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Worldwide Web broadcasts set for four concerts from IU School of Music
Oct. 25, 1999
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Four concerts from the Indiana University School of Music, including an operatic performance, will be broadcast live to an international audience over the World Wide Web between Nov. 1 and Nov. 14.
Broadcasting a live classical music event on the Internet represents a pioneering use of computer technology. Approximately 5,000 viewers in 23 countries accessed the IU School of Music's first Internet broadcast Sept. 14, a concert by renowned cellists Janos Starker and Mstislav Rostropovich.
IU's opera broadcast is among the first since June 25, when Italy's Verona Festival made history by broadcasting an opera.
The concerts -- an IU Jazz Ensemble performance with David Baker; the University Orchestra led by Ray Cramer and featuring IU Basketball Coach Bob Knight in a narration of Copland's Lincoln Portrait; the IU Opera Theater production of Puccini's one-act operas Sister Angelica and Gianni Schicchi; and the IU Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of former Boston Symphony Orchestra concertmaster Joseph Silverstein -- form a part of the school's 1999-2000 season of more than 1,100 concerts.
The performances will be in IU's Musical Arts Center on Nov. 1, 3, 12 and 14 at 8 p.m. EST (Nov. 2, 4, 13 and 15 at 1 a.m. Greenwich Mean Time).
David Baker, Distinguished Professor of Music and chair of IU's Jazz Studies Department, will dedicate a portion of the Nov. 1 program to Indiana native Hoagy Carmichael on the 100th anniversary of the popular composer's birth. Baker, who played with Stan Kenton, Maynard Ferguson and other music legends, is internationally recognized as a lecturer, clinician and author of numerous books on jazz and black music, and he has penned more than 2,000 compositions.
In the Nov. 3 concert, IU Basketball Coach Bob Knight will make his debut as a classical music narrator in Aaron Copland's symphonic poem Lincoln Portrait, set to texts from Lincoln's sayings. Other works on the program include Benjamin Britten's Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra and Carl Maria von Weber's overture to Der Freischutz. Ray Cramer regularly conducts IU's Wind Ensemble, Chamber Winds, and University Orchestra.
On Nov. 12, Thomas Baldner will conduct and Vincent Liotta will stage Puccini's juxtaposition of tragedy and comedy, Sister Angelica and Gianni Schicchi. The sets are designed by Max Rothlisberger, with costumes by Mary K. Grusak. Baldner is former principal conductor of the Rheinisches Kammerorchester of Cologne, Germany, and has worked with renowned orchestras worldwide. Liotta is a former resident director at the Lyric Opera of Chicago and highly sought after nationwide for musical theater and opera. Since its founding in 1948, the IU Opera Theater has given more than 1,000 performances of nearly 300 operas. IU is the only collegiate opera company to have performed on the stage of The Metropolitan Opera.
On Nov. 14, the IU Philharmonic Orchestra will be conducted by Joseph Silverstein, who has appeared as soloist and conductor with more than 100 orchestras. He is the former concertmaster of the Boston Symphony and music director of the Utah Symphony. The program will include two student violin soloists in works by Ravel and Saint-Saens, plus Mussorgsky's popular Pictures at an Exhibition. The finale will be Ravel's choreographic poem La Valse. The Philharmonic Orchestra is the premier symphony of the School of Music's five full-size orchestras and has toured to Carnegie Hall and to Paris for the opening of the Bastille Opera House. It has also appeared under Gerard Schwarz, Robert Shaw, Kurt Masur, Leonard Bernstein and other leading maestros.
The Web broadcasts of these concerts will be archived for one month. Computer viewers will need RealNetworks' RealPlayer G2, which is included with Netscape 4.6 and above or can be downloaded free of charge at http://www.real.com/products/player/. It will take phone modem users 20 to 30 minutes to download and install the software from the RealNetworks site.
For more information about IU's Web broadcasts of these events, go to http://broadcast.iu.edu/
For opera ticket information or further details on the concerts, phone 812-855-9846 or visit the IU School of Music's Web site at http://www.music.indiana.edu
(Arizeder Urreiztieta, 812-855-9846, aurreizt@indiana.edu or Richard Doty, 812-855-0084, rgdoty@indiana.edu)