Hi-tech Hampson promotes new project with new media
Reflecting his long-held
passion for technology and innovation, Thomas Hampson launches his “Song of
America” project today with several new media initiatives and collaborations
between traditional and web-based broadcasters and content providers – all very
new to classical music circles and still very much at the cutting edge of music
promotion in any genre.
Today, July 9, Hampson will
perform his first “Song of America” recital in Winona, MN, where the lucky
audience will be able to take the concert home for free. Each member of the tour’s opening-night
concert audience will receive a card bearing a special code that enables them
to go home and download the program they just heardthrough www.InstantEncore.com.
This recital program will be recorded by Minnesota Public Radio for American
Public Media for broadcast and streaming in several formats and on several
programs throughout the course of the “Song of America” tour (which runs from
July 2009 through February 2010), as well as for InstantEncore.com. The recital
material will be divided into segments, to which commentary on the individual
works by Hampson himself will be added, creating a series of insightful
programs on American song that will become a regular feature on Performance
Today *. Both the concert and short
program segments will also be made available through other American Public
Media outlets that can be heard throughout the US on more than 240 radio
stations, more than 100 of which stream their content, and through the European
Broadcasting Union, which syndicates to 110 radio stations around the world.
The material will also be posted on ThomasHampson.com, PerformanceToday.org,
InstantEncore.com and other web sites.
In addition to features on
radio and on the web, recitals and radio broadcast segments will also be
available through a newly launched “Thomas Hampson” iPhone application powered
by InstantEncore.com and available though the Apple iPhone store for free
download. The Thomas Hampson iPhone app also includes tour dates and ticket
information, as well as music, news, blogs, podcasts, program notes, and links
to Hampson’s online communities.
Following performances in
Winona today and in Wisconsin on July 12, where listeners worldwide will be
able to hear the recital again through streaming on InstantEncore.com, Hampson
will sing at the Ravinia Festival on July 16, in an American recital program
with a special focus on Abraham Lincoln, one of the themes of the Ravinia
Festival this summer. On July 15 Hampson will appear as a guest host on Chicago’s
WFMT-FM, live from 4:00pm to 5:30pm (CT), during which he will preview the
Ravinia recital, discuss his “Song of America” project, and play some music
from his soon-to-be-released recording, Wondrous Free. This special WFMT program will be streamed live at www.wfmt.com and recorded, and it will be made available
on InstantEncore.com and the iPhone app shortly after the show airs. The
Ravinia recital will also be recorded by WFMT, broadcast, webcast, and
available to listeners worldwide through InstantEncore.com.
Thomas Hampson’s new
recording, Wondrous Free, created
to accompany the tour, will be available through iTunes on the THM (Thomas
Hampson Media) label beginning in mid-July, and a CD will be released soon
afterwards.
A comprehensive and cohesive
network of broadcasters and web sites – including radio stations and networks and
their respective web sites, InstantEncore.com, ThomasHampson.com, Thomas
Hampson’s newly launched Facebook page, and other social media sites – will
provide a wealth of music from and information about American song in this its 250th
anniversary year.
“Song of America” July
2009 tour dates:
July 9
Winona,
MN – Minnesota Beethoven Festival
July 12
Williams Bay,
WI – Music at the Lake
July 16
Highland
Park, IL – Ravinia Festival
July 22
Lenox, MA
– Tanglewood Festival
# # #
* for a list of stations and broadcast times, visit www.performancetoday.org
©
21C Media Group, July 2009