BSO hooks up with Google to release live recordings

June 16, 2015 at 9:17 am

By Aaron Keebaugh

Live concert performances of the BSO led by Andris Nelsons will be made available for purchase in a new partnership with Google. File photo: Winslow Townson

Andris Nelsons and the Boston Symphony Orchestra have entered into a partnership with Google Play Music to release live recordings of their concert.

As part of Classical Live, the BSO will release up to four live recordings each concert season for download exclusively on the new-media monolith’s websites:  music.google.com and classical-live.com.

The first release by the BSO is now available and features concert recordings from Nelsons’ first season as music director. Works for streaming and download include the suite from Bartók’s The Miraculous Mandarin and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6, Pathétique from concerts last October. Also available is a free bonus track, the theme and first variation from Brahms’ Variations on a Theme by Haydn taken from concerts this past January. All recordings took place in Symphony Hall.

Classical Live also includes partnerships with a number of orchestras from around the United States and Europe, including the Cleveland Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, London Symphony Orchestra, and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra.

Google Play is one of the world’s fastest growing platforms for downloading and streaming music. Participating orchestras earn revenue from the purchases of tracks.

“Through its highly successful platform of music dissemination and its impressive commitment to promote Classical Live to a multi-faceted worldwide audience, Google Play offers the BSO and other leading orchestras a new paradigm for reaching ever-greater numbers of classical music fans and creating an entirely new audience for the field,” said BSO managing director Mark Volpe in a statement released by the orchestra. “We are most excited for the opportunity to bring the orchestra’s music to a wider audience and to expose more people to the power of great symphonic music and its potential to transform and enrich their lives.”

“The experience of live concert recordings brings listeners close to our great orchestra, our generous audience and the sublime atmosphere of Symphony Hall—truly one of the greatest concert halls in the world,” said Andris Nelsons in a statement.  “You have the potential for an unbeatable sound world that I am so pleased to share with music lovers young and old, far and wide, and invite everyone to experience it live in Boston as well!”

The first BSO live recording is available on Google’s Classical Live. music.google.com; classical-live.com

Posted in News


Leave a Comment