Tie-up will enable global audiences to appreciate Birmingham’s orchestra.
The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra has announced a two-year partnership with the leading arts streaming service, Marquee TV.
Launching on Saturday 5th June, six broadcasts of previously unseen and existing CBSO performances will be released throughout June and July on marquee.tv. Featuring repertoire ranging from Nielsen to Gilbert and Sullivan, the broadcasts will enable global audiences to experience the CBSO, building on the orchestra’s work throughout the pandemic to connect digitally with music-lovers worldwide.
The six-concert series will premiere five previously unseen performances including music by Clyne, Coleridge-Taylor, Dvořák, 
Glinka, Glazunov, Shaw, Mendelssohn, Nielsen, Saint-Saëns, Sibelius, Takemitsu and Tchaikovsky conducted by Ryan Bancroft, Jonathan Bloxham, Ben Gernon, John Wilson and Kazuki Yamada.
Stephen Hough performs Mendelssohn’s First Piano Concerto with Alpesh Chauhan and in a special programme of British light music, John Wilson joins the orchestra to shine a spotlight on Coates, Delius, Elgar, Gilbert and Sullivan and Haydn Wood.
Filmed in Birmingham between November 2020 and May 2021, the concerts will be broadcast to Marquee TV’s global audience. A subscription to Marquee TV costs £8.99 per month or £89.99 per year. The concerts will be available on demand to Marquee TV subscribers for up to a year.
Further broadcasts and additional information relating to the CBSO’s two-year partnership with Marquee TV will be announced over the coming weeks and months.
The concerts have been filmed with generous support from David and Sandra Burbidge, Jamie and Alison Justham, Chris and Jane Loughran, John Osborn CBE and Arts Council England’s Culture Recovery Fund.
Stephen Maddock, Chief Executive of the CBSO, said: “It’s fantastic that this new partnership between the CBSO and Marquee TV will give even more people across the globe the opportunity to experience one of the finest orchestras in the world, playing a diverse range of wonderful music. I have no doubt that these concerts will delight our existing fans and new audiences alike. The CBSO is hugely grateful to our funders and donors whose remarkable support and generosity have enabled the CBSO to keep creating great performances through the pandemic, and now enable us to share these with the world.”
Susannah Simons, Editorial Director at Marquee TV, said: “Marquee TV is thrilled to add the CBSO to our collection of outstanding performances from the UK’s great orchestras and we look forward to developing the partnership over the coming years- showcasing the best talent to a global audience.”
The CBSO is also currently giving live weekly performances for socially-distanced audiences at Symphony Hall, Birmingham. Upcoming concerts include a programme of English music with tenor Ian Bostridge conducted by Michael Seal (9th June), two concerts led by music director Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla including the world premiere of Thomas Adès’s CBSO centenary commission The Exterminating Angel Symphony (16th June) and music by Weinberg (23rd June), the UK premiere of Julian Anderson’s CBSO Centenary Commission Litanies with CBSO’s Principal Guest Conductor Kazuki Yamada (30th June), a special Friday Night Classics programme of Summer Classics with conductor Michael Seal and violinist Jonathan Martindale (Friday 2nd July) and a season finale concert with Edward Gardner and violinist Alina Ibragimova (7th July). For further information, visit the CBSO website.
