in 1917, moves the heart with its haunting slow movement and quickens the pulse with daredevil fireworks in its finale.
This initial medici.tv webcasting series from Carnegie Hall culminates on Tuesday December 9 at 8pm with young Russian piano virtuoso Daniil Trifonov in works by Bach (arranged by Liszt), Beethoven and Liszt. Following the free live webcasts, replay of these concerts will also be available at no charge to online audiences on medici.tv for another 90 days, playable worldwide on all internet-enabled devices, including smart phones, tablets, computers, Chromecast and smart TVs.
Daniil Trifonov from Carnegie Hall, Dec 9, 8pm EST
A sensation before he was 20, pianist Daniil Trifonov has proven that he is more than just a young phenomenon, including with acclaimed performances on the Carnegie Hall stage. His latest Carnegie program includes works by Bach (arranged by Liszt), Beethoven and Liszt. About Trifonov’s Liszt, the Financial Times said: “It was in the Liszt…that he came into his own – a titanic performance, projected with a confidence and relish that masked the music’s ferocious technical challenges beneath a mastery of its tempestuous surges and swings of mood.” Audio recording for this webcast is provided by WQXR.
Joyce DiDonato’s “Journey Through Venice” from Carnegie Hall, webcast Nov 4 and available at medici.tv for free until Feb 3, 2015
With the city’s mix of age-old beauty and the existential threat of a rising sea, Venice has fascinated artists for centuries. In Joyce DiDonato’s program, only Vivaldi represents the native Venetian; with his opera Ercole su’l Termodonte, he definitively showcased the glories of the Venetian operatic style of the Baroque era. Each of the other composers – Fauré, Rossini, Head, and Hahn – were tourists smitten by the city. An idyllic vacation in Venice helped Fauré rekindle his creative fire to write one of his greatest song cycles, Cinq mélodies “de Venise.” Living in comfortable retirement in Paris, Rossini remembered fondly the city for which he had composed so many operas early in his career with La regata veneziana, written in Venetian dialect. Hahn was a frequent visitor to Venice; in his song cycle Venezia, he adopted both its local dialect and the lilt of its folk songs. Writing at the end of his career, Englishman Michael Head captured the sadness that lies behind all the beauty and the sense of death hovering on every wave in his Three Songs of Venice.
Anne-Sophie Mutter and The Mutter Virtuosi from Carnegie Hall, webcast Nov 18 and available at medici.tv for free until Feb 17, 2015
One of the great musicians of our time, violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter is the soloist and leader of the Mutter Virtuosi, an ensemble of young students and professional string players who are alumni of the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation. This Carnegie Hall program of daring string writing features the U.S. premiere of André Previn’s Violin Concerto No. 2 and concludes with The Four Seasons, Vivaldi’s set of violin concertos offering vivid depictions of bird song, summer storms, hunting horns, barking dogs and slippery ice.
About medici.tv
Since its official launch in May 2008, medici.tv has gained international recognition, bringing together a community of 200,000 music and arts lovers from 180 countries. In addition to offering live concert hall events that music lovers can experience on their computers and entertainment systems (Chromecast, Airplay, Smart TVs), medici.tv offers a free application (available at the Apple App Store and at Google Play for Android) that makes it possible to experience world-class artistry on all mobile devices. In addition, more than 80 client universities around the world take advantage of medici.tv, including Stanford University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Columbia University, Juilliard School and Manhattan School of Music.
New partnerships include the distribution of a selection of medici.tv content through major digital platforms including iTunes, Samsung, Amazon, Canal +, GVT in Brazil, and Shanghai Media Group, confirming medici.tv’s role as the leading digital provider and aggregator of audiovisual classical music programs worldwide.
In addition to webcasts of more than 100 live events each year, medici.tv has partnered with the world’s top artists and music institutions to offer subscriptions that give music lovers the opportunity to watch more than 1,400 video-on-demand programs. They include concerts, operas, recitals, documentaries, masterclasses, artist portraits and archival material by such legendary musicians as Maria Callas, Glenn Gould, Yehudi Menuhin, David Oistrakh, Sviatoslav Richter, Mstislav Rostropovich, Arthur Rubinstein, Georg Solti and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau.
About Carnegie Hall
Since 1891, New York City’s Carnegie Hall has set the international standard for excellence in performance as the aspirational destination for the world’s finest musicians and ensembles. Carnegie Hall presents a wide range of performances each season on its three stages – the renowned Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage, intimate Weill Recital Hall and innovative Zankel Hall – including concert series curated by distinguished artists and composers; citywide festivals featuring collaborations with leading New York cultural institutions; orchestral performances, chamber music, new music concerts and recitals; and the best in jazz, world and popular music.
Over the decades, Carnegie Hall has been the setting for numerous television and radio productions, including Leonard Bernstein’s famous Young People’s Concerts in the 1950s with the New York Philharmonic. Many Carnegie Hall concerts today are heard by listeners worldwide each season via the Carnegie Hall Live radio and digital broadcast series, created in partnership with WQXR. Performances from the Hall have also been broadcast periodically to national television audiences over the years on PBS’s Great Performances, produced by Thirteen for WNET. In addition, a seemingly endless list of acclaimed recordings, by leading artists of all genres performing on Carnegie Hall’s stages, has become an integral part of the Hall’s history.
Complementing these performance activities, Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute (WMI) creates extensive music education and community programs that annually serve nearly 450,000 people in the New York City area, nationally and internationally. As part of this, WMI has long been a leader in utilizing technology to share Carnegie Hall programs, educational materials and professional development resources with teachers, students and partner organizations around the globe.
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© 21C Media Group, November 2014