medici.tv in October presents Christie and Slatkin

Following a blockbuster lineup of concerts last month, medici.tv offers live concerts in October involving two great American conductors working in France: William Christie and Leonard Slatkin. In season-opening performances at the Théâtre de Caen in France on October 18 at 2pm (EDT), Christie conducts Les Arts Florissants in Francesco Cavalli’s opera, La Didone – the first work by the 17th-century Italian composer to be performed by Christie’s renowned ensemble of Baroque specialists (Christie and Les Arts Florissants recently turned New York City on its head with a ravishing revival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music of their acclaimed production of Lully’s Atys). On October 20 at 2pm (EDT), medici.tv presents the Orchestre National de Lyon in a program titled “Leonard Slatkin’s America” that encompasses music by Aaron Copland, John Williams, Ron Nelson, and the Dominican-born Michel Camilo, who will be the soloist in his own Piano Concerto No. 1. 
 
The stage direction for Christie’s Cavalli production is by Clément Hervieu-Léger, a stalwart of the Comédie Française. Hervieu-Léger has collaborated with Patrice Chéreau for Così fan tutte (Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, Opéra de Paris) and Tristan und Isolde (Teatro alla Scala de Milan); La Didone is his first opera staging. Francesco Cavalli was the most influential composer of works for the public opera house in early-Baroque Italy. Premiered in 1641 in Venice, La Didone takes its inspiration from Virgil’s Aeneid. On the advice of Venus, Aeneas leaves Troy, which has been attacked by the Greeks. When he arrives on the shores of Carthage, he meets the young Queen Dido, and the two fall in love. But the gods remind Aeneas of his destiny: the creation of Rome. Mezzo-soprano Anna Bonitatibus sings Dido, while tenor Kresimir Spicer is her Aeneas.
 
Slatkin’s program with the Orchestre National de Lyon includes Copland’s Appalachian Spring Suite and John Williams’ score to Star Wars, as well as Savannah River Holiday by Ron Nelson (an Illinois native born in 1929). A longtime proponent of Nelson’s music, Slatkin has said: “Nelson is the quintessential American composer. He has the ability to move between conservative and newer styles with ease. The fact that he’s a little hard to categorize is what makes him interesting.” Also on the program is Michel Camilo’s Piano Concerto No. 1. Camilo – a Grammy- and Emmy-winning artist who bridges the worlds of jazz, classical, and Latin music – is a close colleague of Slatkin: together they recorded the Piano Concerto No. 1 for an album released in 2002, and the week prior to the Lyon concert they gave the U.S. premiere of the pianist’s Piano Concerto No. 2. Academy Award-winning filmmaker Fernando Trueba, who featured Camilo in his documentary Calle 54, has said: “Whether it’s jazz, classical, Latin American music or film, Michel is in his element. Every time I see him play, I feel like I’m witnessing a miracle.”
 
In addition to these live webcasts, medici.tv also offers an extensive and growing library – now more than 700 titles! – of video-on-demand programs available via subscription. These performances, documentaries, and archival features spotlight leading musical institutions and world-class artists – from golden-age legends to today’s top stars.
 
“Treasures aplenty” was how Gramophone editor-in-chief James Jolly has described medici.tv as one of the Web’s leading classical music experiences. The medici.tv app for iPads, iPhones, and other digital devices – available for free at the Apple app store – was recently named one of the top five apps for classical music by WQXR, the classical music station of New York City.
 
Upcoming events live at medici.tv
 
October 18, 2 pm EDT: William Christie and Les Arts Florissants
Théâtre de Caen
Cavalli: La Didone
 
October 20, 2 pm EDT: Leonard Slatkin, Michel Camilo, and Orchestre National de Lyon
Auditorium de Lyon
Copland, Camilo, John Williams, Ron Nelson
 
November 6, 10:30 am EST: Hélène Grimaud (piano) and Jan Vogler (cello) in recital
La Cité de la Musique
Schumann: Fantasiestücke, Op. 73; Brahms: Sonata for cello and piano No. 1, Op. 38; Shostakovich: Sonata for cello and piano, Op. 40
 
November 18, 2:30 pm EST:  Giovanni Sollima:  Portrait of an Italian
Manchester Camerata Ensemble
Giovanni Sollima, cello
Hannah Roberts, cello
 
December 7, 2 pm EST:  Lise de la Salle – Liszt Recital
Auditorium de Lyon
 
 
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 60,000 individual visitors each month. In addition to offering live concert hall events that music lovers can experience on their computers and entertainment systems, medici.tv now offers a free application (available at the Apple App Store) that makes it possible to experience world-class artistry on iPads and iPhones.
 
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. It has been watched more than 347,500 times (live and as video-on-demand) by visitors from 150 countries. Other recent popular offerings from medici.tv include an evening of chamber music at the Atelier Lyrique de l’Opéra de Paris; Georges Prêtre conducting La Scala Orchestra in a program of Franck and Respighi; Daniel Harding conducting the same orchestra in Strauss’s Alpine Symphony; and an all-Brahms evening featuring Leonard Slatkin and the Orchestre National de Lyon.
 
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, and Lucerne; from 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. Many operas and concerts performed by the world’s top artists and orchestras have been webcast as live events and later as video-on-demand (VOD) – all available for free. 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, 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 80 live concerts each year, medici.tv has partnered with the world’s top artists and music institutions to offer subscriptions, giving music-lovers the opportunity to watch more than 700 VOD programs – growing to 1,000 programs over the next two years. They include concerts, operas, recitals, documentaries, master classes, artist portraits, and archival material. Featured artists include 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.
 
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