“Carnegie Hall Selects” Launches Friday, May 14 with Free Streams of Filmed Classical Musical Performances
Beginning this Friday, May 14, Carnegie Hall will offer weekly free full-length concert streams via carnegiehall.org, featuring legendary classical musicians in inspirational performances from some of the finest concert halls around the world. The new series, Carnegie Hall Selects, celebrates great artists, composers, and musical works that have had a central role as part of Carnegie Hall’s history. A new Carnegie Hall Selects program will be offered each Friday throughout the summer.
For the first four weeks of the series—in conjunction with the 130th anniversary of Carnegie Hall’s opening—streamed concerts will include music by Tchaikovsky as well as works by Mozart, Beethoven, and Wagner that were featured during the Hall’s Opening Week Festival in May 1891. The original five-day opening festival featured the New York Symphony Orchestra and Oratorio Society of New York, conducted by Walter Damrosch and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, one of the most famous composers of the day, who received a personal invitation to appear in New York City from Andrew Carnegie himself.
Featured Carnegie Hall Selects streams in May/early June include:
• Friday, May 14—From 1967, conductor Herbert von Karajan leading the Berliner Philharmoniker in Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with pianist Alexis Weissenberg at the Berlin Philharmonie.
• Friday, May 21—Herbert von Karajan conducting the Berliner Philharmoniker at the Berlin Philharmonie in Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 in 1972.
• Friday, May 28—From 1976, Sir Georg Solti leading the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in the Prelude and Liebestod from Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde in Chicago’s Orchestra Hall, and conductor Eugene Ormandy and The Philadelphia Orchestra performing Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto with soloist Itzhak Perlman at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia in 1979.
• Friday, June 4—From the 2006 Salzburg Festival: Nikolaus Harnoncourt conducting the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra in a production of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro with Bo Skovhus (Count), Dorothea Röschmann (Countess), Anna Netrebko (Susanna), Ildebrando D’Arcangelo (Figaro), Christine Schäfer (Cherubino), Franz-Josef Selig (Bartolo), and Eva Liebau (Barbarina), directed by Claus Guth.
Each new Carnegie Hall Selects program will be made available each Friday beginning at 12:00 p.m. (EST) / 9:30 p.m. (IST) and will be available for free on-demand viewing for one week on carnegiehall.org.
Additional free Carnegie Hall digital presentations in May:
On Thursday, May 13 at 7:30 p.m. (EST), the Live with Carnegie Hall streaming series—featuring music and conversation with leading artists—returns with Voices of Hope Revisited, a special episode recapping Carnegie Hall’s first-ever online festival which explored the life-affirming power of music and the arts during times of crisis. Audiences will revisit the Hall’s two-week April 2021 festival, including highlights by Rhiannon Giddens with Francesco Turrisi, Ute Lemper, the National Symphony Orchestra, Jason Moran, Kronos Quartet, and many other artists whose performances featured music that inspires change and lifts the human spirit.
On Wednesday, May 19 at 7:30 p.m. (EST), Ensemble Connect invites audiences to an online concert that weaves together visual art, chamber music, and themes of identity and belonging. Featuring works by Valerie Coleman, Karim Al-Zand, Paul Schoenfield, and others, American Mosaic celebrates the many identities that make up the United States. It features the work of renowned visual artist Kevork Mourad, who brings the program to life in a stunning visual display.
Learn with Carnegie Hall continues on Wednesday May 26 at 7:00 p.m. (EST) with the boundary pushing hip-hop duo Soul Science Lab presenting exclusive ‘making of’ excerpts from their forthcoming visual album—Make a Joyful Noize—in a special online streaming event. Commissioned by Carnegie Hall as part of its 125 Commissions Project, Make a Joyful Noize explores the redemptive power of self-love, and the transformative potential of affirming and unifying experiences that uplift the human spirit in the face of oppression. The album blends sound and multimedia using music, affirmations, interviews, images, spoken word, and dance to celebrate unapologetic Black joy as a healing force for transformation.
These Live with Carnegie Hall, Learn with Carnegie Hall and Ensemble Connect Up Closepresentations will stream for free on Carnegie Hall’s webpage, as well as the Hall’s Facebook and YouTube pages. A schedule of upcoming episodes and archived programs available for on-demand viewing can be found on carnegiehall.org/live and carnegiehall.org/learn.
