Here’s a calendar of classical music performances compiled by our volunteer hosts Sarah Brailey and Alan Muirhead of Musica Antiqua (our Early Music program on Sundays 8-11 am.) Watch this space for updates!
WORT Classical Calendar – Online Events (featured photo by Manuel Nägeli on Unsplash)
Live with Carnegie Hall:
Music has the undeniable power to comfort, uplift, connect, and inspire. In response to this unprecedented time, we invite you to join us for an entirely new online series: Live with Carnegie Hall. Tune in for unforgettable episodes that feature some of the world’s finest artists as they share behind-the-scenes stories, excerpts from past performances, and live musical moments. During the free live streams, episodes can be viewed on this webpage, as well as on the Hall’s Facebook and Instagram pages.
Tuesday, May 12 at 1pm CT/2pm ET: Live with Carnegie Hall: Michael Feinstein. From Tin Pan Alley to Broadway, Carnegie Hall to Hollywood, few composers have left such an indelible imprint on a wide spectrum of American music as George Gershwin. Join Michael Feinstein—ambassador of the Great American Songbook—and special guests for this lively exploration of Gershwin’s enduring influence in both popular and classical traditions.
https://www.carnegiehall.org/Explore/Watch-and-Listen/Live-with-Carnegie-Hall FREE
Thursday, May 14 at 1pm CT/2pm ET: Live with Carnegie Hall: Renee Fleming. Hailed as “America’s soprano of choice” (The New York Times), Renée Fleming graces the world’s most renowned opera, theater, and concert-hall stages. She is joined by a special guest, her friend and vocalist-songwriter Rufus Wainwright, for a discussion about the art of song. Fleming also revisits a classic performance of a work from her signature repertoire—R. Strauss’s Four Last Songs—discussing the work and her artistic process with Elliott Forrest.
https://www.carnegiehall.org/Explore/Watch-and-Listen/Live-with-Carnegie-Hall FREE
Tuesday, May 19 at 1pm CT/2pm ET: Live with Carnegie Hall: Yannick Nézet-Séguin
https://www.carnegiehall.org/Explore/Watch-and-Listen/Live-with-Carnegie-Hall FREE
Metropolitan Opera: Nightly Met Opera Streams:
During this extraordinary and difficult time, the Met hopes to brighten the lives of our audience members even while our stage is dark. Each day, a different encore presentation from the company’s Live in HD series is being made available for free streaming on the Met website, with each performance available for a period of 23 hours, from 7:30 p.m. EDT until 6:30 p.m. the following day. The schedule will include outstanding complete performances from the past 14 years of cinema transmissions, starring all of opera’s greatest singers.
The streams are also available through the Met Opera on Demand apps for Apple, Amazon, and Roku devices and Samsung Smart TV. To access them without logging in, click “Browse and Preview” in the apps for connected TV, and “Explore the App” on tablets and mobile devices.
https://www.metopera.org/user-information/nightly-met-opera-streams/
Monday, May 11
Starring Lisette Oropesa, Sophie Koch, Jonas Kaufmann, and David Bižić, conducted by Alain Altinoglu. From March 15, 2014.
Tuesday, May 12
Starring Audrey Luna, Isabel Leonard, Alek Shrader, Alan Oke, and Simon Keenlyside, conducted by Thomas Adès. From November 10, 2012.
Wednesday, May 13
Starring Jessye Norman, Kathleen Battle, and Tatiana Troyanos, conducted by James Levine. From March 12, 1988.
Thursday, May 14
Starring Patricia Racette, Anthony Dean Griffey, and Anthony Michaels-Moore, conducted by Sir Donald Runnicles. From March 15, 2008.
Friday, May 15
Viewers’ Choice: Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor
Starring Joan Sutherland, Alfredo Kraus, Pablo Elvira, and Paul Plishka, conducted by Richard Bonynge. From November 13, 1982.
Saturday, May 16
Starring Diana Damrau, Oksana Volkova, Piotr Beczała, and Željko Lučić, conducted by Michele Mariotti. From February 16, 2013.
Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center has a huge archive of concerts available: https://www.chambermusicsociety.org/watch-and-listen/
Academy of Ancient Music: During the coronavirus outbreak, the Academy of Ancient Music will be sharing full-length concerts from the recent past each Sunday afternoon, ‘Streaming Sundays’: https://www.youtube.com/user/acadofancientmusic Includes “The Art of the Lute” with Thomas Dunford; Handel’s Messiah; Bach St. John Passion with Voces8
Monteverdi Choir and Orchestras on YouTube, streaming past concerts with commentary by John Eliot Gardiner. Current feature is Cantata 146 ‘Wir müssen durch viel Trübsal in das Reich Gottes eingehen’
July 25: Madison Opera’s Opera in the Park will be moving online this summer in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Since the first Opera in the Park concert in 2002, it has become a Madison summer tradition, a free concert that draws over 10,000 people to Garner Park for selections from opera, Broadway, operetta and zarzuela. Soloists to perform with the Madison Symphony Orchestra include: soprano Karen Slack, who returns to Madison Opera as Leonora in Verdi’s Il Trovatore this fall; soprano Jasmine Habersham, who makes her Madison Opera debut in Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro next April; and baritone Weston Hurt, who sang Germont in Verdi’s La Traviata last season and returns as Count di Luna in Il Trovatore next fall.
General early music
Blue Heron best U.S. based choir focusing on early music https://www.youtube.com/c/blueheronbos
Stile Antico English choir, favorite of Musica Antiqua https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJi5mMtySnmoGwTqsZE9XkQ
Voices of Music West Coast based, very active Youtube channel with excellent performances of Baroque music https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9qItJ2Gs8Xfu6y_ERKNsxw
I Fagiolini English vocal group, focuses on Renaissance; their Sing the Score series mixes humor into the insightful explanations of the works at hand. https://www.youtube.com/user/thelittlebeans/featured
TENET Vocal Artists New York based, has appeared in Milwaukee https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMvzObax4mNpF-gQPzSuWKA
Quicksilver Baroque “rock stars of early music”, MEMF favorites; https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSyM5SzxxiNx3_EjYNQ_WCg
me:mo Lukas Henning’s somewhat idiosyncratic video essays about music and art history. And he’s a good lutenist besides. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC71a3UGsyXvnELDfrmeeEFg
For more online performances, check https://www.earlymusicamerica.org/resources/early-music-news-reviews/online-performances/ and for streaming, https://www.earlymusicamerica.org/events/
