As concert halls are silent and theatres dark during the COVID-19 Coronavirus Pandemic, bringing performers and audiences together demands creative solutions. C Major Entertainment, in collaboration with Arte Concert and DG, is set to launch a series of professional live relays of concerts given by artists at Berlin’s legendary Meistersaal. The programmes focus on solo or duo works. This approach limit the number of artists, technicians and backstage staff involved, in compliance with government regulations, while drawing on the endlessly rich repertoire of chamber pieces past and present. Using remote cameras, members of the audio and video crew are safely dispersed in different rooms. The fourth episode featuring Berlin-based mandolin soloist Avi Avital and pianist Ohad Ben-Ari.
Beethoven’s Ninth – A Symphony for the World
To this day, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 is one of the most popular pieces of classical music in the world. But what is it about this global hit? The film charts the success of the symphony around the globe and encounters passionate amateur musicians and musical personalities. Watch as Greek conductor Teodor Currentzis works on Beethoven’s Ninth with his ensemble, MusicAeterna. Follow Chinese composer and Oscar winner Tan Dun as he creates a new composition inspired by the great Beethoven symphony. Experience the Orchestre Symphonique Kimbanguiste in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, as they play the Ninth. Visit a favela in Brazil, where Beethovens’s music helps people get off the streets. Be amazed as a choir of 10,000 in Japan sings the final chorus of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, with great enthusiasm. Learn how Paul Whittaker helps make Beethoven accessible for deaf people. And find out how British DJ Gabriel Prokofiev performs a symphonic remix of Beethoven’s Ninth.
Luka Sulic: The Four Seasons – Vivaldi & more
After seven years of touring the world as part of the critically acclaimed duo 2CELLOS, Luka Šulic returns to his classical roots. „I‘ve loved Vivaldi‘s Four Seasons since I was a child,“ says Luka Šulic of his newest project, adding, „I‘ve always wanted to play the piece on the cello and love taking on new challenges.“ Even in a Baroque masterpiece, Luka Šulic is ready to defy expectations and shatter boundaries. Though hundreds of traditional recordings exist of The Four Seasons with a violin soloist, Luka Šulic‘s recording is the first complete version – his own painstaking work – that reimagines all four concertos of The Four Seasons for a cello soloist. Joining Luka Šulic for the recording is the Orchestra of Teatro Lirico Giuseppe Verdi di Trieste.
LSO: Rattle conducts Christ on the Mount of Olives
In the words of Sir Simon Rattle, Beethoven is “absolutely inescapable”, especially in the year of his 250th anniversary. Nevertheless, Christ on the Mount of Olives is a rarely heard masterpiece and Beethoven’s only oratorio, which combines the emotive force of the composer’s later Missa Solemnis with the theatre of a Bach Passion. With orchestra, chorus and soloists, it tells the story of Jesus’ prayer and arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane. “What Rattle made clear is that the music is full of life. It is hard to imagine this performance being bettered.” (Financial Times)
LSO: Kevin John Edusei conducts Mendelssohn & Schumann
German conductor Kevin John Edusei is regularly praised for the drama and tension that he brings to his music-making, and for his clear sense of architecture and attention to detail. In October 2020 he made his London Symphony Orchestra debut and leads the orchestra in a beautiful performance of the suite from Mendelssohn’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, Boulanger’s “D’un matin de printemps” and Schumann’s ‘Spring’ Symphony.