Press Room

medici.tv breaks viewership records this summer

This summer, medici.tv has broken its viewership records yet again, with hugely popular events from the Verbier, Salzburg, Lucerne, Aix-en-Provence and Annecy festivals – as well as New York Philharmonic 360, the first webcast of an American orchestra on medici.tv. Total summer festival viewership for medici.tv topped 667,000, including a record-breaking 23,000 on July 30 for a single Verbier Festival concert with Martha Argerich, Joshua Bell, Mischa Maisky and Neeme Järvi. To date, nearly 59,000 viewers have seen the medici.tv webcast of Philharmonic 360, recorded live at New York’s historic Park Avenue Armory: 12,500 watched it on the original airdate, August 6, and more than 46,000 viewed it later on demand. Almost 20,000 viewers logged on to see Ariadne auf Naxos from the Salzburg Festival on August 5, and it was seen by a further 30,000 later, on demand. Mozart’s Requiem from the Lucerne Festival – conducted by Claudio Abbado and featuring soloists Juliane Banse and René Pape – garnered 16,000 views on August 8, plus a further 39,000 later by video-on-demand. All medici.tv events are recorded live in performance and are available for 90 days after the first showing, both online and via mobile apps.
 
“Surpassing 667,000 views for our events this summer – including, for the first time, more than 10,000 views each for several webcasts – shows the tremendous growth in the popularity of what we offer,” says Hervé Boissière, Founder and Managing Director of medici.tv. “Of course, the fact that we now have not only Verbier – as we have for six straight seasons – but the Salzburg, Aix-en-Provence, Lucerne and Annecy festivals, shows the confidence that top institutions and artists have in medici.tv in Europe. And our first major American orchestral event with Philharmonic 360 made us very proud.”
 
There are three ways to enjoy the wealth of classical programming on medici.tv: free streaming of major live-recorded events, such as Philharmonic 360 and the Verbier Festival; a paid membership that gives a subscriber unlimited access to the site’s extensive pay-per-view library; and non-member rental of individual titles. With this new rental feature, each title can be activated up to 30 days after purchase and the rental will then be available for viewing for 48 hours after activation. Videos from medici.tv can be watched with premium audio and video quality on tablets and mobile devices, as well as via a computer. The free medici.tv app for iPads, iPhones and Android was named one of the top five apps for classical music by WQXR, New York’s classical music station.
 
Available for rental now on medici.tv – each title just $3.99-$4.99 until September 15 – are such new opera offerings as Handel’s Tamerlano starring Plácido Domingo, Purcell’s Fairy Queen led by William Christie and Verdi’s Aida with Daniela Dessì from Barcelona, plus great concerts featuring the likes of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5 conducted by Valery Gergiev and Yuja Wang playing Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto. The archival performances include Martha Argerich performing Prokofiev’s Third Piano Concerto from 1971, as well as Maria Callas in Parisian recitals from 1958 and 1965. The documentaries available for rental include Martha Argerich: Evening Talks and Yehudi Menuhin in Hollywood.
 
Critical praise accrues to medici.tv with each passing month. The Toronto Star called the site “a seismic shift in the world of classical music,” and The Baltimore Sun said: “This is an amazing site for lovers of classical music.” Alex Ross said on his blog, The Rest Is Noise, that “the hits keep coming at medici.tv,” while offering “treasures aplenty” was how Gramophone editor-in-chief James Jolly put it, naming medici.tv as one of the Web’s best classical experiences.
 
About medici.tv:
 
Since its official launch in May 2008, medici.tv has gained international recognition, bringing together a community of music and arts lovers from 182 countries – online viewers who have watched over 12 million videos to date. The site currently averages more than 80,000 individual visitors each month. In addition to offering live-recorded concerts that music lovers can experience on their computers and entertainment systems, medici.tv now offers a free application (available at the Apple App Store and for the Android) that makes it possible to experience world-class artistry on iPads, iPhones and the Android.
 
One of the biggest successes to date at medici.tv has been the webcast of a Lucerne Festival concert featuring Gustavo Dudamel and the Vienna Philharmonic, which has been watched more than 347,500 times by visitors from 150 countries. Other recent popular offerings from medici.tv include the New York Philharmonic’s  “Philharmonic 360” concert conducted by Alan Gilbert, Plácido Domingo’s Operalia Competition Final Round at Beijing’s NCPA, the Berlin Philharmonic summer concert at the Waldbühne in Berlin, Renée Fleming in Ariadne auf Naxos at Baden-Baden Festival and Rossini’s Otello starring Cecilia Bartoli.
 
Building on the success of webcasts from the Verbier Festival in 2007, medici.tv has offered high-definition webcasts from many other leading festivals, including Aix-en-Provence, Saint-Denis, Aspen, Glyndebourne, Salzburg and Lucerne; such Parisian venues as the Opéra National de Paris, Auditorium du Louvre, Cité de la Musique and Salle Pleyel; and from Milan’s famed La Scala and Beijing’s NCPA. Many operas and concerts performed by the world’s top artists and orchestras have been made available for free for a limited period of time. The list of artists presented at medici.tv is a “who’s who” of today’s stars, including Claudio Abbado, Martha Argerich, Daniel Barenboim, Pierre Boulez, Plácido Domingo, Renée Fleming, John Eliot Gardiner, Valery Gergiev, Bernard Haitink, Riccardo Muti, Anna Netrebko, Maurizio Pollini, Thomas Quasthoff and Simon Rattle. Among the featured orchestras are such renowned 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.
 
In addition to webcasts of more than 100 live-recorded concerts 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 1,000 VOD programs. They include concerts, operas, recitals, documentaries, master classes, artist portraits and archival material by such legendary musicians as Leonard Bernstein, Maria Callas, Glenn Gould, Herbert von Karajan, Yehudi Menuhin, David Oistrakh, Sviatoslav Richter, Mstislav Rostropovich, Arthur Rubinstein, Georg Solti and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, as well as such leading film directors as Bruno Monsaingeon, Paul Smaczny and Frank Scheffer. Recently, medici.tv added reference opera productions to its library, including Don Carlo starring Rolando Villazón at the Royal Opera House and The Fairy Queen in Glyndebourne conducted by William Christie; also new to the library are archive performances by Van Cliburn.
 
 
Webcasts still available: 
 
New York Philharmonic: Philharmonic 360
Spatial Music from Mozart’s Don Giovanni to Stockhausen’s Gruppen
Available through October 4, 2012 
More Information 
 
Verbier Concerts including:
Martha Argerich, Joshua Bell, Mischa Maisky and Neeme Järvi
Verbier Festival Orchestra
Barber, Shchedrin and Dvorak
Available through October 28, 2012 
More Information 
 
 
Upcoming live webcasts: 
 
September 4, 2012 – 2:00pm EST
Orchestre National de Lyon
Leonard Slatkin, Conductor
Steve Davislim, Tenor
Berlioz Requiem
Auditorium de Lyon (Lyon, France) 
More Information
 
September 26, 2012 – 2pm EST
Boris Berezovsky: A Tribute to Brigitte Engerer
Directed by Jean-Pierre Loisil
Medtner, Chopin, Ravel
Louvre Auditorium (Paris, France) 
More Information
 
 
Watch medici.tv concerts on the iPhone with the free medici.tv App.
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medici.tv is produced by MUSEEC, in partnership with ROLEX.

 

 

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