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Verbier Festival 2011: In par...

Verbier Festival 2011: In partnership with medici.tv: July 12, 2011

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June 26, 2011 - Johannes Brahms, Hungarian Dances, WoO1, Bk.1-2 (piano version); Book 1, 1.Allegro molto in G- (Khatia Buniatishvili, piano; Yuja Wang, piano)

Best of Brahms

More music by Brahms

The Verbier Music Festival, taking place over two weeks in late-July in the picturesque Alpine village of Verbier, Switzerland, has become among the most celebrated and dynamic music festivals in the world – featuring a host of superb classical musicians in a steady stream of excellent concert programs. Classical Archives and medici.tv – the largest online library of classical videos – have teamed up to offer a special glimpse into the Verbier experience with an ever-increasing set of videos and playlists that follow the programming of this year’s festival – from July 15 to July 31. Among this year’s stars include Martha Argerich, Joshua Bell, Nelson Freire, David Garrett, Valery Gergiev, Leonidas Kavakos, Angelika Kirchschlager, Evgeny Kissin, Gidon Kremer, Mischa Maisky, Anne-Sophie Mutter, René Pape, Vadim Repin, Gábor Takács-Nagy, Bryn Terfel, and Yuja Wang.

For the fifth consecutive year, medici.tv – in partnership with Rolex – will be broadcasting concerts from the Verbier Festival over its two weeks, filmed by Idéale Audience. You can watch the complete concerts, live and free-of-charge, on medici.tv.

Medici.tv is sharing outstanding excerpts from these concerts with Classical Archives, which we then supplement with special Playlists, links to our artist and composer pages, written materials about Verbier and medici.tv, and other special features. Our Verbier Feature page will be updated daily throughout the Festival starting July 15, so please return often. Enjoy!

Enjoy 15 days FREE access to medici.TV's online catalogue of over 600 classical concerts and films when you subscribe for one month. Simply enter the special code "ARCHIVES" at the checkout. Click here to subscribe.

Verbier Festival
Medici.tv
Prior Verbier 2011 Videos

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The Verbier Festival is an international classical music festival that takes place annually for two weeks in late July and early August in the Alpine resort of Verbier, Switzerland. The Festival was founded in 1994 by Swedish-born Martin Engström, who has been its director ever since. Each year the festival features an array of acclaimed soloists, the ranks of which over the years have included Evgeny Kissin, Martha Argerich, Mischa Maisky, Thomas Quasthoff, Lang Lang, Julian Lloyd Webber, Lawrence Power, Hilary Hahn, Leif Ove Andsnes, Emanuel Ax, Julian Rachlin, Loenidas Kavakos, Lera Auerbach, Anoushka Shankar, Yuja Wang, and many others.

Among the most prized elements of Verbier are its two resident orchestras: the Verbier Festival Orchestra (VFO) and the Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra (VFCO), each of which fosters the talents and professionalism of young musicians. The VFO – founded in 2000 under the direction of James Levine – is comprised of around 100 musicians aged 17 to 29 who are accepted following a very competitive audition process; the selected musicians are then provided with intensive orchestral training from members of New York City’s Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, under the aegis of Conductor Laureate James Levine. At the end of this intensive training session, the Verbier Festival Orchestra performs during the Festival – under the baton of Music Director Charles Dutoit and some of the greatest international conductors.

The VFCO, which comprises former musicians from the symphony orchestra, is devoted to performing works from the chamber orchestra repertoire; it has been performing regularly in the Festival since 2005, and this year performs under the baton of its director, Gábor Takács-Nagy.

Both orchestras toured Europe and North America for several years, under the initial sponsorship of Swiss financial entity UBS, which halted its involvement with the Festival in 2008. Continued support from a variety of sources happily maintains the health of both the VFO and VFCO today.

Related to the orchestral training is the Festival’s acclaimed Academy, which invites a select number of young artists for a three-week intensive program – including master classes by such distinguished artists as pianist Alfred Brendel. The Academy presents one or more free chamber concerts each day during the Festival.

Beyond its active program of premier classical concerts – generally three or four each day – and the Academy concerts, the Festival also features a number of outreach and special programs. These include Verbier Festival Discovery – a set of free talks and discussions on a variety of musical topics for adults and children alike; the Amateur Chamber Music Week – providing an opportunity for amateur musicians to work with seasoned professionals, culminating in a concert on the opening afternoon of the Festival; and the Verbier Festival Fest’Off – a set of free, informal jazz and pop performances in and around the Festival area.

For more information on the Verbier Festival, visit www.verbierfestival.com.

To view a complete list of concerts and events, visit their Day-to-Day Program.

You may also view their Virtual Program.

This Verbier Festival Feature represents Classical Archives’ first collaboration with medici.tv, the largest online library of classical videos. We are very excited by the prospects of a working partnership with medici.tv – including a future ability to link medici.tv’s outstanding video performances directly to our work, composer, and artist pages; as well as to offer subscribers of medici.tv an ability to easily access our extensive audio library related to the videos they are viewing. Stay tuned to these developments.

Here is a brief overview of medici.tv:

Medici.tv was officially launched on May 1, 2008 with a live concert from Russia by the Berlin Philharmonic under conductor Simon Rattle, and quickly began offering live concerts filmed at various classical music festivals – including Verbier, Aspen, and Luzerne, as well as at opera, symphonic, and chamber concerts throughout Europe. In addition, they soon began to offer archival movies and documentaries on classical performers and composers.

Today, medici.tv offers 600 concerts and performances available for streaming as Video-on-demand (VOD), which subscribers are able to view as often as desired. Most videos are available in HD quality, and encoded by the most competent European encoding laboratories. In addition, medici.tv offers free live concerts, which are available on the site for a limited time. Since 2008, medici.tv has broadcast over 200 live classical music events, viewed by visitors from over 180 countries.

Over its three years, medici.tv has offered viewing of over 12 million videos, and receives about 80,000 visitors each month. Subscriptions are available for 5€ or $7 per month, with no term commitment.

Among the acclaimed artists featured in medici.tv’s extensive video library include Claudio Abbado, Daniel Barenboim, Martha Argerich, Maurizio Pollini, Anna Netrebko, Gustavo Dudamel, Maria Callas, Herbert von Karajan, Leonard Bernstein, David Oistrakh, Mstislav Rostropovitch, Samson François, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Glenn Gould, and many more.

For more information on medici.tv, to sample their library of classical videos, and to subscribe to their service, visit www.medici.tv.

July 27, 2011