MA's Free Guide to Free Streams as of March 30

We will be updating this list twice weekly. Please note that Central European Time (CET) is currently six hours ahead of U.S. Eastern Time. Contact editor@musicalamerica.com.  

Monday, March 30

Noon CET: Staatsoper unter den Linden. Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Tsar’s Bride. Conductor: Daniel Barenboim; director: Dmitri Tcherniakov; starring Olga Peretyatko, Anita Rachvelishvili, Johannes Martin Kränzle, Anatoli Kotscherga, Staatsopernchor, Staatskapelle Berlin. Available free for 24 hours. A genuinely tuneful and neglected Russian rarity with an outstanding cast makes this a real must see. **

12 pm ET: On Site Opera presents Rameau’s Pygmalion. The New York opera company, which specializes in site-specific and immersive productions, filmed the staging in June 2014 at the Lifestyle-Trimco Mannequin Showroom. The livestream is available on the company’s website and Facebook page.

7 pm CET: Vienna Staatsoper streams Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro (performance of June 28, 2016). Conductor: Cornelius Meister | director: Jean-Louis Martinoty, with Luca Pisaroni (Conte d’Almaviva), Rachel Willis-Sørensen (Contessa d’Almaviva), Valentina Nafornita (Susanna), Alessio Arduini (Figaro), Marianne Crebassa (Cherubino) Sign up for free and view here.

2 pm ET: Boosey & Hawkes is hosting a Live Score Reading of the Rite of Spring on their YouTube channel. Several composers and conductors will be joining the Live Chat as guest commentators, providing insights and commentary during the video stream, including Marin Alsop, Teddy Abrams, Francesco Lecce-Chong, and Christopher Rountree, plus Sean Shepherd and David T. Little, with more artists to be confirmed.

7:30 pm ET: Nightly Met Opera Streams presents Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites. Conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin, starring Isabel Leonard, Adrianne Pieczonka, and Karita Mattila. Transmitted live on May 11, 2019. Go to www.metopera.org on the day.

Tuesday, March 31

Noon CET: Staatsoper unter den Linden. Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker. Conductor: Daniel Barenboim, Staatsballett Berlin, Staatskapelle Berlin. Available free for 24 hours.

7 pm CET: Vienna Staatsoper streams Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’Amore (performance of November 8, 2018). Conductor: Speranza Scappucci | director: Otto Schenk, with Aida Garifullina (Adina), Benjamin Bernheim (Nemorino), Orhan Yildiz (Belcore), Paolo Rumetz (Doktor Dulcamara), Mariam Battistelli (Giannetta). Sign up for free and view here.

7 pm CET: OperaVision livestreams Mozart’s Il Sogno di Scipione from Teatro La Fenice. Conductor: Federico Maria Sardelli; Director: Elena Barbalich, with Giuseppe Valentino Buzza, Francesca Boncompagni, Bernarda Bobro, Emanuele D’Aguanno, Luca Cervoni, Rui Hoshina, Orchestra e Coro Teatro La Fenice. View here.

7:30 pm ET: Nightly Met Opera Streams presents Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia. Conducted by Maurizio Benini, starring Joyce DiDonato, Juan Diego Flórez, and Peter Mattei. Transmitted live on March 24, 2007. Go to www.metopera.org on the day.

7:30 pm ET: 92nd St. Y presents composer/pianist Conrad Tao performing Frederic Rzewski's epic The People United Will Never Be Defeated – 36 variations on a Chilean protest song and anthem of unity. Streaming live from his apartment. LIVE

Wednesday, April 1

Noon CET: Staatsoper unter den Linden. Verdi's Il Trovatore. Conductor: Daniel Barenboim; director: Philipp Stölzl; starring Anna Netrebko, Gaston Rivero, Plácido Domingo, Marina Prudenskaya, Staatsopernchor, Staatskapelle Berlin. Available free for 24 hours.

7 pm CET: Bolshoi Theater streams Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Tsar’s Bride. Conductor: Tugan Sokhiev; Stage Director: Julia Pevzner, with Stanislav Trofimov, Anastasia Sorokina, Elchin Azizov, Nikolai Kazansky, Bekhzod Davronov, Agunda Kulaeva, Roman Muravitsky, Elena Zelenskaya. Production from 2014. Available here and for 24 hours after.

7 pm CET: Vienna Staatsoper streams Strauss’s Die Frau Ohne Schatten (performance of June 10, 2019). Conductor: Christian Thielemann | director: Vincent Huguet, with Stephen Gould (Der Kaiser), Camilla Nylund (Die Kaiserin), Evelyn Herlitzius (Die Amme), Wolfgang Bankl (Geisterbote), Wolfgang Koch (Barak, der Färber), Nina Stemme (Färberin). Sign up for free and view here.

7 pm CET: Lucerne Festival streams Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Op. 30; Vocalise, Op. 34, no. 14 (orchestral version); Symphony No. 3 in A minor, Op. 44. Lucerne Festival Orchestra, Riccardo Chailly conductor, Denis Matsuev piano. Recorded on August 16, 2019. Register free and available here for 24 hours.

7 pm CET: OperaVision livestreams Gluck’s Alceste from Teatro La Fenice. Conductor: Guillaume Tourniaire; Director: Pier Luigi Pizzi Admeto, with Marlin Miller, Carmela Remigio, Ludovico Furlani, Zuzana Markova, Anita Teodoro, Giorgio Misseri, Orchestra e Coro Teatro La Fenice. View here.

Noon CDT: Cliburn Watch Party featuring 2013 Cliburn Gold Medalist Vadym Kholodenko. Cliburn Competition Preliminary II Recital: Bach-Siloti Prelude in B Minor, BWV 855a, Beethoven Sonata No. 30 in E, Stravinsky Trois Mouvements de Petrouchka. View on Facebook and reposted after at Cliburn.org/watchparty and YouTube/thecliburn.

1:30 pm ET: The Kanneh-Mason Family
“The Von Trapps of Classical Music” (Telegraph UK) will be going live via cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason’s Facebook every Wednesday and Friday at 1:30 pm ET. This will be a mixture of intimate chamber performances with the family, and behind the scenes chat. You can watch their first live here.

7 pm ET: HERE@HOME Wednesday Watch Party: Kamala Sankaram’s Looking at You from 2019, which examines internet surveillance, appropriate now that our lives, for the foreseeable future, are to be lived online. View here.

7:30 pm ET: Nightly Met Opera Streams presents John Adams’s Nixon in China. Conducted by John Adams, starring Janis Kelly and James Maddalena. Transmitted live on February 12, 2011. Go to www.metopera.org on the day. From the MA archives, Nixon in China Revisited: If It Ain't Broke...

Thursday, April 2

Noon CET: Staatsoper unter den Linden. Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. Conductor: Daniel Barenboim, Staatsballett Berlin, Staatskapelle Berlin. Available free for 24 hours.

6 pm CET: Vienna Staatsoper streams Peer Gynt (performance of December 4, 2018). Conductor: Simon Hewett | choreography and libretto: Edward Clug, with Jakob Feyferlik, Alice Firenze, Eno Peci, Zsolt Török, Franziska Hollinek, Ioanna Avraam, Nikisha Fogo. Sign up for free and view here.

7:30 pm BST: London Symphony Orchestra streams Szymanowski’s Symphony No. 1, Szymanowski’s Violin Concerto No. 1, and Brahms’s Symphony No. 1 with Valery Gergiev conductor and Janine Jansen violin. View here on YouTube.

7 pm CET: Lucerne Festival streams Wagner in Switzerland: a concert and documentary. Wagner Siegfried Idyll, Wesendonck Lieder, Prelude to Act I of Lohengrin, with members of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, Elisabeth Kulman mezzo-soprano, Eduard Kutrowatz piano. Recorded from March 3 to 6, 2013 at Villa Tribschen, Lucerne. Register free and available here for 24 hours.

7 pm ET: Detroit Symphony Orchestra streams Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6 conducted by John Storgårds. Audiences are invited to have an at-home concert experience, comment, react, and chat with each other. Stream hosted by DSO Principal Flute Hannah Hammel. View on Facebook.

7:30 pm ET: Jaap Van Zweden conducts Wagner’s Die Walküre. Jaap van Zweden conducts the New York Philharmonic in Act I of Wagner’s opera (in concert), with soprano Heidi Melton as Sieglinde, tenor Simon O’Neill as Siegmund, and bass John Relyea as Hunding. Recorded on February 15, 2018 at David Geffen Hall. View here.

7:30 pm ET: Nightly Met Opera Streams present Verdi’s Don Carlo. Conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin, starring Marina Poplavskaya, Roberto Alagna, Simon Keenlyside, and Ferruccio Furlanetto. Transmitted live December 11, 2010. Go to www.metopera.org on the day. From the MA archives, Met’s Don Carlo Respects Its Source.

8pm ET: The Philadelphia Orchestra presents Gil Shaham Plays Brahms (performed in Verizon Hall on May 24, 2013). Program: Schumann’s Third movement from Symphony No. 2, Janácek’s Sinfonietta, Brahms’s Violin Concerto, Dvorák’s Slavonic Dances, Op. 46, No. 1, Op. 72, No. 2, and Op. 46, No. 8. With Yannick Nézet-Séguin conductor and Gil Shaham violin. View here.

Friday, April 3

Noon CET: Staatsoper unter den Linden. Rameau’s Hippolyte et Aricie Rameau. Conductor: Simon Rattle, director: Aletta Collins, with Anna Prohaska, Reinoud Van Mechelen, Magdalena Kožená, Elsa Dreisig, Gyula Orendt, Staatsopernchor, Staatskapelle Berlin. Available free for 24 hours.

7 pm CET: Vienna Staatsoper streams Mozart’s La Le Nozze di Figaro (performance of November 25, 2014). Conductor: Sascha Goetzel, director: Jean-Louis Martinoty, with Luca Pisaroni (Conte d’Almaviva), Olga Bezsmertna (Contessa d’Almaviva), Anita Hartig (Susanna), Adam Plachetka (Figaro), Rachel Frenkel (Cherubino). Sign up for free and view here.

7 pm CET: Lucerne Festival streams “World Class on the Water: 75 Years of Lucerne Festival”: a documentary film by Béla Batthyany (2013). Register free and available here for 24 hours.

Soprano Angel Blue interviewing Christine Goerke last week on Faithful Friday with Angel Blue

12 pm ET: Faithful Friday with Angel Blue. The acclaimed American soprano presents a new topical talk show web series broadcast live every Friday on Facebook and Instagram. For Episode #3 she will be joined by Italian fashion and Instagram favorite Sandra Violante, who has been in lock-down in Milan for several weeks.

1:30 pm ET: The Kanneh-Mason Family
“The Von Trapps of Classical Music” (Telegraph UK) will be going live via cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason’s Facebook every Wednesday and Friday at 1:30 pm ET. This will be a mixture of intimate chamber performances with the family, and behind the scenes chat. You can watch their first live here.

2 pm ET: The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden streams Handel’s Acis and Galatea (Production from 2009). Christopher Hogwood conducts the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and a distinguished cast including Danielle de Niese and Charles Workman in Wayne McGregor's production – a rare and beautifully crafted collaboration between The Royal Opera and The Royal Ballet. View here.

7:30 pm ET: Nightly Met Opera Streams presents Bizet’s Les Pêcheurs de Perles. Conducted by Gianandrea Noseda, starring Diana Damrau, Matthew Polenzani, and Mariusz Kwiecien. Transmitted live January 16, 2016. Go to www.metopera.org on the day. From the MA archives, Les Pêcheurs de Perles Is Back in NY.

Saturday, April 4

Noon CET: Staatsoper unter den Linden. Brahms’s Symphonies Nos. 1 - 4. Conductor Daniel Barenboim, Staatskapelle Berlin. Recorded in Buenos Aires. Available free for 24 hours.

7 pm CET: Bolshoi Theater streams Auber’s Marco Spada. Choreographer: Pierre Lacotte; Music Director: Alexei Bogorad, with Artem Ovcharenko, Kristina Kretova, Ekaterina Shipulina, Artemy Belyakov, Igor Tsvirko. Production from 2015. Available here and for 24 hours after.

7 pm CET: Vienna Staatsoper streams Puccini’s La Bohème (Performance of November 20, 2016). Conductor: Sascha Goetzel, director: Franco Zeffirelli, with Jinxu Xiahou (Rodolfo), Anita Hartig (Mimì), Francesca Dotto (Musetta), Javier Arrey (Marcello), Clemens Unterreiner (Schaunard), Jongmin Park (Colline), Wolfgang Bankl (Benoit/Alcindoro). Sign up for free and view here.

7 pm CET: Lucerne Festival streams Mahler Symphony No. 9. Lucerne Festival Orchestra, Claudio Abbado conductor. Recorded on August 20 and 21, 2010. Register free and available here for 24 hours. Abbado was an acclaimed Mahlerian, with a special affinity for the Ninth Symphony. Highly recommended **

7:30 pm ET: Nightly Met Opera Streams presents Verdi’s Macbeth. Conducted by Fabio Luisi, starring Anna Netrebko, Joseph Calleja, Željko Lucic, and René Pape. Transmitted live October 11, 2014. Go to www.metopera.org on the day. From the MA archives, Met’s Macbeth Is Not Quite Creepy Enough.

8 pm CDT: Cliburn Watch Party featuring 2017 Cliburn Gold Medalist Yekwon Sunwoo. Cliburn Competition Final Round Quintet: Dvorak Piano Quintet in A, Op. 81 with the Brentano String Quartet. View on Facebook and reposted after at Cliburn.org/watchparty and YouTube/thecliburn.

Sunday, April 5

Noon CET: Staatsoper unter den Linden. Mozart’s Così fan tutte. Conductor: Daniel Barenboim; director: Doris Dörrie, with Dorothea Röschmann, Katharina Kammerloher, Daniela Bruera, Hanno Müller-Brachmann, Werner Güra, Roman Trekel, Staatsopernchor, Staatskapelle Berlin. Available free for 24 hours.

6 pm CET: Opernhaus Zürich presents Messa da Requiem. Christian Spuck brought one of Verdi's key works to the stage. In a large-scale co-production by the Ballett and Oper Zürich, the German choreographer and director ventured to portray an unusual interpretation of Verdi's funeral mass in his scenic-choreographic production. Conducted by Fabio Luisi, with Krassimira Stoyanova Soprano, Veronica Simeoni Mezzo-soprano, Francesco Meli Tenor, Georg Zeppenfeld Bass. Recording available until April 11 here.

7 pm CET: Vienna Staatsoper streams Strauss’s Elektra (performance of February 15, 2020). Conductor: Semyon Bychkov, director: Uwe Eric Laufenberg, with Waltraud Meier (Klytämnestra), Christine Goerke (Elektra), Simone Schneider (Chrysothemis), Norbert Ernst (Aegisth), Michael Volle (Orest). Sign up for free and view here.

7:30 pm ET: Nightly Met Opera Streams presents Bellini’s Norma. Conducted by Carlo Rizzi, starring Sondra Radvanovsky, Joyce DiDonato, Joseph Calleja, and Matthew Rose. Transmitted live October 17, 2017. Go to www.metopera.org on the day. The Met Opens with a new Norma; the Verdict Is (Very) Mixed

Artists and Organizations Offering Free Content

The following are all accessible during the coronavirus pandemic:

NEW: Aix Festival
The Festival d’Aix-en-Provence is offering the opportunity to watch or re-watch full performances of Festival d’Aix-en-Provence operas online and for free. Offerings include: Puccini's Tosca, staged by Christophe Honoré (2019), Mozart's Requiem, staged by Romeo Castellucci (2019) **, Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos, staged by Katie Mitchell (2018), Stravinsky's The Rake’s Progress, staged by Simon McBurney (2017) **, Mozart's Don Giovanni, staged by Jean-François Sivadier (2017). Many of these are rightly acclaimed. To view, click here.

Alisa Weilerstein’s 36 days of Bach
Starting March 17, over thirty-six days, the cellist shares and discusses all thirty-six movements of the six Cello Suites by Bach. Each day she will present one movement on her Facebook page and invites viewers to share questions about Bach, the Cello Suites, and other musical topics. #36DaysOfBach

Apollos Fire: Music for the Soul
The Cleveland-based baroque orchestra founded by Artistic Director Jeannette Sorrell is offering a series of video streams entitled “Music for the Soul”. New episodes are posted here.

Baltimore Symphony Orchestra
The BSO is putting on live-streamed concerts on its Facebook page while concerts are canceled due to the virus. On Sunday March 22, pianist Lura Johnson performed a nearly 45-minute show from her home on social media, with songs from Brahms, Berg and Beethoven. Further shows will continue on Wednesday and Sunday nights “for the near future.”

Bayerischen Staatsoper
Individual performances – such as Bluebeard’s Castle with John Lundgren and Nina Stemme, and Il Trovatore with Anja Harteros and Jonas Kaufmann – are available as live stream or as video-on-demand. There is also be a series of Monday Concerts, each starting at 8:15 pm (CET) live, of lieder, solo instrumentalists, chamber music and dance. Musicians from the Bayerisches Staatsorchester and artists associated with the Bayerische Staatsoper, such as violinist Julia Fischer, soprano Hanna-Elisabeth Müller, baritone Christian Gerhaher, pianist Gerold Huber, tenor Jonas Kaufmann, baritone Michael Nagy and bass Tareq Nazmi will be taking part. Visit here to view and for details.

Berlin Philharmonic
The BPO has made its Digital Concert Hall free of charge. Use the password BERLINPHIL. The Digital Concert Hall remains free of charge for 30 days from the time of activating. Available are over 600 orchestra concerts covering more than ten years, including 15 concerts with the orchestra’s new chief conductor Kirill Petrenko, interviews, backstage footage.

Beth Morrison Projects
The new opera powerhouse is offering an “Opera of the Week,” which will stream on BMP’s home page. Next up is Missy Mazzoli’s Song From the Uproar, inspired by the life of the early 20th-century explorer Isabelle Eberhardt.

Boston Symphony Orchestra
The Boston Symphony presents “BSO at Home, “which includes self-produced videos from BSO musicians and conductors featuring anecdotes, personal reflections and insights, and short informal performances, as they stay at home during the coronavirus outbreak, to be released periodically through the BSO’s social media channels. There will also be six weeks of daily curated audio offerings available each weekday morning at 10 a.m. through www.bso.org/athome. These will include BSO Music Directors (Andris Nelsons, Seiji Ozawa, Erich Leinsdorf, Charles Munch, Serge Koussevitzky), March 23-29; Guest soloists (Van Cliburn, Isaac Stern, Rudolf Serkin, Leonard Bernstein, Doriot Anthony Dwyer), March 30-April 5; Masterworks of the Classical period (Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven), April 6-12; Musical landmarks (Copland, Shostakovich, Bartók), April 13-19; The French tradition (Debussy, Ravel, Berlioz, Bizet), April 20-26; The Romantic Age (Tchaikovsky, Brahms, and Strauss), April 27-May 3. For a complete list click here.

Budapest Festival Orchestra Quarantine Soirées
Hungarian conductor Ivan Fischer has created a new concert series in response to the worldwide musical shutdown. The Quarantine Soirées are LIVE and free to view online chamber music concerts given nightly at 7:45 pm. Visit www.bfz.hu/en/media/quarantine-soirees/ for details of upcoming concerts.

NEW: Cliburn at Home
The Cliburn has three new online initiatives: “Cliburn Watch Party,” “Cliburn Kids,” and “Cliburn Amateur Spotlight.” The first relives some of the best moments of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition twice a week. The second—on Mondays and Thursdays at 11 am CT @thecliburn Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and Cliburn.org/kids—explores rhythm, storytelling, dance, and listening games in short (7- to 10-minute), entertaining, and educational journeys. “Cliburn Amateur Spotlight,” on Tuesdays, Fridays, and Sundays at 4 pm CDT, posts performance videos submitted by the 72 who were accepted as competitors for the 2020 Cliburn International Amateur Piano Competition (rescheduled to 2022). Visit Facebook, YouTube, Instagram or Cliburn.org.

Daniel Hope
Violinist Daniel Hope has launched “Hope at Home,” a new television series for our socially distanced times. Professionally produced by Kobalt Productions for Europe’s ARTE television network, the series comprises 14 half-hour episodes of live musical performance by leading classical artists, interspersed with English and German talk. Over two weeks (from March 25), Hope at Home will stream live, daily, at 1 pm ET (10 am PT; 6 pm Berlin CET) on the ARTE Concert website, where each episode will then be archived for 90 days, and on Deutsche Grammophon’s YouTube channel, where selected highlights will subsequently be available.

NEW: David Korevaar’s Beethoven Sonatas
Pianist David Korevaar will perform, record and share 32 Beethoven Sonatas in 60 days to celebrate the composer's 250th birthday. Recorded for in his living room in Colorado with no edits and minimal equipment, Korevaar would like to invite you to dive into the wonder of the Beethoven sonatas during this time of uncertainty. Please be forgiving of the piano tuning as his local piano tuners were social distancing too! Daily instalments available here.

Detroit Symphony Orchestra
The Detroit Symphony Orchestra has made its webcast archive available for free on its website. The collection features 200+ works going back three years, and highlights include Leonard Slatkin conducting John Luther Adams’s climate change-inspired Become Ocean from 2019, several world premieres, and a host of bite-sized encores.

HERE@HOME Wednesday Watch Parties
Each Wednesday at 7 pm ET, New York’s HERE hosts a Facebook Watch Party to stream a full-length HERE production from the past 25 years. Following the online premiere, these full-length videos will be available for viewing on Facebook until our building reopens for live public performances. Upcoming schedule includes Apr 8: Thomas Paine in Violence; Apr 15: Arias with a Twist. Apr 22: City Council Meeting; Apr 29: Chimpanzee. View here.

Houston Symphony
The Houston Symphony is offering musical relief by making its concert broadcasts available to stream on demand for free online, as well as creating musician videos, blogs, curated playlists, and more available online. While the Symphony already broadcasts live on Houston Public Media each Sunday evening, each broadcast concert will now also be posted on the Houston Symphony website for on-demand streaming, and new broadcasts will be made available on-demand for one month after their broadcast date.

The Kanneh-Mason Family
“The Von Trapps of Classical Music” (Telegraph UK) will be going live via cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason’s Facebook every Wednesday and Friday at 1:30 pm ET. This will be a mixture of intimate chamber performances with the family, and behind the scenes chat. You can watch their first live here.

La Monnaie
Belgium’s La Monnaie de Munt has launched free streaming of a virtual season of eight operas from the archives: Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Tale of Tsar Saltan, Mark Grey’s Frankenstein, Verdi’s Aida and Macbeth, Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, Ponchielli’s La Gioconda, Mozart’s Lucio Silla and Pascal Dusapin’s Macbeth Underworld. All operas are available online until April 19. Details and access here.

NEW: LA Opera
LA Opera is maintaining a weekly #LAOAtHome schedule including live Living Room Recitals and popular productions From the Vaults. Upcoming highlights include Carmen from 2017 and David T. Little’s Dog Days. Weekjly details here.

NEW: La Scala/RAI
Italy’s RAI presents five productions from La Scala Milan available online including Daniel Barenboim conducting Götterdämmerung, Lisette Oropesa in Verdi’s I Masnadieri, Montedervi’s Orfeo conducted by Rinaldo Alessandrini, Rossini’s La Gazza Ladra conducted by Riccardo Chailly and Les Vêpres Siciliennes conducted by Daniele Gatti. A wide range of concerts are also available. Click here to view and for further details.

Lincoln Center
Lincoln Center At Home is a new portal to enable families and communities to keep the arts front and center. From the archives of Lincoln Center’s resident organizations comes a trove of video, including rarely seen footage from decades of Live From Lincoln Center, more recent performances from across campus, and live streams from wherever performances are still happening. In addition, Lincoln Center Pop-Up Classroom broadcasts on Facebook Live every weekday at 10 am ET. Led by some of the world’s best artists and educators, each creative learning activity utilizes simple materials found at home to help families with children explore a variety of art forms. Each classroom will remain available on Facebook after the live broadcast. Finally, #ConcertsForKids teams up with top artists who will bring world-class performances and diverse musical perspectives from their homes to yours. Check the web calendar for the latest digital offerings.

London Symphony Orchestra
The LSO has announced ‘Always Playing’, a digital program of archive concerts to be streamed free via its YouTube channel across March and April 2020. Starting Sunday, March 22, there are concerts conducted by the LSO’s family of conductors, including Music Director Sir Simon Rattle, Principal Guest Conductors Gianandrea Noseda and François-Xavier Roth along with Guest Conductors Semyon Bychkov, Sir John Eliot Gardiner and Valery Gergiev. Guest artists include pianists Kristian Bezuidenhout, Seong-Jin Cho, Katia and Marielle Labèque, violinists Janine Jansen and Isabelle Faust, and singers Daniela Barcellona, Barbara Hannigan, Christiane Karg, Anna Larsson, Francesco Meli and Michele Pertusi. During this time the LSO’s social media will also be filled with clips from past performances, artists interviews, curated playlists and new recordings from the Orchestra’s Grammy Award-winning in-house label, LSO Live. Details and access here.

NEW: National Sawdust
National Sawdust has launched Live@NationalSawdust, a free digital platform offering concerts from the past five seasons and professional development programs from Renée Fleming, Meredith Monk and others, and including fundraising efforts for National Sawdust and the artists involved. Initial releases will focus on the very first concert in the venue from October 2015, including performances by Philip Glass, Foday Musa Suso, Tanya Tagaq, Chris Thile, Nico Muhly, Nadia Sirota, Jeffrey Zeigler, Eve Gigliotti, Paola Prestini, Nels Cline, Glenn Kotche, Theo Bleckmann, ACME and more. Future releases will draw from an extensive digital archive of more than 1,200 live performances, including highlights like Terry Riley’s Archangels featuring the Choir of Trinity Wall Street, Du Yun’s Pan Asia Sounding Festival, and more.

New World Symphony
Beginning the week of March 22, the New World Symphony will debut a web-based series called NWS Archive+.  Michael Tilson Thomas will moderate discussions with NWS Fellows, alumni, guest artists and visiting faculty about recorded performances from our archives. Their personal reflections will offer unique insights into the streamed concerts. Performances will be available at www.NWS.edu. Beginning Friday evening, March 20, at 7 pm, New World Symphony Fellows will play live, informal chamber music concerts from their homes in Miami Beach. New World Symphony Fellows: Live from our Living Room will be broadcast via Facebook Live. In addition, the New World Symphony’s ground-breaking online archive allows visitors to explore, engage and excel with NWS performances, master classes, tutorials and town halls. MUSAIC can be found at www.musaic.NWS.edu. Finally, for the past 10 years, the Fellows have prepared and performed a series of one-hour concerts for local school children. In the coming weeks, these concerts and preparatory material will be available free of charge to students and parents. NWS Educational concerts can be found at www.musaic.NWS.edu.

Olyrix
French opera streaming site Olyrix is making its content free throughout the COVID-19 crisis. Not all content is watchable in the U.S., but there are many fascinating productions and concerts from top-notch opera companies, from Purcell’s The Indian Queen from Opéra de Lille to Korngold’s Violanta from Teatro Reggio Torino. A really well-curated collection. Visit www.olyrix.com/videos/spectacle/1404/lopera-en-streaming-ne-ferme-pas-ses-portes

Opéra National de Paris
The Palais Garnier and the Bastille Opera are making their digital stage, the 3e Scène, free and available to all! Founded in 2015, the platform is a pure place of artistic adventure and exploration, giving free reins to artists coming from different horizons (photographers, filmmakers, writers, illustrators, visual artists, composers and choreographers) to create original works with a new take on music and dance, the Institution, its heritage and its crafts. Visit here. As previously announced, some of Opéra national de Paris’s productions are accessible for free on the Paris Opera Facebook page and france.tvculturebox. In addition, Octave, the Paris Opera’s online magazine, is posting articles, videos and interviews with artists in the shows on www.operadeparis.fr/magazine.

Opera North
One of Britain’s most respected smaller opera companies, Opera North, is making its acclaimed semi-staged concerts of Wagner’s epic Ring Cycle online, in full, for free. “Beg, borrow, or be like Wotan and steal a ticket for this show,” said the UK’s Times newspaper of Das Rheingold. “You’d be lucky to hear as good at Bayreuth,” said The Telegraph of Die Walküre. Richard Farnes proves a seriously impressive Wagner conductor. Watch it here.

OperaVision
OperaVision offers livestreams of operas available for free and online for six months. Previous offerings include Don Giovanni from Finnish National Opera, David McVicar’s superb Die Entführung aus dem Serail from Glyndebourne ** and Lucio Silla from La Monnaie / De Munt. View past content here.

NEW: The Philadelphia Orchestra
Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin and The Philadelphia Orchestra are offering new ways to engage virtually with the music and musicians of the Orchestra. Through three specific endeavors—WATCH, LISTEN, LEARN—the Virtual Philadelphia Orchestra will fulfill its ongoing commitment to bring music, in video and audio forms, as well as interactive education and enrichment, to audiences. Content will be available here.

San Francisco Symphony
San Francisco Symphony are making all documentary and concert episodes of Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony’s groundbreaking Keeping Score project available for unlimited free streaming on the Symphony’s YouTube channel. Episodes will be released beginning in four batches, every Wednesday through April 8, 2020. This seriously impressive and groundbreaking project traces the lives of eight influential composers from around the world. Michael Tilson Thomas explores the motivations and influences behind major classical works by Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, Copland, Stravinsky, Berlioz, Ives, Shostakovich, and Mahler. Each episode is accompanied by a one-hour concert program by the San Francisco Symphony. Unmissable. **

Seattle Symphony
Seattle Symphony is rebroadcasting concerts on Thursday and Saturday evenings. In addition, Morning Notes on YouTube or Facebook features individual musicians from the orchestra soloing on their instruments. The inaugural video, starring concertmaster Noah Geller playing Bach, is a definite pick-me-up.

Silkroad Home Sessions
The Silkroad collective has come together to develop a virtual concert mini-series. Most nights, Silkroad artists will be sharing short, musical performances on Facebook and Instagram, bringing music of comfort and joy directly from their homes into ours. There’s a preliminary schedule below and more dates will be added. Following the live stream, videos will be posted to Silkroad's website for later viewing.

Teatro Regio di Torino
The Teatro Regio di Torino will post streamed operas daily at 6 pm CET. The company will showcase dress rehearsals from the current and past seasons, which will be available act by act on their YouTube channel. The list will be updated daily.

Other Paid Digital Arts Services

Medici TV
Stream thousands of classical music videos available by subscription, as well as hundreds of events that are broadcast live for free each year, available for 90 days. Subscriptions cost $83.85 per year or $12.99 per month. www.medici.tv

Archived Recent Performances

The following broadcast events have occurred since the start of the COVID-19 crisis and are still available for viewing:

March 12
The Philadelphia Orchestra and Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin performed BeethovenNOW: Symphonies 5 & 6 as well as Iman Habibi’s Jeder Baum Spricht to an empty Verizon Hall for live broadcast. An outstanding concert captured in excellent visuals and sound. www.philorch.org/live

March 12 & 13
An ad hoc ongoing series. Igor Levit performed Beethoven’s Waldstein Sonata (March 12) and Frederic Rzewski’s bravura hour-long The People United Will Never Be Defeated! (March 13) from his home in Berlin. Fascinating, if challenging sound. Check out his Twitter feed @igorpianist

March 14
Canadian pianist Garrick Ohlsson played an impressive selection of works by Beethoven, Prokofiev (the Sixth Sonata), and Chopin to an empty house at New York’s 92nd Street Y. www.92y.org/archives/garrick-ohlsson-piano

Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, in their final concert before the shut down, presented Dohnányi's Serenade, Bartók's Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion, and Tchaikovsky's Souvenir de Florence. Available here.

March 16
In front of an empty auditorium (very visible thanks to excellent camerawork) Melbourne Symphony Orchestra was conducted by Forth Worth Symphony Music Director Miguel Harth Bedoya in dynamic performances of Bloch's Schelomo with soloist Timo-Veikko Valve, and Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade. Available here.

NEW: March 22
Dorn Music presented the Kuss Quartett playing Beethoven’s String Quartet in F, Op.18 No. 1, String Quartet in F, Op. 135 and String Quartet in A minor, Op. 132 Movement No. 3 Heiliger Dankgesang eines Genesenen an die Gottheit, in der lydischen Tonart for the benefit of freelance musicians in Lower Saxony and across the world. The Live Broadcast from Hannover is available here. Donate here.

March 27
92nd St. Y presents Jonathan Biss playing Beethoven’s last three piano sonatas. Written, as Beethoven said, “in a single breath,” these pieces represent the apotheosis of his piano writing, showing his mastery of the variation form (in Op. 109), his expertise in the forms of the musical past (the fugue, in Op. 110), and an ability to be cutting-edge (considering Op. 111 as a whole, but especially the famous ‘boogie woogie’ moments in the second movement). Available here.

Live From Lincoln Center presents “Simple Gifts: The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center at Shaker Village” The recording captures a historic moment in American history: the first performance of Aaron Copland's landmark ballet score Appalachian Spring in the heart of an authentic Shaker village, Kentucky's historic Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill. View here.

March 28
Deutsche Grammophon streams World Piano Day Concert. Performances from Evgeny Kissin, Víkingur Ólafsson, Maria João Pires, Daniil Trifonov, Jan Lisiecki, Joep Beving, Simon Ghraichy, Kit Armstrong, and Rudolf Buchbinder. Other artists are expected to join the line-up as part of the legendary Yellow Label’s celebration of music’s power to bring people together. Viewers will be able to watch via YouTube and Facebook using the hashtags #StayAtHome and #WorldPianoDay. The one-off program will be available online for a limited period after.

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