With so many concerts sidelined by the pandemic, 2020 was a tough year to celebrate what had been expected to be one of classical music’s biggest moments: the 250th anniversary of the birth of Ludwig van Beethoven. Many events moved online, and virtual celebrations included the #GlobalOdetoJoy project, a digital iteration of conductor Marin Alsop’s Global Ode to Joy initiative, which included Carnegie Hall, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, and Philadelphia Orchestra. Alsop had been set to lead the Ninth Symphony with those orchestras and others on five continents—alongside new music by artists from each region and with the “Ode to Joy” text translated into the local language. To keep the spirit of the original project going, virtual #GlobalOdetoJoy invited orchestras and individuals to share their most joyful content—and Beethoven music—by adding the hashtag #globalodetojoy to their YouTube videos. A compilation of the #GlobalOdetoJoy videos was posted on YouTube on Beethoven’s birthday, December 17. Elsewhere, Gustavo Dudamel streamed a daylong event featuring performances of all nine Beethoven symphonies by Venezuela’s Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra, for free on his YouTube channel. Seventeen Seattle arts groups created a four-day “This is Beethoven” streamed festival in December, curated by Kristin Lee and Andrew Goldstein, co-founders of the Emerald City Music chamber series. Several new Beethoven books have been published, including American musicologist Lewis Lockwood’s Beethoven’s Lives—a bit of meta-Beethoveniana that surveys 200 years of Beethoven biographies.
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