Introducing the global concert hall

Introducing the global concert hall

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norman lebrecht

May 28, 2020

The streaming service Idagio is launching a global concert hall – a platform on which artists can perform concerts direct to a guaranteed international audience.

First off the launchpad tomorrow is the DG-associated Norwegian violinist Mari Samuelsen (pictured), who offers a unique opportunity for the audience to vote which encores they’d like to hear her play.

Coming up soon after are the baritone Thomas Hampson, violinist Christian Tetzlaff, soprano Kristine Opolais and pianist Garrick Ohlsson.

Full disclosure: Slippedisc.com has a commercial partnership with Idagio for its complete Beethoven series.

Full press release follows.

 

IDAGIO launches Global Concert Hall

BERLIN, 28 May 2020 – IDAGIO, the leading streaming service for classical music, launches the Global Concert Hall, a new online concert venue made available to audiences worldwide. Artists and ensembles will use this audiovisual platform to offer their own exclusive digital concerts, and their audiences can support them directly from the comfort of their own homes with their ticket purchases. At IDAGIO, artists are empowered in their creative endeavors through a wide-reaching platform which allows them to connect with existing fans, and enabled to share music that is meaningful to them with a broader audience. The Global Concert Hall is the next evolutionary phase of the Fair Artist Payout Model, launched in 2015, to ensure that artists are properly compensated for their content. 80% of the net proceeds from ticket sales go directly to the artists.

The concerts are streamed live and are available across the globe for 24 hours following the initial broadcast. An array of interactive features elevates the Global Concert Hall experience above existing options: artists offer personal introductions to their programs and remain online following the performance to chat directly with audience members in the Virtual Green Room, to answer questions and to collectively reflect on the performance. Further interactive features are being developed in collaboration with participating artists.

The Global Concert Hall’s launch partners include Teldex Studios, Berlin, and the production company OTB Medien, both of which are synonymous with the highest quality audio and video production, and are known for their classical music expertise. Concert tickets are available on the IDAGIO apps and at globalconcerthall.com, with tickets also available through partner websites.

On Friday, May 29 (8pm Berlin / 2pm New York) the Global Concert Hall will launch with a concert by the innovative Norwegian violinist Mari Samuelsen, and features the unique opportunity for the audience to select Mari’s encore live during the performance. In June, concerts featuring renowned artists from various disciplines will be featured on the platform, including baritone Thomas Hampson, violinist Christian Tetzlaff, soprano Kristine Opolais, and pianist Garrick Ohlsson. IDAGIO’s Global Concert Hall will also broadcast the reopening concerts of the Maggio Musicale in Florence, Italy, with Maestro Zubin Mehta, tenor Francesco Meli, and other artists, as well as pianist Lars Vogt’s annual “Ghost Festival,” featuring violinists Isabelle Faust and Vilde Frang,
clarinettist Sharon Kam, and others. Future concerts will include performances by bass-baritone Luca Pisaroni, tenor Matthew Polenzani, soprano Ailyn Pérez, pianist Stefano Bollani, tenor Brian Jagde, and more.

American baritone Thomas Hampson, one of the first artists to take part in this initiative, says: “With the Corona crisis, the concert and opera sector has come to a complete standstill. At the same time, the situation that has developed where streamed performances are offered for free devalues artists’ work and threatens our livelihood. The Global Concert Hall marks the beginning of a new era, since it is not only a virtual stage and a site for artistic experimentation. It also helps artists to be proactive and to take charge of the current situation, giving us more control over our programs and through such interactive elements as the Digital Green Room after the concerts, which will bring us closer to audiences in new ways.”

IDAGIO Founder – Till Janczukowicz: “The pandemic has led to an unprecedented increase in the popularity of classical music streaming, but almost all of the digital concerts are offered for free. In the near future artists will rely on earning an income online, and audiences want more programmatic variety – both now and whenever the current restrictions are lifted. The internet should provide more than archived broadcasts of old recordings: it’s a medium that offers new opportunities, and we want to use these for classical music. The Global Concert Hall creates new experiences for classical music lovers all over the world, and in doing so, helps musicians and promoters reach listeners directly online: a collaborative initiative and a melting pot for new experiments around classical music and interactivity.”
Latvian soprano Kristine Opolais: “We need music because it gives us hope and the collective feeling of being inspired. Without inspiration, we can’t make great music together. So, especially during this time, let’s speak through music and share it with our audiences online, wherever they are in the world, through the Global Concert Hall.”

Comprehensive discographies of the artists performing on the Global Concert Hall are available on IDAGIO, directly linked to their profiles. Listening to the artists’ recordings on IDAGIO, furthermore, ensures the fair remuneration of the respective rights holders as part of the Fair Artist Payout Model, with playback calculated per user and per second.

IDAGIO Live IDAGIO recently launched IDAGIO Live, featuring free daily video chats, master classes, and more with classical music artists, educators, and other special guests via IDAGIO.com/live. Recurring hosts for this engaging new format include conductors Antonio Pappano and Iván Fischer, baritone Thomas Hampson, pianist Kirill Gerstein, opera expert Fred Plotkin, the Vienna Philharmonic, and Opera for Peace. Stay tuned for new videos coming soon, and join us for Pride Month programming in June.

About IDAGIO IDAGIO is the leading streaming service for classical music with more than 1.9 million app downloads and subscribers in 190 countries. Crafted in Berlin by a world-class team of passionate experts in music, technology, business and design, IDAGIO offers a search tailor-made for classical music, expert curation, and an expansive catalogue of over 2 million licensed tracks. IDAGIO is available through the web app and for download via the mobile app with three tiers offered to listeners: IDAGIO Free, IDAGIO Premium, and IDAGIO Premium+.
Visit​www.IDAGIO.com, download the app at the App Store​or at Google Play.

Comments

  • Eric says:

    What a joke… DG used to be a label representing the biggest names in industry. Mari plays like a child, no sound, no character – nothing. Furthermore she records pieces, which every average violinist could sight-read.
    It’s a shame what DG is releasing. No different to Sony anymore

    • Ljubiša Jovanović says:

      True! Everybody who find sponsors could be DG Artist!
      Of course they have some serious people, but the new Musicians are most mediocre!
      Anyway Idagio is serious, I like their working and platform! They felt the future on time!

    • Tamino says:

      Spot on. Their recent signings of a few Vanessa Maes make you wonder what their acumen is. Classless talentless Playboy poster art shit.
      Is it because these mediocre or worse babes and dudes are exploitable to the max due to some shitty slavery contracts?
      Does Mr. Trautmann understand that he is betting the precious longterm image of the whole operation for a most questionable quarterly return of investment?
      Does mother Universal put a revolver to his head?
      Anyone left at DG who understands and cares for class and inspired artistic mastership?

  • bassobuffo says:

    Seriously, who has time to listen to any of this online cr@p – bring back real concerts with decent musicians, not just those that look good in a tight top and miniskirt on camera. If I wanted that, I’d watch other kinds of video.

  • Myrtar says:

    It’s laughable how in the background you see names like Mutter or Karajan, and then DG presents us these talentless, bland posers holding whatever instrument. And they want us to think they are in the same league? Get real.

  • Edgar Self says:

    May 28 is Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau’s 95th birthday. I can’t find a better place for this.

    He transformed Lieder singing with the help of some contemporaries, taking Hans Hotter as an avatar, and influenced all who followed for better or worse. Hermann Prey almost abandoned his career “because another German baritone had already done everything I wanted to do.”Yes, he did too much, and stayed too long, but his early accomplishment is solid.

    And not just German Lieder, but Bach cantatas, Carl Loewe ballads, Schumann, French melodies, Italian opera, English, some Wagner roles beyond him. But marvelous Mahler songs with Bernstein’s piano, such as Rueckert’s “Um Mitternacht’, ensure his place, and Brahms’s Op. 85 double-song Sommerabend – Mondenschein’ with Joerg Demus unearthly, almost super-human, Deutsches Requiem with Schwarzkopf and Klemperer, Mahler’s Gesellenlieder with Furtwaengler. an early admirer.

    Dame Maggie Teyte observed, “Why, he sings like a policeman.” I know what she meant, but his youthful voice was beautifully expresive, before the mannerisms. We discoveeed a new world of song with him. I’m grateful for the times I saw him in recital. and his great ontemporary and often partner Dame Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, CBE.

    One of his sons in school one day answered the question “What dos your father do?” — “My father is a record player,” referring to the studious collector’s organisation and passion.

  • batonbaton says:

    It should be noted that not all the “great names” on the wall behind the unfortunate fiddler are in fact great – Netrebko, really? On a par with Callas or Schwarzkopf? Perhaps not. However, listen carefully and you will hear a distant scraping noise. What could it be? The sound of Karajan, Furtwangler, Bohm, Oistrack, Fournier et al slowly turning in their graves at having their names and reputations abused by being lumped in with such mediocrity. The money men hoping to make a quick shekel would do well to remember that many music lovers worldwide know quality when they hear it and have a memory longer than a hastily streamed nanosecond of anything.

  • Robert says:

    Ever since Clemens Trautmann took over at DG I have become deeply concerned as to the direction the yellow label is taking.

    Either by accident or design, Herr Trautmann is running the label into the ground by way of superficial marketing gimmicks, futile attempts to be trendy and a geeky, almost total reliance on internet technology at the expense of serious, specialist collectors who looked to the label for tangible, high quality products.

    As a classical retailer of some 16 years experience – plus a further 30 years of dedicated collecting, I looked to DG as the market leader, the standard bearer of the classical industry – a tried and tested company that could be relied upon to deliver the goods through thick and thin no matter what fate befell competing labels.

    Their box sets, special editions and vinyl products still remain among the very best on the market and demand for these among my customers remains as strong as ever. The collector wants to have something to hold, touch and look at as well as listen to. They want something tangible for their money, not flimsy downloads, soundbites and pop videos.

    Not everyone has the internet and not everyone wants an ‘app’. Serious collectors are being marginalized because Trautmann and his colleagues are relying on cyber technology to the gradual exclusion of solid, manufactured product. How on earth can I sell a download?

    Given the atmosphere of internal politics, comings and goings and general atmosphere of secrecy at Universal Classics, of which DG seems to be the dominant partner, I smell the old Thatcherite methods of asset stripping, streamlining and corporate greed at work here – where, as with everything else once good and true, the suits have inherited the Earth. Kyrie eleison.

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