Industry News
MA's Free Guide to Free Streams, June 1-8
We will be updating this list weekly. Please note that all times are given in U.S. Eastern Time (ET). To calculate in other time zones or counties, British Summer Time (BST) is currently five hours ahead of ET and Central European Time (CET) is currently six hours ahead. U.S. Central Daylight Time (CDT) is one hour behind ET. Mountain Time (MT) is two hours behind ET, while Pacific Time (PT) is three hours behind. Contact editor@musicalamerica.com.
Classical music coverage on Musical America is supported in part by a grant from the Rubin Institute for Music Criticism, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation. Musical America makes all editorial decisions.
Monday, June 1
8am: Wigmore Hall Lunchtime Concerts presents Stephen Hough. The first of a new series of livestreamed concerts to an empty Wigmore Hall. Program includes Bach’s Partita No. 2 in D minor for solo violin BWV1004 Chaconne (arr. Ferruccio Busoni) and Schumann’s Fantasie in C Op. 17. View here. LIVE. [See also this week’s One to One interview with Wigmore Hall Artistic & Executive Director John Gilhooly.]
12 pm ET: Pop Up Pipa with Wu Man: Episode 7: Basel Rajoub. Though best known as a saxophonist, Rajoub plays the duclar, a clarinet-like Middle Eastern instrument, in this performance with Wu Man. Rajoub also composed the piece titled Honor Due. View here.
12 pm ET: Vienna Staatsoper streams Richard Strauss’s Die Frau Ohne Schatten (Performance of October 18, 2019). Conductor: Christian Thielemann, with Stephen Gould, Camilla Nylund, Mihoko Fujimura, Clemens Unterreiner, Maria Nazarova, Tomasz Konieczny, Nina Stemme. Sign up for free and view here.
1 pm ET: IDAGIO Live presents Kirill Gerstein’s #ViewAcrossTheKeyboard. Join Kirill Gerstein in an exploration of the treasures of keyboard discography every Monday evening. View here and on demand.
2:15 pm ET: Bayerische Staatsoper presents Monday Concert. Bass Günther Groissböck and pianist Gerold Huber perform songs by Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky; soloists from the Bayerisches Staatsorchester play Cerha’s Nachtstücke and Mozart’s Serenade No. 13 G Major K. 525 (Eine kleine Nachtmusik); members of the Bayerisches Staatsballett dance Petipa’s Don Quixote: Solo from Act 1 (Virna Toppi) and the Pas de deux from Act 2 (Laurretta Summerscales and Yonah Acosta). View here. LIVE, and then on demand from June 4 to June 18.
4 pm ET: Kaufman Music Center presents a four-hour Day of Musical Action featuring performances by students and faculty from all of the Center’s programs. 6 - 8 pm features performances by celebrity guests, including Joshua Bell, Broadway stars Nikki Renée Daniels and Jeff Kready, Alan Menken, David Robertson (performing Steve Reich's Clapping Music with his twin sons), Orli Shaham, Caroline Shaw, Carol Wincenc, songwriter Paul Williams, Shai Wosner, JACK Quartet, Nathalie Joachim, and Rob Kapilow. Also appearing will be Emanuel Ax, Sir James Galway, Missy Mazzoli, and broadcasters Terrance McKnight and John Schaefer. The Day of Musical Action will raise critical funds in support of Kaufman Music Center’s ongoing efforts to level the playing field for more than 4,000 music students from diverse backgrounds each year. Members of the KMC community who wish to participate (via pre-recorded video) are requested to donate or fundraise at least $100, while online attendance is free. Donations can be made here and view here.
7:30 pm ET: Nightly Met Opera Streams presents Bellini’s I Puritani. Conducted by Patrick Summers; starring Anna Netrebko, Eric Cutler, Franco Vassallo, and John Relyea. Transmitted live on January 6, 2007. View here and for 24 hours.
7 pm ET: LA Opera presents Living Room Recital with Angel Blue. Program includes arias and songs by Richard Strauss, Mozart, and Rachmaninov. View here.
Tuesday, June 2
8am: Wigmore Hall Lunchtime Concerts presents Lucy Crowe and Anna Tilbrook. Part of a new series of livestreamed concerts to an empty Wigmore Hall. Celebrating 20 years of performances together, Crowe and Tilbrook present a survey of English song alongside Berg’s seven early songs, written at the beginning of the 20th Century. View here. LIVE
12 pm ET: Bergen International festival presents The Norwegian Soloists' Choir. In 2020 the Norwegian Soloists' Choir celebrates its 70th anniversary and will perform with its conductor Grete Pedersen its award-winning interpretation of Bach’s motets and Poulenc's Hymn to Freedom. View here.
1 pm ET: Vienna Staatsoper streams Thomas Adès’s The Tempest (Performance of June 24, 2015). Conductor: Thomas Adès, with Adrian Eröd, Audrey Luna, Thomas Ebenstein, Stephanie Houtzeel, Herbert Lippert. Sign up for free and view here
1 pm ET: OperaVision presents Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti. A successful businessman and his wife lead a comfortable family life, but when it fails to meet their expectations they must find a way to save their marriage. Matthew Eberhardt brings 1950s suburbia to life in Leonard Bernstein’s colorful criticism of American consumerism. Opera North’s performance stars Wallis Giunta, winner of the Young Singer Award at the 2018 International Opera Awards, in the role of Dinah and Quirijn de Lang as Sam. A one act opera, still rarely staged, that deserves to be seen far more often. View here. **
1 pm ET: IDAGIO presents Thomas Hampson’s World of Song. Tune in with baritone Thomas Hampson and a special guest every Tuesday evening for insights into some of his favorite repertoire and recordings. View here and later on demand.
1:30 pm ET: Bergen International festival presents Johanne Haugland & Gunnar Flagstad. From youthful optimism to swan song. Music by Bull, Grieg, Sæverud, Schumann and Debussy. View here.
2 pm ET: Live with Carnegie Hall presents singer-songwriter Rosanne Cash who curates an episode focused on American protest music, past and present, and its ability to bring people together in times of crisis. Cash will be joined by special musical guests including Ry Cooder and Elvis Costello with discussion moderated by John Schaefer. View here.
5 pm ET: Renée Fleming presents Music and Mind Live. The soprano and arts and health advocate talks to scientists and practitioners working at the intersection of music, neuroscience, and healthcare, including a live Q&A from viewers. This episode features “At Home with Children: Musical Tool Kit” with Miriam Lense, PhD, (Vanderbilt University Music Cognition Lab); Sara Beck, PhD (Randolph College). View on Fleming’s Facebook page and on demand on the Kennedy Center website.
6 pm ET: National Sawdust presents Conrad Tao. Tao has appeared worldwide as a pianist and composer, is a recipient of the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant and was named a Gilmore Young Artist—an honor awarded every two years highlighting the most promising American pianists of the new generation. View here.
9 pm ET: Living Music with Nadia Sirota: Pirate Radio Edition. Award-winning violist, broadcaster and curator Nadia Sirota’s new music and talk show airs from her garage in Los Angeles with special guests performing from their homes. View here.
Wednesday, June 3
8am: Wigmore Hall Lunchtime Concerts presents Sean Shibe. Part of a new series of livestreamed concerts to an empty Wigmore Hall. The recipient of a newly created Gramophone Award for ‘Concept Album’ in 2019, Shibe is acclaimed internationally for his versatility. Program: Scottish Lute Manuscripts, Bach’s Suite in E minor BWV996, Steve Reich’s Electric Counterpoint for electric guitar and tape. View here. LIVE
9 am ET: Nightly Met Opera Streams presents Berg’s Lulu. Conducted by Lothar Koenigs; starring Marlis Petersen, Susan Graham, Daniel Brenna, Paul Groves, Johan Reuter, and Franz Grundheber. Transmitted live on November 21, 2015. View here and for 24 hours.
12 pm ET: Bergen International festival presents Closing Concert. Celebrating its hundredth anniversary, the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra rounds off the 2020 Bergen International Festival with a program devoted exclusively to Mozart (Concertos Nos. 20 & 21 and Piano Quartet). The soloist is Leif Ove Andsnes, who conducts the orchestra from the piano. View here.
12 pm ET: IDAGIO presents Mahler Symphony No. 8. Iván Fischer, music director of the Budapest Festival Orchestra, walks us through the symphonies of Gustav Mahler. He shares his thoughts and feelings about each work, answering your questions and listening to his recording of these masterpieces. View here and on demand.
12 pm ET: Pop Up Pipa with Wu Man: Episode 8: Raphaël Jouan. Wu Man welcomes cellist Raphaël Jouan back to Pop Up Pipa, following their earlier performance of Bach’s Air on the G String. This time they perform Fauré’s “Après un rêve,” a song arranged here for pipa and cello. View here.
12 pm ET: Staatskapelle Dresden presents Christian Thielemann and Jonas Kaufmann in a concert celebrating the birthday of Richard Wagner. View here and available for 48 hours.
1 pm ET: Vienna Staatsoper streams Strauss's Elektra (Performance of April 11, 2014). Conductor: Mikko Franck, with Anna Larsson, Nina Stemme, Gun-Brit Barkmin, Norbert Ernst, Falk Struckmann. Sign up for free and view here.
1:30 pm ET: The Kanneh-Mason Family. “The Von Trapps of Classical Music” (Telegraph UK) go live via cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason’s Facebook every Wednesday and Friday with a mixture of intimate family chamber performances and behind the scenes chat. Watch here.
2:15 pm ET: Concertgebouworkest presents Beethoven’s Symphony No 7. Gustavo Gimeno, conductor. The Concertgebouworkest has configured the ground floor of the Concertgebouw. The rehearsals, in which the players maintain a distance of 1.75 m, have shown it is possible to perform symphonic works scored for not too large an orchestra in such an arrangement and – at least for the moment – without an audience. A fragment of the rehearsal can be found here. View concert here.
4 pm ET: Next Fest Connects presents A Masterclass with Violinist Jennifer Koh. Jennifer Koh is recognized for intense, commanding performances, delivered with dazzling virtuosity and technical assurance. A forward-thinking artist, she is dedicated to exploring a broad and eclectic repertoire, while promoting diversity and inclusivity in classical music. For this masterclass, she coaches three young artists: Sydney Mariano on Ysaye's Sonata No. 3, Ashlee Booth (Rep TBD), and Giancarlo Latta on Missy Mazzoli's Dissolve, O my Heart. Free to all registrants here.
4 pm ET: Los Angeles Master Chorale presents The Virtual High School Choir Festival. For over 30 years, LAMC has created a mega choir of 1,000 high school singers who, after a year of preparation, came together to perform at Walt Disney Concert Hall. In the absence of being able to gather in person due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Master Chorale has created a special virtual version of the festival, to be held online. VHSCF will feature favorite moments of recent festivals. Highlights will include the “Purple Rain” tribute to Prince that blew the roof off Disney Hall in 2016; Bill Withers’s “Lean on Me” from 2019; student interviews; testimonials of gratitude from high school seniors and shout outs from former festival guest conductors. The festival will culminate in a virtual performance of participants singing “The Promise of Light,” by Georgia Stitt, lyrics by Len Schiff. Check here for more information.
7:30 pm ET: Nightly Met Opera Streams presents Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice. Conducted by James Levine; starring Danielle de Niese, Heidi Grant Murphy, and Stephanie Blythe. Transmitted live on January 24, 2009. View here and for 24 hours.
8 pm ET: Lincoln Center Dance Week presents Tribute to Balanchine (1983). A month after the great George Balanchine passed away, New York City Ballet threw this loving tribute to its co-founder, with dances set to Strauss, Tchaikovsky, and Gershwin. View here.
8 pm ET: National Sawdust presents Huang Ruo’s The Sonic Great Wall. First Performed on January 7, 2019. What does a “wall” mean to you, and how can we break down barriers? Sonic Great Wall is a sonic, spatial, visual, and participatory project that uses new music to reach, connect, and engage audiences with performers. Inspired by the Great Wall’s structure, “watchtowers” are created as mini-stages for the performers, with connecting “walls” made of audience members seated on benches or rows of chairs facing one another. Performers move between the watchtowers, while audiences are invited to participate through humming, breathing, and whispering, representing the spirits guarding the Great Wall. View here.
Thursday, June 4
8am: Wigmore Hall Lunchtime Concerts presents Nicholas Daniel and Julius Drake. Part of a new series of livestreamed concerts to an empty Wigmore Hall. One of the finest oboists of his generation, Daniel is joined by his regular recital partner for a program spanning 19th-century romantic works through to jazz standards. The recital features three works by the English composer and actress Madeleine Dring alongside music by Liszt, Finzi, Schumann and Jerome Kern. View here. LIVE
12 pm ET: Beth Morrison Projects presents love fail, an evening-length theater work from Pulitzer Prize-winning composer David Lang. Sung by the genre bending Quince Contemporary Vocal Ensemble, love fail weaves together snippets of medieval courtly love narratives, short stories by MacArthur Fellowship Award-winning author Lydia Davis, scraps from the libretto of Wagner’s opera Tristan and Isolde, and text by Lang himself. Out of these sources, Lang has conjured a single story in which two unnamed lovers meet each other, love each other, and lose each other—not necessarily in that order. View here and on demand for a week.
1 pm ET: Vienna Staatsoper streams Giordano’s Andrea Chénier (Performance of May 2, 2018). Conductor: Marco Armiliato, with Anja Harteros, Jonas Kaufmann, Roberto Frontali, Ilseyar Khayrullova, Donna Ellen, Zoryana Kushpler, Boaz Daniel, Manuel Walser. Sign up for free and view here.
1 pm ET: IDAGIO presents Thursdays with Thomas. Join Thomas Hampson in conversation with colleagues, friends, and other major personalities of the classical music world. Every week, Thomas invites a special guest for a discussion around their favorite piece of the classical repertoire. View here and later on demand.
2 pm ET: Live with Carnegie Hall presents Michael Feinstein with a program dedicated to the music of Irving Berlin and featuring special guest Broadway stars Cheyenne Jackson, Kelli O'Hara, and Tony Yazbeck. With a catalog of more than 1,000 songs—including such classics as “Anything You Can Do (I Can Do Better)” and “Alexander’s Ragtime Band”—Berlin is one of the most prolific contributors to the Great American Songbook. Michael Feinstein leads this lively episode of music and conversation. View here.
2:15 pm ET: Concertgebouworkest presents Dvorák’s Symphony No. 8. Gustavo Gimeno, conductor. The Concertgebouworkest has configured the ground floor of the Concertgebouw. The rehearsals, in which the players maintain a distance of 1.75 m, have shown it is possible to perform symphonic works scored for not too large an orchestra in such an arrangement and – at least for the moment – without an audience. A fragment of the rehearsal can be found here. View concert here. LIVE
2:30 pm ET: London Symphony Orchestra presents Stravinsky’s The Soldier’s Tale from LSO St Luke’s. With Roman Simovic director, Malcolm Sinclair narrator, LSO Chamber Ensemble. View on here and later on demand.
7 pm ET: Detroit Symphony Orchestra Watch Parties presents Concertos for Horn & Violin. Program includes Haydn’s Concerto for Two Horns in E-flat major with Simone Young, conductor, Karl Pituch, horn, and Johanna Yarbrough, horn; Brahms: Violin Concerto in D major with Carlos Miguel Prieto, conductor, James Ehnes, violin. View here and later on demand.
7:30 pm ET: Nightly Met Opera Streams presents Puccini’s Tosca. Conducted by James Conlon; starring Shirley Verrett, Luciano Pavarotti, Cornell MacNeil. Transmitted live on December 19, 1978. View here and for 24 hours.
8 pm ET: Lincoln Center Dance Week presents Chroma, Grace, Takademe, Revelations (2015) with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Witness a masterpiece of American dance, Alvin Ailey’s Revelations, in a program including Wayne McGregor’s?Chroma, Ronald K. ?Brown’s?Grace, and Robert Battle’s?Takademe. View here.
8 pm ET: The Philadelphia Orchestra presents Bruckner’s Symphony No. 9. Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts the Orchestra in Anton Bruckner’s swansong. Originally performed in May 2014. View here.
8:30 pm ET: Less Than Ten Music presents Music of Viet Cuong. Through a combination of streaming and recording, Less Than Ten Music supports the performing arts community with live digital performances and conversations that shine a light on social economic interpersonal ramifications of current public health crisis each concert adheres to safe distancing practices donations are funneled into various austin tx charities who support this week s program includes brandon rumsey em>Painting Rain, Viet Cuong’s Veil (arr. Jordan Walsh) and Naica, and James Tabata’s To The Strongest. View here.
9 pm ET: Living Music with Nadia Sirota: Pirate Radio Edition. Award-winning violist, broadcaster and curator Nadia Sirota’s new music and talk show airs from her garage in Los Angeles with special guests performing from their homes. View here.
10 pm ET: Seattle Opera Songs of Summer presents Tess Altiveros. Equally at home in repertoire ranging from the 17th century to the 21st, soprano Tess Altiveros is best known to Seattle Opera audiences for her bold and affecting work in our three groundbreaking chamber productions: The Combat (2017), O+E (2018), and The Falling and the Rising (2019.) A native Seattleite, her recital is framed by selections from Poulenc’s Tel jour telle nuit song cycle. Altiveros and pianist Elisabeth Ellis take us from morning to evening with pieces that trace daily thoughts and rituals. Highlights include three shorts songs from Emerson Eads’s “Love Is” cycle using poetry by children responding to the question is “What is love?” View here.
Friday, June 5
3 am ET: Carnegie Hall Live & Medici.TV present Gustavo Dudamel and the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela perform a selection of dances from around the world, including works by Ravel, Stravinsky, Brahms, Copland, Ginastera, and Bernstein (Original broadcast date: October 6, 2016). View here and available for 72 hours.
8 am ET: Semperoper Dresden streams Weber’s Der Freischütz. (Conductor Christian Thielemann, director: Axel Köhler, with Michael König (Max), Sara Jakubiak (Agathe), Christina Landshamer (Ännchen), Georg Zeppenfeld (Kaspar), Adrian Eröd (Ottokar). Recording of the production of the Semperoper Dresden in May 2015. View here until June 8.
8am: Wigmore Hall Lunchtime Concerts presents Pavel Kolesnikov and Samson Tsoy. Part of a new series of livestreamed concerts to an empty Wigmore Hall. Two exceptional young pianists join forces for a program of piano four hands by Beethoven and Brahms, culminating in Schubert’s inimitable Fantasie in F minor, a piece once described by Joachim Kaiser as “one of the greatest works in music history”. View here. LIVE
12 pm ET: Faithful Friday with Angel Blue. The acclaimed American soprano in the latest episode of her topical talk show broadcast live every Friday on Facebook and Instagram. Producer, actress, author and fitness expert Shanna Ferrigno believes that life is all about setting goals and finding midpoints along the way where people can celebrate their progress. With Angel, she’ll be sharing tips for fitness success and discussing her book, The Reset Plan. This is the twelfth weekly installment of the series that aims to help people “keep the faith,” believe in themselves, get motivated, and support each other during these unsettling times.
12 pm ET: Pop Up Pipa with Wu Man: Episode 9: Lee Knight. Wu Man gets into character for her Pop Up Pipa performance with American folk musician Lee Knight. They perform Pete Seeger’s “Well May the World Go,” with added verses by Mr. Knight. View here.
12 pm ET: Daniel Hope presents Hope@Home on Tour. As Germany relaxes its lockdown the award-winning violinist takes his popular livestreamed TV series on the road. This weekend he will be on the road to two cities, performing and exploring at the Beethoven Haus in Bonn, where he is President of the organization, and then heading to Dresden for performances at the Frauenkirche. The church was built in the 18th century, destroyed in the bombing of Dresden during WWII, and rebuilt after the reunification of Germany beginning in 1994 and re-consecrated in 2005. View here.
1 pm ET: Vienna Staatsoper streams Beethoven’s Leonore (Performance of February 1, 2020). Conductor: Tomáš Netopil, with Jennifer Davis, Katrin Röver, Benjamin Bruns, Falk Struckmann, Thomas Johannes Mayer, Samuel Hasselhorn, Chen Reiss, Jörg Schneider. Sign up for free and view here.
1 pm ET: Staatsoper Unter den Linden presents Music from Mozart to Jazz. Program includes Mozart’s Harmony music for Così fan tutte and music by Richard Wagner, Richard Strauss and Frank Raschke. With the wind instruments of the Staatskapelle Berlin. View here and on demand “for a few days”.
1 pm ET: OperaVision presents Bernstein’s Candide. When young Candide's marriage offer to a baron's daughter backfires, the naïve student of optimism is hurled into an eye-opening journey around the globe, discovering the horrors of existence at every step. The Grange Festival’s 2018 semi-staged production commemorates the composer’s 100th birthday. Conductor: Alfonso Casado Trigo, director: Christopher Luscombe, with Richard Suart (Narrator/Pangloss/Martin), Rob Houchen (Candide), Katie Hall (Cunegonde), Charles Rice (Maximilian), Rosemary Ashe (Old Lady), Kitty Whately (Paquette), Robert Murray (Cacambo/Governor/Vanderdendur), Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, The Grange Festival Chorus. View here.
1:30 pm ET: The Kanneh-Mason Family. “The Von Trapps of Classical Music” (Telegraph UK) go live via cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason’s Facebook every Wednesday and Friday with a mixture of intimate family chamber performances and behind the scenes chat. Watch here.
2 pm ET: Royal Opera House presents Puccini’s Il Trittico. (Production from 2012). Richard Jones witty, darkly comic realizations of Il Tabarro, Suor Angelica and Gianni Schicchi are conducted by Antonio Pappano. The first is a tale of jealousy and murder set aboard a barge on the Seine and stars Lucio Gallo as Michele, Eva-Maria Westbroek as Giorgetta and Aleksandrs Antonenko as Luigi. This is followed by Suor Angelica which tells the story of the nun Angelica’s familial loss and sacrifice and stars Ermonela Jaho. The final work, Gianni Schicchi, is full of trickery, greed and romance, and centres around a family dispute over a missing will and stars Lucio Gallo and Ekaterina Siurina as Lauretta. View here and until June 29.
3 pm ET: LA Opera presents Lift Every Voice. Instead of the planned Great Opera Choruses program LA Opera hosts a conversation that is long overdue on racial disparity and inequality in opera. Mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges will lead the discussion including soprano Julia Bullock, tenor Lawrence Brownlee, tenor Russell Thomas, soprano Karen Slack and bass Morris Robinson. View here.
3 pm ET: WUOL Classical Louisville presents “In This Together.” Louisville Orchestra MD Teddy Abrams joins Daniel Gilliam as a regular co-host. Video streaming live on the station's Facebook page, the live radio show is “a weekly segment to help bring us closer together with music and conversation when we need to be apart.”
5:30 pm ET: San Francisco Ballet presents Director’s Choice. (Program from February 2020). Curated by Artistic Director and Principal Choreographer Helgi Tomasson. A selection from three ballets: Tomasson’s Soirées Musicales (SF Ballet principal dancers Misa Kuranaga and Angelo Greco perform) and Concerto Grosso, and Christopher Wheeldon’s After the Rain pas de deux with principal dancers Yuan Yuan Tan, who celebrates her 25th anniversary with the Company in 2020, and Luke Ingham. View here. Plus meet the artist interview with on Facebook at 6 pm ET.
7:30 pm ET: Nightly Met Opera Streams presents Adès’s The Exterminating Angel. Conducted by Thomas Adès; starring Audrey Luna, Amanda Echalaz, Sally Matthews, Sophie Bevan, Alice Coote, Christine Rice, Iestyn Davies, Joseph Kaiser, Frédéric Antoun, David Portillo, David Adam Moore, Rod Gilfry, Kevin Burdette, Christian Van Horn, John Tomlinson. Transmitted live on November 18, 2017. View here and for 24 hours.
8 pm ET: Live From Lincoln Center presents Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Carousel with the New York Philharmonic. Carousel was hailed by Time Magazine as “the best musical of the 20th Century.” The New York Philharmonic presents a stunning staged production of this iconic American work, featuring a star-studded cast including Kelli O'Hara, Nathan Gunn, Stephanie Blythe, Shuler Hensley, Jason Danieley, Jessie Mueller, Kate Burton, John Cullum and New York City Ballet dancers Robert Fairchild and Tiler Peck. View here.
11 pm ET: Old First Concerts presents Sarah Cahill in The Future is Female. Cahill plays an evening-length version of a curation and performance project that features more than sixty compositions by women around the globe, ranging from the 18th century to the present day. Focusing here on music from the 20th and 21st centuries, the program includes works by Gabriela Ortiz, Margaret Bonds, Germaine Tailleferre, Elizabeth A. Baker, Sofia Gubaidulina, Lois V Vierk, Grazyna Bacewicz, Betsy Jolas, and Elena Kats-Chernin. The concert will be available with suggested donations to support Old First Concerts and Compass Family Services, which provides a wide variety of human services to homeless families and those at risk of homelessness. View here.
Saturday, June 6
6 am ET: Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra presents National Day Concert. Take your place in the garden or your favorite armchair with your picnic basket and share the experience with many others in Gothenburg, Sweden and the world. This year, it has not been possible to make the concert in public – but it will be a concert anyway! Conductor Santtu-Matias Rouvali leads a program of orchestral music by Stenhammar, Sibelius, Grieg, Mozart, Lehár, Beethoven and Mozart. As well as choral music, brass music and folk music. View here. LIVE
12 pm ET: Daniel Hope presents Hope@Home on Tour. As Germany relaxes its lockdown the award-winning violinist takes his popular livestreamed TV series on the road. This weekend he will be on the road to two cities, performing and exploring at the Beethoven Haus in Bonn, where he is President of the organization, and then heading to Dresden for performances at the Frauenkirche. The church was built in the 18th century, destroyed in the bombing of Dresden during WWII, and rebuilt after the reunification of Germany beginning in 1994 and re-consecrated in 2005. View here.
1 pm ET: Vienna Staatsoper streams Undine (Children's opera, performance of April 18, 2014). Conductor: Johannes Wildner, with Carlos Osuna, Annika Gerhards, Lydia Rathkolb, Tae-Joong Yang, Il Hong. Sign up for free and view here.
7 pm ET: The Philadelphia Orchestra presents HearTOGETHER: A Healing Conversation in Music and Words. HearTOGETHER will feature a conversation with Wynton Marsalis and Valerie Coleman, as well as a performance by Marsalis and the world premiere of Valerie’s Seven O’Clock Shout, her second Philadelphia Orchestra commission, dedicated to frontline workers in the COVID-19 pandemic. HearTOGETHER is dedicated to George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Tony McDade, Breonna Taylor, and the countless Black Lives wrongfully and tragically lost before them, and to the value and dignity of all Black Lives. View here and until June 8.
7:30 pm ET: Met Opera Streams presents Verdi’s Otello. Conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin; starring Sonya Yoncheva, Aleksandrs Antonenko, and Ċ½eljko Lucic. Transmitted live on October 17, 2015. View here and for 24 hours.
8 pm ET: Lincoln Center Dance Week presents Coppélia (1978). George Balanchine’s and Alexandra Danilova’s comic ballet for New York City Ballet, with music by Léo Delibes, centers on a mechanical girl with whom the hero falls in love. View here.
8 pm ET: Chamber Music Society of Detroit presents Rahim AlHaj. A refugee of the Gulf War, AlHaj shares stories from his native Iraq, including his own, and speaks to the resilience of the human spirit and the unity of humanity in the face of opposition. An accomplished performer and composer of music for oud and mixed ensembles including string quartet, orchestra, and percussion, he collaborates here with Bill Frisell, sarod maestro Amjad Ali Khan, Kronos Quartet, and indie-rock pioneers REM. Co-Presented by Chamber Music Society of Detroit, University of Chicago Presents, Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Chicago, Arab American Museum, and WFMT. View here.
Sunday, June 7
10 am ET: Academy of Ancient Music presents Rejoice! with David Blackadder and Rowan Pierce. Royal Wedding Trumpeter David Blackadder and rising young soprano Rowan Pierce join Bojan Cicic and the Academy of Ancient Music for an effervescent program of Bach, Handel, Corelli and more. View here.
12 pm ET: Glyndebourne Open House presents Mozart’s Così fan tutte. The last of the three great collaborations between Mozart and librettist Lorenzo da Ponte, Così fan tutte is also the most sophisticated—a comedy that teeters right on the brink of tragedy. Scratch the sunny surface and this lyrical, Neapolitan farce reveals itself as a probing psychological portrait of human nature in all its complexity. Nicholas Hytner’s staging finds both the charm and the darkness in Mozart’s opera. Iván Fischer conducts an all-star cast including Luca Pisaroni and Miah Persson. Captured live in 2006. Hytner’s is one of the most thoughtful stagings of this most delicate of works. View here. **
12 pm ET: Daniel Hope presents Hope@Home on Tour. As Germany relaxes its lockdown the award-winning violinist takes his popular livestreamed TV series on the road. This weekend he will be on the road to two cities, performing and exploring at the Beethoven Haus in Bonn, where he is President of the organization, and then heading to Dresden for performances at the Frauenkirche. The church was built in the 18th century, destroyed in the bombing of Dresden during WWII, and rebuilt after the reunification of Germany beginning in 1994 and re-consecrated in 2005. View here.
1 pm ET: Vienna Staatsoper streams Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov (Performance of May 13, 2016). Conductor: Marko Letonja Mit René Pape, Margaret Plummer, Aida Garifullina, Zoryana Kushpler, Norbert Ernst, David Pershall, Kurt Rydl, Marian Talaba, Ryan Speedo Green. Sign up for free and view here.
1 pm ET: Dutch National Opera presents Strauss’s Salome. Love, temptation and decapitation. Princess Salome falls obsessively in love with the sullen prophet Jochanaan (John the Baptist), who is held prisoner by her stepfather Herod. However, the feeling is not mutual. Salome goes off the rails and claims the head of Jochanaan. Directed by Ivo van Hove, with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra conducted by Daniele Gatti. Soprano Malin Byström caused a furore in the title role. View here until June 14.
2 pm ET: London Symphony Orchestra presents BMW Classic 2019 from Trafalgar Square.
Dvorák’s Slavonic Dances, Bushra el-Turk’s Tuqus, Poulenc’s Les Biches (excerpts), Ravel’s La Valse. With Sir Simon Rattle?conductor, London Symphony Orchestra, LSO On Track Young Musicians, Guildhall School Musicians. View on here and later on demand.
3 pm ET: Boston Pops presents An American Salute. Presented in honor of the front-line personnel working during the COVID-19 Crisis. Recorded in 2010 in celebration of the Pops' 125th anniversary, conductor Keith Lockhart leads the orchestra in beloved Americana selections, as well as The Dream Lives On: A Portrait of the Kennedy Brothers, a commissioned work by New England-native composer Peter Boyer and lyricist Lynn Ahrens that celebrates the inspiring language and public service of the Kennedy family with a star-studded cast of narrators and the Tanglewood Festival Chorus. View here and for 45 days.
3 pm ET: Detroit Symphony Orchestra Watch Parties presents Prieto Conducts de Falla. Program includes Arturo Márquez’s Danzón No. 2, Giménez’s Intermezzo from La Boda de Luis Alonso, De Falla’s El Sombrero de Tres Picos (The Three-Cornered Hat), with Carlos Miguel Prieto, conductor and Catalina Cuervo, soprano. View here and later on demand.
5 pm ET: Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center presents Front Row. Includes performance footage and an introductory interview offering a personal look into the artists’ lives during the COVID-19 pandemic. Hosted by David Finckel and Wu Han, each concert will also include visual program notes and end with a live Q&A with the featured artist. This week: CMS artist Gilbert Kalish: Program: Crumb’s Three Early Songs for Voice and Piano (Tony Arnold soprano, Gilbert Kalish piano), Schubert’s Der Hirt auf dem Felsen (Lisette Oropesa soprano, David Shifrin, clarinet, Gilbert Kalish, piano), Brahms’s Piano Quartet No. 3 in C minor (Gilbert Kalish piano, Nicolas Dautricourt violin, Paul Neubauer viola, Torleif Thedéen cello. View here and for 72 hours.
6 pm ET: Lincoln Center presents Memorial For Us. While many rituals we hold dear are no longer possible, Memorial For Us All is an interfaith collaboration offering unity, comfort, and healing through music, an art form intertwined with so many of our most beloved rituals around the world. Anyone who has lost a loved one during this pandemic is invited to submit the name of a friend or family member to be honored here. Following last Sunday’s broadcast led by Ailyn Pérez, many community members from New York City and beyond have submitted names of loved ones lost to be honored this Sunday. View here.
7 pm ET: Lawrence Brownlee presents The Sitdown with LB. In the second of his new Facebook live series the tenor will be discussing the unique realities and experiences of being an opera singer of African-American or African descent with baritone Will Liverman. Future guests will include Latonia Moore, J’Nai Bridges, and more. View here.
7:30 pm ET: Nightly Met Opera Streams presents Massenet’s Thaïs. Conducted by Jesús López-Cobos; starring Renée Fleming, Michael Schade, and Thomas Hampson. Transmitted live on December 20, 2008. View here and for 24 hours.
8 pm ET: Opera Theatre of St Louis presents Opening Night Spotlight on Awakenings. A special live celebration of OTSL’s 2020 world premiere production of Awakenings, a new opera based on Oliver Sacks’s 1973 memoir, with Artistic Director and Awakenings stage director James Robinson, composer Tobias Picker, librettist Aryeh Lev Stollman, and baritone Jarrett Porter. In addition to set renderings and design inspirations, explore musical excerpts from this never-before-heard opera. View here.
Monday, June 8
8am: Wigmore Hall Lunchtime Concerts presents Steven Isserlis and Mishka Rushdie Momen. Part of a new series of livestreamed concerts to an empty Wigmore Hall. The acclaimed cellist celebrates Schumann’s birthday with a performance of the Three Romances Op. 94 in the company of Mishka Rushdie Momen, a pianist described by Richard Goode as having a “rare ability to communicate the essential meaning of whatever she plays.” Other works include music by Beethoven and Fauré. View here. LIVE
1 pm ET: The Greene Space presents Music Break: Revisit Joshua Bell and Jeremy Denk in Concert. Watch an encore video stream of this thrilling performance by the Grammy Award-winning violinist and the acclaimed pianist playing works by Brahms and Schumann. Hosted by WQXR’s Jeff Spurgeon. View here.
1 pm ET: IDAGIO Live presents Kirill Gerstein’s #ViewAcrossTheKeyboard. Join Kirill Gerstein in an exploration of the treasures of keyboard discography every Monday evening. View here and on demand.
Artists and Organizations Offering Free Content
The following are all accessible during the coronavirus pandemic
Academy of Ancient Music
The most listened-to period instrument ensemble, directed by Richard Egarr, is making weekly streams available on its website. Guest artists include Louise Alder, soprano, Nicola Benedetti, violin, Mary Bevan, soprano, David Blackadder, trumpet, Iestyn Davies, countertenor, Tim Mead, countertenor, Christopher Purvis, bass, and Tenebrae, directed by Nigel Short. Explore here.
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.
NEW: American Composer’s Orchestra
ACO announces Volume 2 of Connecting ACO Community, an initiative to commission short works for solo instrument or voice. Each composer is offered $500 to write the work, and each performer is offered $500 to perform the work, with the rights to stream for six months. With the six commissions in Volume 2 (June 7 - July 19, 2020), ACO aims to support artists financially and to create new work that will live beyond this crisis. Premieres of the new works take place live on Sundays at 5pm ET, streaming privately for ticket-buyers on ACO's YouTube channel. The composer, performer, and a host (ACO President Ed Yim or ACO Artistic Director Derek Bermel) will hold an online chat with the attendees after the performance. The recorded sessions will be available on MUSIC on the REBOUND. For more info and to purchase $5 tickets visit here.
American Opera Project
American Opera Project presents AOPTV: Opera Comes Home. Three world premiere English-language opera productions are available for livestream on the AOP website. As One is a chamber opera by composer Laura Kaminsky, librettist Mark Campbell and librettist/filmmaker Kimberly Reed in which two voices—Hannah after (mezzo-soprano) and Hannah before (baritone)—trace a transgender protagonist from her youth in a small town to her college years on the West Coast, and finally to Norway where she is surprised at what she learns about herself. Three Way, with music by Robert Paterson and libretto by David Cote, is an opera on the present and future of sex and love comprised of three, playful one-acts. Harriet Tubman, with music and libretto by Nkeiru Okoye, is a two-act theatrical work that tells of how a young girl born in slavery becomes Harriet Tubman, the legendary Underground Railroad conductor.
American Pianists Association
To keep the music alive while they prepare for the 2021 American Pianists Awards, APA is revisiting the last two classical competitions. For two months, it will be uploading performances to its YouTube Channel from the 2013 and 2017 Awards competitions. Performances by Sean Chen and Claire Huangci are already posted, and new videos will be added daily until late May.
American Symphony Orchestra
American Symphony Orchestra presents ASO Online. Each Wednesday, for as long as live performances are not possible, the ASO will release a recording from its archives. Content will alternate weekly between live video recordings of SummerScape operas and audio recordings from previous ASO concerts. Strauss Die Liebe aus Danae, conducted by Leon Botstein from 2011, is highly recommended and available now. **
Apollo’s 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.
Australian Chamber Orchestra
ACO HomeCasts is an innovative digital content season curated by Artistic Director Richard Tognetti, and with an emphasis on content that reflects the ACO’s artistry, dynamism, and sense of adventure. ACO HomeCasts encompass a mix of hi- and lo-fi content presented across a range of channels. Musicians have been equipped with a mini in-home studio and training, enabling them to record, produce, and broadcast content directly from their homes. This includes full-length ACO concerts broadcast as Facebook Watch Parties hosted by an ACO musician, intimate solo performances filmed live from musicians’ homes, and “Ask-Me-Anything” Instagram interviews. Audiences can request specific performances and submit questions to musicians. Each week’s schedule is announced Monday mornings here.
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra
BSO musicians are putting live-streamed concerts on the orchestra’s Facebook page on Wednesday and Sunday nights “for the near future.”
Bard SummerScape & Fisher Center
Each week Fisher Center is releasing new content, including commissions and performances from its archives. The streamed works highlight a different aspect of Bard’s wealth and breadth of programming, including performances from its SummerScape Opera and BMF archives. Recent additions to the program include Bard SummerScape’s 2011 production of Strauss’s rarely performed Die Liebe der Danae and last year’s Daniel Fish directed staging of Michael Gordon’s Acquanetta. More details here.
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 for 14 days. Monday Concerts will consist of Lied, solo instrumentalists, chamber music and dance including violinist Julia Fischer, soprano Hanna-Elisabeth Müller, baritone Christian Gerhaher, pianist Gerold Huber, tenor Jonas Kaufmann, baritone Michael Nagy and bass Tareq Nazmi. Visit here to view and for details.
Beth Morrison Projects
The new opera powerhouse is offering an “Opera of the Week,” which streams every Thursday on BMP’s home page. The current offering is Ellen West, a remarkable operatic poem that plunges into the emotional, psychological, and physical challenges of a woman struggling with perceptions of her body, her relationship with food, and the world closing in around her. Inspired by one of the earliest cases of existential analysis, poet Frank Bidart and composer Ricky Ian Gordon examine the lives of psychiatrist Ludwig Binswanger and his patient, Ellen West.
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 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. 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 here for details of upcoming concerts.
Carnegie Hall
Live with Carnegie Hall is an online series designed to connect world-class artists with musical lovers everywhere, featuring live musical performances, storytelling, and conversations that offer deeper insights into great music and behind-the-scenes personal perspectives. In addition to live conversation and/performance, Live with Carnegie Hall programming will integrate historical or recent audio/video content drawn from concerts, master classes, and recordings. In most of the programs, artists will engage with viewers in real time via social media, building an inspired sense of community. The series will be streamed via Facebook and Instagram. A schedule will be found on carnegiehall.org/live.
The Cleveland Orchestra
The Cleveland Orchestra is offering free on-demand access to its Centennial Celebration conducted by Music Director Franz Welser-Möst and featuring Lang Lang in Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 24. The concert also features Richard Strauss’s Die Frau Ohne Schatten Symphonic Fantasy and Ravel’s La Valse. It also offers daily Mindful Music Moments videos, and videos from musicians performing from home. For information and to view visit here.
Cliburn at Home
The Cliburn has three new online initiatives. “Cliburn Watch Party” relives some of the best moments of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition twice a week. “Cliburn Kids”—on Mondays and Thursdays at 11am—explores rhythm, storytelling, dance, and listening games in short (seven- 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.
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.
Deutsche Grammophon Yellow Lounge
The German classical music giant is streaming Yellow Lounge broadcasts from its archives. Recent additions include clarinetist Andreas Ottensamer, pianists Alice Sara Ott and Chihiro Yamanaka, and cellist Mischa Maisky. Performances are broadcast in rotation, one video at a time, adding a new performance every few days. DG communicates the start of each new performance by newsletter at the start of each week. To keep updated sign up here.
Finnish National Opera
Finnish National Opera presents Stage24, a series of streamed archived performances on its website, which are then available for the next six months. Interesting recent content includes a staged version of Sibelius’s Kullervo, Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress, Caspar Holten’s staging of Wagner’s Der Fliegende Holländer with Camilla Nylund and Christoff Loy’s Tosca. An excellent company and some really interesting and original work worth investigating ** View here.
NEW: Gstaad Digital Festival
The Gstaad Festival has moved online this year with three digital offerings. First is Swiss pianist Francesco Piemontesi with a Soirée Schubert, including the first four Impromptus. With his unique timbre, he creates an intimate atmosphere and allows us to imagine how it must have been at a legendary Schubertiade. Second is Ute Lemper with an evening of Cabaret & Chanson including two poems by the Chilean poet and Nobel laureate Pablo Neruda, her charmingly silly version of Georges Moustaki's "Milord" and ending on Édith Piaf's "Non, je ne regrette rien". Finally, tenor Daniel Behle’s advice is "Make yourself rare, and people will appreciate you more." Behle gives exciting insights into the business, talks about the vital importance of having a good agency and finding the right moment to start singing Wagner.
Handel and Haydn Society
Boston’s Handel and Haydn Society has created the H+H Listening Room where you can hear and watch H+H performances including Mozart’s Requiem, Handel’s Messiah, and Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas filmed at New York’s Met Museum. There are also more than a dozen videos of musicians performing from their homes, a special video of principal flutist Emi Ferguson teaching people how to make their own baroque flute, and a new podcast called “Tuning In”. In the first episode Principal Cellist Guy Fishman interviews Artistic Director Harry Christophers about Bach's St. Matthew Passion. Explore here.
Duo Ingolfsson-Stoupel
Violinist Judith Ingolfsson and pianist Vladimir Stoupel are seasoned soloists who united with the goal of exploring new paths and directions in the intimate atmosphere of the violin-piano recital winning acclaim for their performances across the globe. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, they are presenting music that is close to their hearts every Friday and Tuesday at 1 pm EST on YouTube. LIVE
Kennedy Center Couch Concerts
The Kennedy Center is offering a free, live digital performance initiative, Couch Concerts, to help inspire, uplift, heal, and bring the performing arts into homes across the country and around the world during these difficult times. Couch Concerts stream direct from artists’ homes on the Kennedy Center website at 4 pm ET every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Audiences can discover a wide range of other at-home programming through the Kennedy Center at Home webpage.
La Monnaie
Belgium’s operatic powerhouse La Monnaie de Munt has launched free streaming of another virtual season of six operas from the archives. The new batch includes Romeo Castellucci’s controversial staging of The Magic Flute, Laurent Pelly’s gorgeously whacky production of Rimsky Korsakov’s The Golden Cockrel, and Olivier Py’s thoughtful take on Lohengrin. Details and access here on demand until June 30. **
La Scala/RAI
Italy’s RAI presents five productions from La Scala Milan including the world premiere of Kurtág’s Fin de Partie, Daniel Barenboim conducting Götterdämmerung, Lisette Oropesa in Verdi’s I Masnadieri, Montedervi’s Orfeo conducted by Rinaldo Alessandrini, 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 enables 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 to bring world-class performances and diverse musical perspectives from their homes to yours. Check web calendar for latest digital offerings.
Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra
Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra presents free LACO AT HOME streaming and on demand performances, including a full showing of the orchestra’s critically acclaimed performance last fall featuring the West Coast premiere of Dark with Excessive Bright for double bass and strings by LACO Artist-in-Residence Missy Mazzoli. Available on demand here with more being added soon.
Los Angeles Master Chorale
“Offstage with the Los Angeles Master Chorale” is a weekly series airing at 5 pm (PT) and beginning on Friday, April 24. The series will feature interviews conducted by Artistic Director Grant Gershon and Associate Conductor Jenny Wong with notable performers as well as Master Chorale singers. Before each interview, viewers will be able to submit questions via social media; recordings of each session available here. Special guests include newly appointed Artist-in-Residence Reena Esmail, Morten Lauridsen, Anna Schubert, Peter Sellars, Derrick Spiva, and more.
Metropolitan Opera Free Student Streams
Students and teachers worldwide can draw from the Met’s online library of operas and curricular materials plus new live virtual conversations with Met artists and educators from the company’s national education program. Resource materials will be made available weekly via the Met website starting on Mondays at 10 am ET, including extensive background information; activities to help students engage before, during, and after the performance stream; illustrated synopses; coloring pages; and audio clips. On Wednesdays at 5 pm ET, each week’s performance will be made available for streaming on the Met website, where it will remain for 48 hours. An hour before each performance stream, students from around the world will have the opportunity to interact directly with a singer or member of the creative team on Zoom. Upcoming streams include Massenet’s Cendrillon, Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’Amore, Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel, Bizet’s Carmen and Puccini’s Madama Butterfly. More information here.
Minnesota Orchestra
Minnesota Orchestra at Home shares video, audio, and educational materials through the categories of Watch, Listen and Learn, including videos from the orchestra’s archives and newly created “mini-concerts” directly from the homes of Orchestra musicians. Explore and view here.
National Forum of Music, Wroclaw, Poland
Poland’s national music forum has made recordings available on its YouTube Channel from a range of NFM ensembles: NFM Wroclaw Philharmonic, NFM Leopoldinum Orchestra, Wroclaw Baroque Orchestra, NFM Choir, Wroclaw Baroque Ensemble, led by their Artistic Directors: Giancarlo Guerrero, Joseph Swensen, Jaroslaw Thiel, Agnieszka Franków-Zelazny, Andrzej Kosendiak and others. Explore here.
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
The New World Symphony presents a web-based series called NWS Archive+. Michael Tilson Thomas moderates discussions with NWS Fellows, alumni, guest artists, and visiting faculty about archived recordings. Performances will be available here. NWS Fellows also play live, informal chamber music concerts from their homes in Miami Beach and broadcast via Facebook Live. In addition, the NWS online archive contains master classes, tutorials and town halls, which can be found here. Finally, for the past 10 years, the Fellows have performed one-hour concerts for local school children. These concerts and preparatory material will be available free to students and parents. NWS Educational concerts can be found here.
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 Cavalli’s Ercole Amante from Paris’s Opéra Comique and Purcell’s The Indian Queen from Opéra de Lille to Korngold’s Violanta from Teatro Reggio Torino. A really well-curated collection. ** Explore here.
Onsite Opera
The New York opera company, which specializes in site-specific and immersive productions, have made five filmed productions available through the company’s website and Facebook page. Operas include Rhoda and the Fossil Hunt staged at the American Museum of Natural History, Rameau’s Pygmalion staged at the Lifestyle-Trimco mannequin showroom, Mozart’s The Secret Gardener staged at the Westside Community Garden, and Murasaki’s Moon filmed at the Metropolitan Museum.
Opera Australia
OA | TV: Opera Australia on Demand is the Sydney-based company’s new digital space. Alongside the world’s largest collection of Dame Joan Sutherland on video, OA will offer exclusive content from the OA back catalogue, productions from Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour, and a new series of chat show-style interviews conducted by AD Lyddon Terracini. The first posted full show is Sutherland in The Merry Widow, and the fileted aria’s in the section labelled “The Best of Dame Joan Sutherland” are even better. ** View here.
Opéra National de Paris
The Palais Garnier and 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 rein to photographers, filmmakers, writers, illustrators, visual artists, composers, and choreographers to create original works. Visit here. Some of Opéra National de Paris’s productions are accessible on the company’s Facebook Page. In addition, Octave, the Paris Opera’s online magazine, is posting articles, videos, and interviews here.
Opera North
One of Britain’s most respected smaller opera companies, Opera North has put its acclaimed semi-staged concerts of Wagner’s epic Ring Cycle online. “Beg, borrow, or be like Wotan and steal a ticket for this show,” said the UK’s Times 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 here.
OperaVision
OperaVision offers livestreams of operas available for free and online for six months. Previous offerings include Don Giovanni from Finnish National Opera and David McVicar’s superb Die Entführung aus dem Serail from Glyndebourne **. Next up is a fascinating Russian season. View past content here.
The Philadelphia Orchestra
Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin and The Philadelphia Orchestra are offering new ways to engage with the music and musicians of the Orchestra. Through 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 is available here.
Pierre Boulez Saal
The Pierre Boulez Saal is making an ongoing list of recordings available for a limited time. Highlights include Barenboim and the Boulez Ensemble playing Schubert, Berg, Widmann, and Boulez, lectures and concerts led by Jörg Widmann, and a Beethoven cycle with the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra conducted by Barenboim. Explore here.
San Francisco Symphony
San Francisco Symphony is 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. MTT 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 solo performances by individual musicians.
The Sixteen
The Sixteen, with founder Harry Christophers, has launched Quarantine with The Sixteen, a regular schedule of digital content. The Sixteen Virtual Choir’s performance of Sheppard’s Libera nos involved each part being recorded at each singer’ home. Other features include: Choral Chihuahua, a podcast by The Sixteen and I Fagiolini; Stay at Home Choir performing Sir James MacMillan’s O Radiant Dawn; Harry Christophers introducing 20 years of The Choral Pilgrimage; Archive performances, including Sir James MacMillan’s Stabat mater performed in the Sistine Chapel and Bach’s St Matthew Passion with Streetwise Opera; Recipes for isolation; Video diaries providing insight into daily lives during lockdown; Weekly playlists. Explore here.
Trinity Wall Street
New York’s Trinity Church Wall Street introduces daily weekday “Comfort at One” (1 pm ET) streaming performances on Facebook with full videos posted here. Tune in for encore performances of favorite Trinity concerts, professionally filmed in HD, along with current at-home performances from Trinity’s extended artistic family. “During trying times, music stills our souls and provides a healing grace,” writes Trinity. “We hope these performances help you find a daily haven of peace and comfort.”
Tulsa Opera
In light of the coronavirus outbreak, Tulsa Opera launched its Staying Alive web series, which includes virtual performances of opera, popular music, and musical theater, directly from guest artists’ homes. Each week, the series features artists from around the world, including artists that have been recently heard on the Tulsa Opera stage or would have been heard in the company’s new production of Tobias Picker’s Emmeline, cancelled due to the pandemic. New content appears every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 2 pm CT. Explore here.
Verbier Festival
The cancelled Verbier Festival is presenting QuarantineConcerts, a platform where artists can perform live in the comfort of their homes as a way to keep the Festival alive. The concerts are streaming on their website but also on quarantineconcerts.tv. Archived performances include Quatuor Ebène, Gautier Capuçon, and Matthias Goerne, but Academy Artists will also stream LIVE.
Voices of Ascension
New York choir Voices of Ascension, which celebrates its 30th anniversary next season, is posting a daily offering of choral beauty on its website. Music is chosen by staff, members of the chorus and orchestra, and listeners. View here.
Warsaw Philharmonic
The Warsaw Philharmonic has made a selection of video recordings available on its YouTube channel. Recent offerings include Saint-Saëns’s Organ Symphony and Arvo Pärt’s Swansong conducted by Artistic Director Andrzej Boreyko, as well as rarities by Polish composers like Grazyna Bacewicz. It’s an excellent orchestra very much in the Eastern European tradition and concerts have been master edited for posting online.
Paid Digital Arts Services
Berlin Philharmonic Digital Concert Hall
The BPO Digital Concert Hall contains over 600 orchestra concerts covering more than ten years, including 15 concerts with the orchestra’s new Chief Conductor Kirill Petrenko, interviews, backstage footage.
Medici TV
Thousands of classical music videos are 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. 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
Miller Theater’s Bach Collection was performed live for a virtual audience. The program included Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring (arr. Hess), Concerto for Violin and Oboe in C minor, BWV 1060 (arr. Fischer), Chorale Prelude Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ, BWV 639 (arr. Busoni), and Cantata Ich habe genug, BWV 82, with Kady Evanyshyn, mezzo-soprano, Rebecca Fischer, violin, Alecia Lawyer, oboe, Simone Dinnerstein, piano, Baroklyn. View here.
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. View 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.
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 26
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.
April 5
Violinist Isabelle Faust live-streamed a solo Bach recital on from Leipzig’s Thomaskirche, the church where JS Bach was Kapellmeister from 1723 until 1750. The concert is on Arte.tv and free to view until July 4. Highly recommended **
April 10
Handel’s Messiah with The Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square and soloists Amanda Woodbury, Tamara Mumford, Tyler Nelson, and Tyler Simpson. Recorded in 2018 but archived for a rainy day such as this. Available here.
Bach's St. John Passion, performed by Bach Collegium Japan conducted by Masaaki Suzuki from the Cologne Philharmonic. View here.
April 14
92nd St Y presents Marc-André Hamelin who streamed a characteristically elegant program from his home, with the timely inclusion of Liszt's Bénédiction de Dieu dans la solitude. The repertoire also included C. P. E. Bach, Enescu, Fauré, Scriabin, and six selections from Debussy's Preludes, Book II. View here.
May 8
The Berliner Philharmoniker’s European Concert. In order to comply with social distancing rules and hygiene requirements Kirill Petrenko conducts the orchestra in chamber music formation from the empty Philharmonie Berlin. Federal President Steinmeier to deliver opening address. Program: Pärt’s Fratres, Ligeti’s Ramifications, Barber’s Adagio for Strings, Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 (arrangement for chamber ensemble by Erwin Stein) with Christiane Karg, soprano. View in the Digital Concert Hall.
**Highly recommended
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Photos from the top:
Student participants in the Kaufman Music Center’s Day of Musical Action, Opera North’s Trouble in Tahiti, Lincoln Center Dance Week presents NYC Ballet Coppélia (1978), Stephanie Blythe in Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice at the Met Opera, Gustavo-Gimeno conducts the Concertgebouworkest, soprano Tess Altiveros, Daniel Hope, Nathan Gunn, Malin Byström as Salome.
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