MA's Free Guide to Free Streams, 4/26-29

We will be updating this every Wednesday. 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.  

Sunday, April 26

10 am ET: Virtually Gilmore: A performance of Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time, presented at the 2018 Gilmore Keyboard Festival by 2006 Gilmore Artist Ingrid Fliter in collaboration with Anton Dressler (clarinet), David Bowlin (violin), and Amir Eldan (cello). (Recorded on April 27, 2018). View on YouTube or The Gilmore website.

Noon CET: Staatsoper unter den Linden presents Cherubini’s Medea. Conductor: Daniel Barenboim, director Andrea Breth, with Sonya Yoncheva, Charles Castronovo, Iain Paterson, Elsa Dreisig, Staatsopernchor and Staatskapelle Berlin. Available free for 24 hours.

3 pm ET: Detroit Symphony Orchestra Watch Parties presents Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique conducted by newly announced DSO Music Director Jader Bignamini, who will also host and join viewers in the comments. View here and later on demand.

7 pm CET: Vienna Staatsoper streams Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel (performance of January 5, 2017). Conductor: Axel Kober, director: Adrian Noble, with Sebastian Holecek (Peter Besenbinder), Donna Ellen (Gertrud), Margaret Plummer (Hänsel), Chen Reiss (Gretel), Michaela Schuster (Knusperhexe), Maria Nazarova (Sandmännchen / Taumännchen). Sign up for free and view here.

7 pm CET: Dutch National Opera streams DNO 50th Anniversary Gala (no cast details available). View here.

7 pm BST: London Symphony Orchestra presents Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring plus Webern’s Six Pieces for Orchestra, Berg’s Fragments of Woyzeck, Ligeti’s Mysteries of the Macabre. Sir Simon Rattle, conductor, Barbara Hannigan soprano. View on YouTube and later on demand.

7:30 pm ET: Nightly Met Opera Streams presents Rossini’s La Cenerentola. Conducted by Fabio Luisi, starring Joyce DiDonato and Juan Diego Flórez. Transmitted live on May 10, 2014. Go to www.metopera.org on the day.

8 pm ET: Broadway.com streams “Take Me to the World: A Sondheim 90th Birthday Celebration” hosted by Raúl Esparza. A star-studded line-up will include performances by Meryl Streep, Bernadette Peters, Patti LuPone, Audra McDonald, Donna Murphy, Kristin Chenoweth, Mandy Patinkin, Sutton Foster, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Kelli O'Hara, Aaron Tveit, Stephen Schwartz, and more. The event will also raise money for Artists Striving to End Poverty, which connects performing and visual artists with youth from underserved communities in the U.S. and around the world to awaken their imaginations, foster critical thinking, and help them break the cycle of poverty. View on Broadway.com website or YouTube channel.

Monday, April 27

10 am ET: Virtually Gilmore: Works by Schubert and Prokofiev performed by Lukas Geniušas in Kalamazoo’s Wellspring Theater as part of The Gilmore’s Rising Stars Series. (Recorded on October 20, 2019). View on YouTube or The Gilmore website.

12 pm CET: Silkroad Home Sessions presents Malian balafon player Balla Kouyaté in West African Mande Djeli Music as part of 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 pm CET: Vienna Staatsoper streams Puccini’s Madama Butterfly (performance of September 14, 2016). Conductor: Philippe Auguin, director: Josef Gielen, with Kristine Opolais (Cio-Cio-San), Bongiwe Nakani (Suzuki), Piero Pretti (B.F. Pinkerton), Boaz Daniel (Sharpless). Sign up for free and view here.

7 pm CET: IDAGIO Live presents Kirill Gerstein’s #ViewAcrossTheKeyboard. Join Kirill Gerstein in an exploration of the treasures of keyboard discography every Monday evening. View here.

7 pm ET: The Greene Space streams “The Mysterious Life of J.S. Bach.” Part of Bach's Well-Tempered Lens with Jeremy Denk who gives us a clearer picture of the man behind classical music’s most iconic works. View here. LIVE

7:30 pm ET: New York Philharmonic Digital Mahler Festival presents a rebroadcast of A Concert for Unity (2017), featuring Mahler’s Symphony No. 7 led by Alan Gilbert and performed by the Philharmonic joined by musicians from orchestras around the world, celebrating the power of music to build bridges and unite people across borders. The musicians included members of orchestras from Australia, Brazil, China, Cuba, France, Germany, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Japan, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, South Korea, Sweden, Turkey, Venezuela, the United Kingdom, and the United States. View here and later on demand.

7:30 pm ET: Nightly Met Opera Streams presents Donizetti’s Anna Bolena. Conducted by Marco Armiliato, starring Anna Netrebko, Ekaterina Gubanova, Stephen Costello, and Ildar Abdrazakov. Transmitted live on October 15, 2011. Go to www.metopera.org on the day.

Tuesday, April 28

10 am ET: The Gilmore presents Virtually Gilmore: A medley of Fats Waller compositions performed by the Emmet Cohen Trio on the 2016-17 Rising Stars Series. Emmet Cohen (piano), Russell Hall (bass), Kyle Pool (drums). (Recorded on October 16, 2017). View on YouTube or The Gilmore website.

2 pm ET: Live with Carnegie Hall presents Angélique Kidjo. Four-time Grammy Award winner Angélique Kidjo embraces West African traditions of her childhood in Benin with elements of American R&B, funk, and jazz, as well as influences from Europe and Latin America. View here.

5:30pm ET: Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center presents A Celebration of Johannes Brahms with Jessye Norman. Brahms’s Quintet for Strings, Op. 11, Two Songs for Soprano, Viola, and Piano, Op. 91, Quintet for Piano and Strings, Op. 34, with Pinchas Zukerman, violist. Original Live from Lincoln Center air date: May 4, 1997. View here.

7 pm CET: Vienna Staatsoper streams Beethoven’s Fidelio (performance of January 14, 2016). Conductor: Peter Schneider, director: Otto Schenk, with Klaus Florian Vogt (Florestan), Anja Kampe (Leonore), Boaz Daniel (Don Fernando), Evgeny Nikitin (Don Pizarro), Stephen Milling (Rocco), Valentina Nafornita (Marzelline), Jörg Schneider (Jaquino). 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.

7:30 pm ET: 92^nd St Y presents a rebroadcast of violinist Pamela Frank and pianist Stephen Prutsman in an all-Bach recital, recorded at 92Y in early March. The program comprises five of Bach’s Sonatas for Violin and Keyboard. View here.

7:30 pm ET: Nightly Met Opera Streams presents Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda. Conducted by Maurizio Benini, starring Elza van den Heever, Joyce DiDonato, and Matthew Polenzani. Transmitted live on January 19, 2013. One of the Met’s finest recent productions with extraordinary performances by DiDonato and van den Heever **. Go to www.metopera.org on the day.

8 pm ET: New York City Ballet presents Apollo, music by Igor Stravinsky. Choreography by George Balanchine, with Taylor Stanley, Tiler Peck, Brittany Pollack, and Indiana Woodward. NYCB Orchestra, conductor Andrew Litton. Filmed on January 22, 2019, David H. Koch Theater, Lincoln Center. Introduction by Craig Hall, NYCB Ballet Master. View on website, Facebook or YouTube until May 1 at 8 pm ET.

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 36 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

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
American Pianists Association is launching a five-week livestream series “From the Piano Bench,” featuring conversations with past classical winners and the 2021 finalists, as well as performances from the contenders. The series will pause on May 3rd for a concert by 2007 Awards winner Dan Tepfer.  The conversation and performances will be broadcast live on Sundays at 3:30pm Eastern via American Pianists Association Facebook page @APAPianists.  

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.

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.”

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. 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 activation. 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 Kamala Sankaram and Susan Yankowitz's Thumbprint, inspired by the extraordinary transformation of Mukhtar Mai, a young woman whose world was shattered by an act of brutality that could have destroyed her. Instead, she discovers a weapon—her voice—and against all odds, to the astonishment of her country and herself, she seeks justice and finds it. "The worst thing in my life is also the best," she says. "It has given my life meaning."

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 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 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. Its 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.

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 from his living room in Colorado with no edits and minimal equipment. 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 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.

IDAGIO
Streaming service 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 from the comfort of their own homes. Baritone Thomas Hampson will be hosting a weekly program each Tuesday and Thursday. Details here.

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.

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

NEW: 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 will be 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, and Bizet’s Carmen. 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 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 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.

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. ** 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.

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, 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

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. www.92y.org/archives/garrick-ohlsson-piano

Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, in its 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.

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. Available here.

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.

**Highly recommended

_{Home page photo of Emanuel Ax by Lisa-Marie Mazzucco}  

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.