MA's Free Guide to Free Streams, 4/15-21

We will be updating this list weekly. Please note that British Summer Time (BST) is currently five hours ahead of U.S. Eastern Time (ET) and Central European Time (CET) is currently six hours ahead. Central Daylight Time (CDT) is currently one hour behind ET, while Pacific Time (PT) is currently three hours behind. Contact editor@musicalamerica.com.  April 22-28 will be posted on April 22.

Monday, April 20

Noon CET: Staatsoper unter den Linden presents Beethoven Piano Sonatas Parts 3 and 4. Daniel Barenboim piano (Part Two of Crossing Borders: Daniel Barenboim on Music, a three part documentary). Available free for 24 hours.

7 pm CET: Vienna Staatsoper streams Rossini’s L’Italiana in Algeri (performance of 8. April 2017). Conductor: Evelino Pidò, director: Jean-Pierre Ponnelle, with Adam Plachetka (Mustafà), Hila Fahima (Elvira), Rachel Frenkel (Zulma), Rafael Fingerlos (Haly), Maxim Mironov (Lindoro), Margarita Gritskova (Isabella), Paolo Rumetz (Taddeo). Sign up for free and view here.

7 pm CET: IDAGIO Live presents Kirill Gerstein’s #ViewAcrossTheKeyboard Episode 1. View here and later on demand.

3 pm ET: Silkroad Home Sessions
Amirtha Kidambi in a concert of solo voice and Indian Harmonium as part of The Silkroad collective’s virtual concert mini-series bringing music of comfort and joy directly from their homes into ours. Performance on Facebook and Instagram.

7:30 pm ET: Nightly Met Opera Streams presents Richard Strauss’s Elektra. Conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen, starring Nina Stemme, Adrianne Pieczonka, Waltraud Meier, and Eric Owens. Transmitted live on April 30, 2016. Go to www.metopera.org on the day.

7:30 pm ET: 92^nd St Y presents Israeli-American pianist Renana Gutman who will stream a live concert from her home. She will perform Bach’s French Suite No. 6 and Chopin’s 24 Preludes, Op. 28, plus works by Debussy, Fauré, and Scriabin. View here. LIVE.

Tuesday, April 21

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

7 pm CET: Vienna Staatsoper streams Le Pavillon d’Armide & Le Sacre (performance of March 13, 2017). Conductor: Michael Boder, choreography: John Neumeier. Le Pavillon d’Armide with Mihail Sosnovschi, Nina Poláková, Roman Lazik, Davide Dato, Maria Yakovleva, Nina Tonoli, Denys Cherevychko, Richard Szabó; Le Sacre with Rebecca Horner, Ioanna Avraam, Francesco Costa, Alice Firenze, Eszter Ledán, Eno Peci, Masayu Kimoto. Sign up for free and view here.

7 pm CET: OperaVision livestreams Verdi’s Il Trovatore from National Center for the Performing Arts, Beijing. Conductor: Rico Saccani, director: Hugo De Ana, with Carlo Ventre, Maria Agresta, Marco Caria, Marianne Cornetti, Giorgio Giuseppini, Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra, China NCPA Chorus. View here.

2 pm ET: Live with Carnegie Hall presents a special episode curated by Ute Lemper, commemorating the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the concentration camps following World War II, with performances drawing upon stories from Bergen-Belsen. View here.

5:30pm ET: Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center presents 30th Anniversary Gala with Beverly Sills, Host. Program includes excerpts from Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 3, Haydn’s Gypsy Rondo, Mozart’s Gran Partita, Mendelssohn’s Octet, Schubert’s Shepherd On The Rock, Debussy’s Sonata for Flute, Viola and Harp, Shostakovich’s Trio in E minor, and Copland’s Appalachian Spring. Artists include David Shifrin, David Golub, Gary Hoffman, Anne-Marie McDermott, Edgar Meyer, Barbara Bonney, Brentano String Quartet, and André Watts, Master of Ceremonies. Original air date: October 14, 1998. View here.

7:30 pm ET: Nightly Met Opera Streams presents Puccini’s Tosca. Conducted by Emmanuel Villaume, starring Sonya Yoncheva, Vittorio Grigolo, and Željko Lucic. Transmitted live on January 27, 2018. Go to www.metopera.org on the day.

8 pm ET: New York City Ballet presents George Balanchine’s Allegro Brillante featuring Tiler Peck and Andrew Veyette, with an introduction by Artistic Director Anthony Stafford. From the company's website or YouTube channel.

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.

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

NEW: 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 are revisiting the last two classical competitions. For the two months, they will be uploading performances to their 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.

NEW: 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. Korngold’s Das Wunder der Heliane (The Miracle of Heliane), conducted by Leon Botstein, brilliantly directed by Christian Räth, and with a cast including Lithuanian soprano Ausrine Stundyte, tenor Daniel Brenna, and bass-baritone Alfred Walker is highly recommended and available now.

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.

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 artistry, dynamism and sense of adventure for which the ACO is internationally renowned. 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 its Facebook page 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 for 14 days. Future streams (without cast details) include Boris Godunov (April 18). 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 streams every Thursday on BMP’s home page. The current offering is David Lang and Mark Dion's anatomy theater. Based on texts from the 18th century, Anatomy Theater follows the progression of an English murderess from her confession to execution, to denouncement, and finally to dissection, including an anatomy lesson for curious onlookers.

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.

NEW: Carnegie Hall
Live with Carnegie Hall is a new 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. Upcoming episodes will be specially-curated by leading musicians including Emanuel Ax, Joshua Bell, Michael Feinstein, Renée Fleming, Angélique Kidjo, and Ute Lemper. Programs will be announced on a weekly basis. 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 are offering free on demand access to their 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. They also offer daily Mindful Music Moments videos, and videos from their 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 (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 presents “Hope at Home,” a television series for our socially distanced times. Professionally produced by Kobalt Productions for Europe’s ARTE television network, the series comprises half-hour episodes of live musical performance by leading classical artists. Episodes are archived for 90 days on the ARTE Concert website and on Deutsche Grammophon’s YouTube channel.

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.

Deutsche Grammophon Yellow Lounge
The German classical music giant is streaming Yellow Lounge broadcasts from their archives. Recent additions include clarinetist Andreas Ottensamer, pianists Alice Sara Ott and Chihiro Yamanaka, and cellist Mischa Maisky. Performances are broadcast in an ongoing rotation, one video at a time, rotating in a new performance every few days. DG communicate 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 present Stage24, a series of streamed archived performances on their 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: IDAGIO
IDAGIO has launched a new live video series called IDAGIO Live to help artists and listeners feel more connected through live interviews with prominent artists and ensembles within classical music to provide listeners with exclusive content and entertainment from the comfort and safety of their own home. Baritone, Thomas Hampson kicked off the series and will be hosting a weekly program each Tuesday and Thursday. Details here.

NEW: Jonathan Biss’s #DailyBeethoven
Renowned Beethoven interpreter Jonathan Biss gives daily performances for his Facebook followers of sonata movements and miniatures by the composer. View and explore archived performances 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. All operas are available online until April 19, and Pascal Dusapin’s Macbeth Underworld is available until April 30. Details and access here.

LA Opera
LA Opera is maintaining a weekly #LAOAtHome schedule including live Living Room Recitals and popular productions From the Vaults. Weekly details here.

La Scala/RAI
Italy’s RAI presents five productions from La Scala Milan available online 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.

NEW: 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. LACO at Home also features LACO Concertmaster Margaret Batjer performing a selection of Bach solo violin works, and Assistant Concertmaster Teresa Stanislav and Viola Robert Brophy performing a Mozart violin and viola duo. All are available on demand here with more being added soon.

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, and Bizet’s Carmen. More information here.

NEW: 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 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 recorded performances from our archives. Performances will be available here. New World Symphony Fellows also play live, informal chamber music concerts from their homes in Miami Beach and broadcast via Facebook Live. In addition, the New World Symphony’s ground-breaking online archive contains master classes, tutorials and town halls. MUSAIC 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 of charge 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 Purcell’s The Indian Queen from Opéra de Lille to Korngold’s Violanta from Teatro Reggio Torino. A really well-curated collection. ** Explore here.

NEW: 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.

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 reins to photographers, filmmakers, writers, illustrators, visual artists, composers and choreographers to create original works. Visit here. As previously announced, some of Opéra National de Paris’s productions are accessible for free on the Paris Opera 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’s acclaimed semi-staged concerts of Wagner’s epic Ring Cycle in now online. “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 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. ** 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 Diwan 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. 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.

Teatro Regio di Torino
The Teatro Regio di Torino aims to stream 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.

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.”

Voices of Ascension
New York choir Voices of Ascension who celebrate their 30th Anniversary next season are posting a daily offering of choral beauty to their website. Music is chosen by staff, members of their chorus and orchestra, and listeners. View here.

Warsaw Philharmonic
The Warsaw Philharmonic has made a selection or video recordings available on its YouTube channel. Recent offerings include Saint-Saëns Organ Symphony and Arvo Pärt’s Swansong conducted by Artistic Director Andrzej Boreyko as well as interesting 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.

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.

March 31
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.

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. Perfect for listeners who are bound at home due to current conditions. Available here.

NEW: Bach's St John Passion, performed by Bach Collegium Japan conducted by Masaaki Suzuki from the Cologne Philharmonic Watch via Facebook.

April 14
92^nd 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.

 

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.