Deutsche Grammophon and Siemens announce collaboration to expand DG Stage – The Virtual Classical Concert Hall
Siemens becomes partner and main supporter of Deutsche Grammophon’s innovative online initiative presenting live performances by world-renowned artists
Deutsche Grammophon is delighted to announce Siemens as the partner and main supporter of DG Stage – The Classical Concert Hall. The new relationship recalls the historic role played by Europe’s largest industrial manufacturing company, as owner and then significant shareholder of the Yellow Label, from 1941 to 1987. Siemens is set to invest in DG Stage’s productions and technical development until the end of 2021. The partnership aims to expand the platform’s ability to offer a global audience long-form concerts, world premiere presentations and exclusive performances, featuring everyone from the superstars signed to DG to up-and-coming young musicians, as well as guest artists involved in outstanding individual projects.
“Using the latest technology to bring music to a wider audience was a key concern of both companies when Siemens was a shareholder of Deutsche Grammophon in the middle of the last century,” comments Dr Clemens Trautmann, President Deutsche Grammophon. “What we want to do now, via our new DG Stage partnership, is translate this fundamental idea into the present. DG Stage is a response to our artists’ need for innovative online opportunities to complement their live performance work and to the desire of classical music audiences worldwide to experience exciting new productions at close range despite the current restrictions on live events. Siemens is an established and much-valued partner and sponsor of some of the world’s leading international festivals and music institutions, and together we are now expanding these activities into the digital realm. We are very much looking forward to a creative collaboration.”
The partnership sees the Yellow Label’s DG Stage team devise and coordinate joint projects in cooperation with Siemens Arts Program, the company’s active and wide-ranging cultural promotion initiative in which classical music plays an important role. Recent Siemens Arts Program endeavours include the inaugural Siemens-Hallé International Conductors Competition, held in Manchester; the audiovisual Viktor Ullmann Project; the Siemens Opera Contests staged in Istanbul and Paris; and an immersive 3D sound recording with the Orchestra Academy of the Bayerische Staatsorchester.
Professor Dr Stephan Frucht, Artistic Director of Siemens Arts Program and Senior Vice President Culture and Sponsoring, explains: “The times we’re living in call for completely new concert formats, and classical music has to seize the opportunities offered by the digital world. It has only survived as long as it has because it has never stopped reinventing itself. In fact it really ought to be called ‘renewable’ rather than ‘classical’ music. For Siemens, that endless variability is the beauty of classical music – constant evolution ensuring the future existence of an established art form. That’s why promoting research, technology, art and culture is so central to our corporate culture.
“Here at Siemens Art Program, innovative thinking about classical music is part of our day-to-day work. That’s why we want to be part of and contribute our expertise to DG’s pioneering digital project. Social distancing calls for spiritual closeness. The shared history between Siemens and Deutsche Grammophon leads us to expect something special to come from any joint projects.
“And, for purely artistic reasons, I’m delighted that the DG Stage platform will allow us to introduce talented young musicians discovered and promoted through our own cultural initiatives to audiences all over the world.”
Since its launch at the end of June 2020, DG Stage has presented concerts by Víkingur Ólafsson, Rolando Villazón and Xavier de Maistre, and John Williams with Anne-Sophie Mutter and the Wiener Philharmoniker, among others. Its current offering includes the complete programme of the 2020 Bayreuth Festival, consisting of recent productions filmed at the home of Wagner’s music dramas, and a cycle of Beethoven’s symphonies performed by Montreal’s Orchestre Métropolitain and its Artistic Director and Principal Conductor, Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Other DG Stage highlights include Anna Netrebko in the title-role of Puccini’s Tosca in a new production staged by the Teatro San Carlo at the Piazza del Plebiscito in Naples, performances from the Berliner Philharmoniker and Leipzig Gewandhausorchester conducted by Andris Nelsons, and recent “Moment Musical” recitals given in Berlin by Daniel Barenboim, Seong-Jin Cho and Anna Prohaska.
