“Min plays with the most ravishing piano tone I’ve heard in the last 50 discs I’ve listened to, at least! Her dynamic control is out of this world … anybody’s music would be served well by Min’s touch.”

Klara will be also appearing on BBC Radio 3 In Tune on Monday afternoon, 22th April.

This evening, the Staatskapelle Berlin and Daniel Barenboim will give a concert in aid of a music kindergarten in Berlin, which will also mark the conductor’s birthday. Under the direction of Daniel Barenboim’s long-time colleague, Zubin Mehta, a new piece by Elliott Carter: “Dialogues II” will be performed. The work for piano and orchestra is dedicated to Daniel Barenboim, who will perform the piano part, as well as Beethoven’s 3^rd Piano Concerto and Tchaikovsky’s 1^st Piano Concerto. Accentus Music will record the concert in co-production with ZDF and Unitel at the Berlin Philharmonie, which will be broadcast live from 20:15CET on Arte.

The two-part documentary; “Crossing Borders: Daniel Barenboim” by Paul Smaczny accompanies the artist in a search of the social significance of music and his tireless efforts for intercultural dialogue. The first part shows Barenboim working with the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra and follows him at sensational premiere concerts in Cairo and Gaza City. Part two highlights Barenboim’s efforts to overcome the Wagner taboo in Israel. Arte will broadcast the co-production of Accentus Music and ZDF tonight at 22:00 CET, following the special birthday concert broadcast.

Completing Accentus Music’s monumental celebration will be the release of a major symphonic series: Anton Bruckner’s “Mature Symphonies”. In 2010 Daniel Barenboim and the Staatskapelle Berlin performed Bruckner’s Symphonies Nos. 4 to 9 in just eight days. Accentus Music and Unitel Classica recorded the six highly acclaimed concerts at the Berlin Philharmonie. In January 2013, Accentus Music will start with the release of Bruckner’s Symphony No 4.

Paul Smaczny, producer, director and founder of Accentus Music, has collaborated for over 20 years with Daniel Barenboim. In numerous concert recordings and publications, Smaczny documents the musical work of the Buenos Aires-born conductor and pianist. For his film, “Knowledge is the Beginning – Daniel Barenboim and the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra”, Smaczny won the 2006 International Emmy® Award for Arts Programming.

Broadcast date: Thursday, 15th November 2012, Arte

20.15: Daniel Barenboim Birthday Concert – Live from the Berlin Philharmonic

(A production of Accentus Music in coproduction with ZDF and Unitel, in collaboration with Arte.)

22.00: Crossing Borders: Daniel Barenboim (1/2): Music and Politics

23.00: Crossing Borders: Daniel Barenboim (2/2): Musical Approaches

N.B. Above times are CET.

(A production of Accentus Music in coproduction with ZDF, in collaboration with Arte)

For more information please visit the Arte website here, or the Accentus Music website here.

On September 14th and 15th he will be performing Handel’s Judas Maccabaeus with the St George’s Singers and the Camerata Tinta Barocca at St Andrew’s Presbyterian Church and on September 21st he will be performing the programme from his recent recital disc, Insomnia: A Nocturnal Voyage in Song with pianist Albert Combrink.

For information about tickets, please visit William’s website.

Image credit: Paul Foster-Williams

For more information visit the Institut Français’ website, or watch the video below:

Four Strings on Four Instruments: The Psophos Quartet at the Institut Français, March 27th, 8pm.

Having previously been described as “strongly recommended” by Gramophone Magazine, this DVD has already received widespread critical acclaim. In 2011, Andrew Clark in the Financial Times wrote “this DVD of last summer’s fabulously fluid performance with the Lucerne Festival Orchestra is an important release” and BBC Music Magazine reviewer David Nice wrote: “Finest concert DVD ever? I think so.”

The ACCENTUS release of Claudio Abbado and the Lucerne Festival Orchestra playing Mahler’s 9^th Symphony is available for purchase on DVD and Blu-ray worldwide.

You can also see Thomas Kemp featured in the January Issue of Gramophone magazine, out now.

If you missed In Tune on Tuesday, you can still listen here.

For more information on A Constant Obsession, go to the Resonus website here.

This year’s festival opens on November 12th with a performance of Bach’s Mass in B Minor with the Academy Choir and Baroque Players and soloists Nancy Argenta, Michael Chance, Allan Clayton and Roderick Williams. For full concert listings and to buy tickets, visit the Wimbledon Music Festival website or call the box office on 0844 871 7685.

Almost every newspaper and magazine dedicates some of its pages to showcasing local concerts and performances in a condensed form: date, name, time, venue, genre, what to expect. As our eyes take in the dozens of places we could be hearing good music at that particular time, names are supposed to jump off the page and entice us into going to a particular event. Musicians and artists covet the chance to be featured in those listings, and media relations companies view them as a definite result of success. When the point of listings is to advertise performances to the public and get people out to the ticket booths, to what extent do they succeed in this mission? Here at WildKat PR, a growing curiosity over the influence (or lack thereof) of music listings led us to investigate the issue.

An extensive research began: through statistics, numbers, articles, we searched into who looks at these listings, are they worth it, do they work? Our research was, to put it mildly, unfruitful: it seems the Internet contains no data whatsoever tracing how effective music listings are. Our curiosity grew even more. In an ideal world, the scenario above would come true and hundreds of unknown artists would find fame and recognition after being featured in the listings section of a music magazine.  In reality, it isn’t always likely that this person scanning the page will want to experiment and take a chance on a band/musician they’ve never heard of. Even if we do happen to have no plans on a particular day, or find ourselves fancying a bit of live music, would we actually trust a small paragraph recommending an event? Surely a more in-depth feature about a concert or performance would be more likely to attract the reader, but competition for those is more than fierce, especially in reputable music magazines. When it comes to the artists in question: is this feeling of victory and these visions of fame and fortune that come after being featured in a listing actually called for?

One can be sure that somewhere, sometime, musicians will have been pulled from the darkness and into the spotlight after a series of gigs advertised at the bottom right-hand corner of the listings page. But what about the overall success rate? It seems this overlooked area of research would be an essential tool for the future of media relations, up-and-coming artists and venues on a larger scale. Have you ever seen statistics pertaining to music listings? What is your opinion on this issue? Do you believe listings to be successful in advertising events to the masses?

The ACCENTUS Music documentary team, under the direction of Paul Smaczny, is exclusively accompanying Daniel Barenboim and the musicians for this very special event and filmed the concert with three separate cameras.

Maestro Barenboim commented, “We are very happy to come to Gaza. We are playing this concert as a sign of our solidarity and friendship with the civil society of Gaza.”

This event has been organized by the Palestinian Non-Governmental Organizations Network and the Al Mathaf Cultural House, in cooperation with the Office of the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process (UNSCO) and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA)

ACCENTUS Music started its activities in 2010. Establishing itself as a new label on the classical music market, it is also a distinguished production company in its own right with a most experienced team of producers, directors, camera operators, audio producers and editors. Based in Leipzig, a center of classical music, ACCENTUS Music produces worldwide high profile concert and opera recordings as well as feature-length documentaries and portraits. The first DVD releases include productions featuring artists such as Claudio Abbado, Daniel Barenboim, Evgeny Kissin, Joshua Bell, the Lucerne Festival Orchestra and the Símon Bolívar Youth Orchestra.

ACCENTUS Music’s forthcoming releases include the 2010 Nobel Prize Concert with Joshua Bell performing with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, as well as a celebratory concert of Pierre Boulez performing Mahler with the Cleveland Orchestra. Celebrating the 70th birthday of Martha Argerich in June 2011, ACCENTUS will also release a world premiere of Rodion Shchedrin’s “Romantic Offering” with Martha Argerich on the piano, cellist Mischa Maisky, and the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Neeme Järvi.

For further information, please visit the ACCENTUS Music website.

I was looking for any interesting books focussing on the role of social media in a B2C environment – something I am keen to know more about as social media is rapidly becoming more integral to what we do as a company. The first book I stumbled across had an average rating of 3 stars. On closer inspection this average was from just two reviews. The first was a 5 star review, the second a meagre one star with the damning comments “350 pages of the totally obvious”, and “if it was well written, funny or interesting it may get away with its lack of ideas and originality. Unfortunately, it is not”.

Strangely, despite the 5* reviewer being flagged as one of Amazon’s “Top 100 Reviewers” and the reassuring Amazon affirmation that the review was penned under the author’s real name, it was the negative comments from the person who has only felt compelled to review this one book that instantly made me close the window and search for something else.

This made me wonder how reviews affect our opinions of music, both live and recorded. Specifically, do we respect the opinion of the “expert” journalists in the national papers and music magazines (my use of quotations is to avoid offending very intelligent non-journalists, not to suggest that the press are not experts in their field), or is a review from a friend, peer or even stranger online more influential?

I have changed my mind on numerous occasions about purchasing a CD after a friend of mine has said they did not enjoy it (and vice versa – bought something I may not have considered after someone has sung its praises). The same is true for live performances – I have been to see a concert because someone on facebook or twitter has assured me that the performer is worth me spending my money on.

And though I find the opinions of reviewers in the newspapers very interesting – it is not that often that I am convinced to go (or not go) to a live event. Perhaps the reason for this is that many classical reviews are from one-off concerts, rather than a long tour or run, and on the occasions where there is an opportunity to see the concert again, it has been sold out for months already, so it isn’t possible for me to go, even if I now wanted to.

I can think of two big exceptions to this, however. The first being ENO’s 2010 production of Don Giovanni (see our video blog about that here), which outraged the press to such an extent that I felt that I simply had to go and make my own mind up about it (and I loved every minute!). The second was not a review, but a recommendation. Andrew Clements’ “The best classical music for 2011” made me rush off to various websites, yelling “GET ME A TICKET FOR THAT” – his concise list of 2011 highlights was varied and appealing and instantly had me reaching for my bank card.

So what affects your ticket and CD purchases? Do you prefer to listen to feedback from your friends on facebook or the people you follow on Twitter? Or does the printed press send you running to (or from) the concert hall? And what is more powerful at influencing our opinions – 20 positive reviews, or one negative one?