A NEW SEASON AT THE BERLINER PHILHARMONIKER'S "DIGITAL CONCERT HALL"

Berlin, 30 June 2009. The Berliner Philharmoniker’s Digital Concert Hall is going into its second season. From 1 July, tickets for the upcoming concert broadcasts on the video platform will go on sale, making it possible to follow almost all the orchestra’s Berlin concerts in the 2009/2010 season live on the internet at www.berliner-philharmoniker.de/dch. After the broadcast, the concerts go into the Digital Concert Hall video archive, where you can also find around 30 recordings from last season. The first broadcast of the new season takes place on 28 August, when Sir Simon Rattle will be conducting a programme that includes Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique.

Olaf Maninger, solo cellist with the Berliner Philharmoniker and General Manager of Berlin Phil Media GmbH, explains: “This is a really exciting moment for us. For the first time ever we’ve made a complete audio-visual document of a Berliner Philharmoniker season, and opened it up to an international audience. We’re pleased that we will also be sharing the experience of many thrilling concerts in the coming season with our friends all around the world. We’ve had amazingly positive feedback from visitors to the Digital Concert Hall, and this has been a spur to carry on developing and improving our platform.”

The Digital Concert Hall will again be broadcasting over 30 concerts by the Berliner Philharmoniker in the 2009/2010 season. Principal Conductor Sir Simon Rattle’s concerts will include Bach’s St Matthew Passion, Haydn’s oratorio The Seasons, a complete cycle of Sibelius symphonies, and Beethoven’s five Piano Concertos with Mitsuko Uchida as soloist. Among the guest conductors appearing will be Claudio Abbado, Daniel Barenboim, Christoph von Dohnányi, Bernard Haitink, Daniel Harding, Mariss Jansons, Ton Koopman, Zubin Mehta, Seiji Ozawa, Christian Thielemann and many others. The complete programme is ready for download on the Berliner Philharmoniker’s website.

A year’s subscription to the Digital Concert Hall costs 149 euros. It provides unlimited access to all the live broadcasts and archive of recordings from the 2009/2010 season, as well as the recordings from the previous season. There is also a new offer of a 30 day subscription for 39 euros, that gives the same access but for a shorter period. In addition, you can purchase a single ticket for 9.90 euros either for a live broadcast or an archived concert.

Since the first live broadcast in January 2008, there have been over 200,000 visitors to the Digital Concert Hall. 14,000 of them have registered their personal details; over 2,000 have since become season-ticket holders. Nearly two-thirds of visitors are from outside Germany. After the home market (with 35% of all users), the second largest uptake has been in Japan (13%) followed by the USA (9%) and Spain (4%).

The Digital Concert Hall offers something quite unique in the world of classical music. For the first time, a great orchestra is broadcasting its concerts on the internet on a regular basis, using the most up-to-date audio technology, and with high-definition picture quality. The multi-channel agency argonauten G2 is responsible for the configuration and programming. The platform has received many awards, including a gold medal at the Lead Awards in the “Web-TV” category, as well as a “Golden Cube” from the American Art Director’s Club.

The Digital Concert Hall would not be possible without the generous support of Deutsche Bank, which has been sponsoring the Berliner Philharmoniker since 1989, and has made possible the “Zukunft@BPhil education programme.

Berlin Phil Media GmbH
Leipziger Platz 1
10117 Berlin
Tobias Möller
Director of Marketing and Communication
T: +49 (0)30 206 24 69 – 11
F: +49 (0)30 206 24 69 – 20
E-Mail: t.moeller@berliner-philharmoniker.de
www.berliner-philharmoniker.de

This release was published on openPR.