medici.tv presents Pierre Boulez in free webcast

“With free, live webcasts from the Aspen and
Aix-en-Provence music festivals … , French music producer Medici Arts
initiated the next seismic shift in the world of classical music.” – Toronto Star

PARIS, FRANCE – Medici.TV continues its groundbreaking free live webcasts from the world’s great concert halls and music festivals with a two-part webcast that will feature Pierre Boulez conducting the Orchestre de Paris in Stravinsky’s complete Firebird ballet. The free concert, which will be performed under the Louvre pyramid and filmed by Andy Sommer, will take place on Tuesday, December 2 at 8 pm
(Paris time), as the culmination of the famed museum’s special “Louvre
Invites Pierre Boulez” series, which opened on November 6.

There
will also be a special educational event for middle and high school
students at the Salle Pleyel on Monday, December 1 at 3 pm (Paris time)
that will, like the concert, be available for free live viewing at the
event partners’ websites: www.medici.tv, www.louvre.fr, and www.orchestredeparis.com. The two events will both be available free of charge for viewing on demand at these sites through January 31, 2009.

Additional details of both webcasts follow.

Webcast partners and details

Medici.tv
Medici’s numerous webcasts from the world’s most prestigious music
festivals, opera houses, and concert halls – including the Opéra
National de Paris, Verbier Festival, Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, Aspen
Music Festival & School, Berliner Philharmoniker, New York
Philharmonic, Orchestre National de France, and London Philharmonic
Orchestra) – have drawn more than 2.3 millions visits from 170
countries to date.

Reporting on one of the performances from Aix this summer, the Los Angeles Times
called medici’s webcast “a breakthrough,” noting, “There was no denying
the Internet’s potential as a genuine window onto the wider world this
past weekend.” A feature story in the Toronto Star commented,
“With free, live webcasts from the Aspen and Aix-en-Provence music
festivals over the past two weeks, French music producer Medici Arts
initiated the next seismic shift in the world of classical music.”

The Louvre Museum: “The Louvre Invites Pierre Boulez”
The Louvre has paid special tribute to Pierre Boulez, with an extensive
series of events exploring the theme of finished and unfinished works.
This free concert closes, in particularly brilliant fashion, the series
dedicated to the great composer and conductor. Performed in the vast
space crowned by Leoh Ming Pei’s pyramid, Stravinsky’s masterpiece – The Firebird
– will be complemented by its prestigious setting. This unique event
will be shared with a very wide audience, and represents the first time
that a direct webcast of a concert will be offered on the louvre.fr and orchestredeparis.com websites.

Orchestre de Paris
The Orchestre de Paris is the only French symphonic orchestra that
Pierre Boulez has agreed to conduct on a regular basis. In fact, it was
with The Firebird
that they began their exceptional collaboration, in 1976. Since then,
more than 80 concerts have brought them together, in Paris and on tour,
in repertoire ranging from Wagner to Mahler, Berg, Debussy, Varèse,
Messiaen, Berio, and Boulez himself. In November-December 2007, the
Orchestre de Paris paid tribute to Boulez by dedicating four concerts
to him.

This direct webcast will benefit from the latest
technological developments in encoding and streaming. It guarantees
music-loving web surfers optimum compatibility with all operating
systems (whether on PC or Mac) and excellent listening and viewing. In
addition to reaching those in the 2,500 seats under the pyramid and the
800 middle and high-school students attending the Pedagogical Session
at the Salle Pleyel (see below), the webcast will make this concert
accessible to a truly worldwide audience.

The Pedagogical Session
Introduction to Stravinsky’s Firebird; presentation and concept by Hélène Jarry

Before the performance of Igor Stravinsky’s Firebird
under the pyramid, the Louvre and the Orchestre de Paris will offer
school audiences a unique introduction to concert music. The
presentation will feature relevant iconographic documents to help
contextualize the score within the extraordinary musical blossoming
occasioned by the Ballets Russes commission. The narrative line that
underscores The Firebird will be briefly explained, with reference to elements borrowed from different productions of the ballet.

The session will explore Stravinsky’s compositional techniques: how he
negotiates progressions, renews energy, plays with sound, lightens and
intensifies passages, introduces instability, and manages to suggest
certain things without ever actually describing them.

This initiatory journey, undertaken with the performers’ help, will do
nothing to destroy the magical experience of the concert itself.
Instead, by providing a few keys for listening to the music, it should
simply allow young spectators to push back the limits of their
perceptions and appreciate the mystery of the birth of a work that is
immediately fascinating and accessible.

The film of the concert is produced by Idéale Audience.

Also at medici.tv

In addition to live-concert webcasts, medici.tv offers a library of music on film currently consisting of more than 100 titles, with 100 additional titles to be available soon.
Subscribers can choose to stream (24-hour, one-month, or six-month
packages are available) and/or download (without DRM) a wide variety of
programs, including recently filmed concerts
(featuring such artists as Claudio Abbado, Martha Argerich, Daniel
Barenboim, and Maurizio Pollini) and an extraordinary collection of historical archives
(featuring legendary performers such as Leonard Bernstein, Maria
Callas, Herbert von Karajan, and Mstislav Rostropovich). In addition,
medici.tv offers a wide variety of documentaries,
focusing on the lives and careers of composers and performers (such as
Pierre Boulez, Philip Glass, Glenn Gould, Yehudi Menuhin, and
Sviatoslav Richter), and created by masters of the genre (such as Bruno
Monsaingeon, Frank Scheffer, Alexander Sokurov, and Johan van der
Keuken). Finally, the medici.tv website will be home to an on-line
magazine, artist and tastemaker blogs, and illuminating playlists.

Medici.tv is produced by Medici Arts, which, in conjunction with two production companies (EuroArts in Leipzig and Idéale Audience
in Paris), specializes in the independent production and distribution
of audiovisual programs in performing arts and documentaries. It
currently represents a catalogue of 1,500 hours of television
programming, with 30 new films produced each year. These two companies
have already issued over 250 DVDs – including the acclaimed Classic Archive series – with plans to issue 60 new titles every year. The catalogue of audio recordings includes the highly-regarded BBC Legends CD series (220 titles already available) and Royal Opera House Heritage series from London’s Covent Garden.

For further information, visit www.medici.tv.