Behind the scenes and interview footage courtesy Deutsche Grammophon.

Watch a preview of the concert:

“Sting: A Winter’s Night…” captures the artist in the evocative setting of one of England’s most famous cathedrals. Standing on a peninsula overlooking the River Wear in County Durham, the 1,000 year-old UNESCO world heritage building is an iconic landmark of Northern England. Inside, the architecture and atmosphere are equally as inspiring, and it is in this setting that Sting is joined by guest musicians, including local Newcastle artists Kathryn Tickell (Northumbrian pipes and fiddle), Peter Tickell (fiddle) and Julian Sutton (Melodeon). Esteemed performers from around the world also include Dominic Miller (guitar), Vincent Ségal (cello), Scottish harpist Mary MacMaster, Ira Coleman (bass), Chris Gecker (trumpet), David Mansfield (violin and mandolin), Cyro Baptista, Bashiri Johnson and Rhani Krija (percussion), and vocalists Laila Biali, Lisa Fischer, Jo Lawry and Steven Santoro. Producer Robert Sadin conducts an ensemble of 35 musicians, which includes additional string and brass sections.

Featuring traditional music of the British Isles as its starting point, Sting and guest musicians interpret stirring, folk-based melodies including “The Snow it Melts the Soonest” (traditional Newcastle ballad), “Soul Cake” (traditional English “begging” song), “Christmas at Sea” (traditional Scottish song), “Gabriel’s Message” (14th century carol), “Balulalow” (lullaby by Peter Warlock) and “Now Winter Comes Slowly” (Henry Purcell). Two of Sting’s own compositions are also featured: “Lullaby for an Anxious Child” and “The Hounds of Winter,” which originally appeared on his previous release Mercury Falling. “Winter is a season I’ve always had an affinity for,” says Sting. “It’s certainly rich in terms of inspiration and materials.”

Born a milkman’s son in Newcastle, England, Sting met Stewart Copeland and guitarist Andy Summers, who formed The Police in 1977. The band quickly became a success in both the U.S. and the UK, scoring several No. 1 hits including Roxanne, Every Breath you Take, King of Pain and Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic. The Police earned five Grammy Awards and two Brits, and in 2003, they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. With the release of Dream of the Blue Turtles in 1985, followed by Bring on the Night, Nothing Like the Sun, The Soul Cages, Ten Summoner’s Tales, Mercury Falling, Brand New Day, All This Time, Sacred Love and Songs from the Labyrinth, Sting has evolved into one of the world’s most distinctive and highly-respected solo performers, collecting an additional 11 Grammy Awards, two Brits, a Golden Globe, an Emmy, three Oscar nominations, Billboard Magazine’s Century Award and MusiCares Person of the Year for 2004.

A production of Graying & Balding, Inc., in association with Universal Music Classical Management & Productions (UMCMP) and THIRTEEN for WNET.ORG, the production is directed by the Emmy Award-winning team Jim Gable and Ann Kim. A DVD of the program will be released November 24 on Deutsche Grammophon, featuring additional performances and behind-the-scenes footage documenting the concert’s genesis.

Great Performances is funded by the Irene Diamond Fund, the National Endowment for the Arts, Vivian Milstein, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, public television viewers and PBS.

Photograph for video thumbnail by Tony Molina.

Watch a preview of the concert:

The My Christmas concert is the ultimate holiday musical experience from Andrea Bocelli, showcasing the tenor in performances of traditional carols and other favorites in English, with a few additional selections in Italian and German. Regarding Christmas music, the star remarks, “I have long dreamed of recording a holiday album that captures the beautiful traditions of the holiday season. Every year, these songs have brought incredible joy to me and my family, and it is my hope to give back that same joy by making this album.” Of her experience singing Elvis Presley’s “Blue Christmas” with Bocelli during the taping, country music star Reba McEntire told the Toronto Sun, “I sat there in awe. I just loved it. (His voice) is rich like frosting on a cake – decadent. It’s so full. I stood there right beside him and just watched him.”

An iconic figure in music who has sold more than 60 million albums to date, Bocelli continues to defy categorization, age barriers and labels of any kind. In concert or on the opera stage, he has sung with everyone from Luciano Pavarotti and Placido Domingo to Bono and Celine Dion. In addition to his solo Great Performances concert programs, Bocelli’s many memorable television appearances include the Oscar and Grammy Awards telecasts, mentoring contestants on American Idol and performances at the Official Ceremonies of the Olympic Games, all of which have propelled Andrea Bocelli into becoming a global household name in contemporary popular music.

Great Performances is funded by the Irene Diamond Fund, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, public television viewers and PBS.

Adams’ work stands out among contemporary classical compositions for their depth of expression, brilliance of sound, and the profoundly humanist nature of their themes. Because of his ability to integrate different styles, including American popular forms, his standing today has been of compared in importance to American musical expression to that of Aaron Copland in the forties and Leonard Bernstein in the fifties.

In a segment that aired on October 18, 2009 for WNET.org’s weekly arts program, SundayArts, Paula Zahn interviewed John Adams, composer of the new work City Noir performed for Dudamel’s inaugural concert with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Learn more about this composer’s work in the following video profile:

Watch a preview:

A coveted ticket, the popular annual concert is set among the enchanting surroundings of the Schönbrunn Palace grounds, with the musical repertory selected on the theme “Night.” Concert highlights include Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s “A Little Night Music,” Johann Strauss’ “A Thousand and One Nights” Waltz and Modest Mussorgsky’s “A Night on Bald Mountain.” In addition to conducting the Vienna Philharmonic, Barenboim–equally known for his masterful skills as a piano soloist–took center stage to perform Spanish composer Manuel De Falla’s “Nights in the Gardens of Spain” to thunderous applause. The 90-minute television concert captures the glorious Baroque Park in all its atmospheric moods, from early morning dewdrops to mid-day sunshine to a foggy, mysterious nightfall. “There is no one quite like Daniel Barenboim today in the music world,” raves the New York Times.

Barenboim’s current appointments include serving as the general music director of the Berlin State Opera and its orchestra, as well as the Berlin Staatskapelle. He is also principal guest conductor of the Teatro Alla Scala in Milan. Formerly music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestre de Paris, Barenboim has been a regular guest of the Vienna Philharmonic since his debut with the orchestra in 1989. Most recently on PBS, viewers will recall Barenboim as guest conductor of the Vienna Philharmonic’s New Year’s Day concert, which aired on Great Performances on January 1, 2009.

For more than 160 years since 1842, there is perhaps no other musical ensemble more closely associated with the history and tradition of European classical music than the Vienna Philharmonic. Richard Wagner described the orchestra as being one of the most outstanding in the world, and Richard Strauss summed it all up by saying, “All praise for the Vienna Philharmonic reveals itself as an understatement.”

Great Performances is funded by the Irene Diamond Fund, Vivian Milstein, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, public television viewers and PBS. Exclusive corporate funding for this telecast is provided by Rolex. Additional support is provided by The Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Arts Fund and Vera von Kuffner Eberstadt. For Great Performances, John Walker is producer, Bill O’Donnell is series producer and David Horn is executive producer.

Watch a preview of Karajan, or Beauty as I See It:

Featuring extensive performance sequences from rehearsals and concerts, as well as rare archival material, this performance documentary is the first film to truly penetrate Karajan’s regal façade. Supplementing the extraordinary performances are candid and revealing comments by some of the era’s leading artists who accompanied him on his path to legendary status.

Directed by Robert Dornhelm (director of the acclaimed 2007 mini-series adaptation of War and Peace, as well as GP’s upcoming big-screen adaptation of La Boheme starring Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazón), the film features forthright commentary by such Karajan friends and colleagues as Evgeny Kissin, Mariss Jansons, Christa Ludwig, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Seiji Ozawa, Sir Simon Rattle, Elisabeth Scharzkopf, Sir George Solti and many others, along with personal insights from Karajan’s wife and daughters, as well as the maestro himself. “I don’t just want it to sound beautiful,” said Karajan, “I want it to look beautiful as well—for music is an embodiment of beauty.” The film’s final effect is a multi-faceted portrait that sheds new light on the full spectrum of a profoundly mesmerizing and contradictory personality.

Karajan, or Beauty as I See It is a production of Unitel and MR Film in co-production with ORF, ZDF, SF, SMG and Classica, with support from Fernsehfonds Austria. Great Performances is funded by the Irene Diamond Fund, Vivian Milstein, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, public television viewers, and PBS. Major funding is also provided by The Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Arts Fund and the LuEsther T. Mertz Charitable Trust. For Great Performances, John Walker is producer and Bill O’Donnell is series producer; David Horn is executive producer.

Tyler Stovall: Paris was a tremendous amount of fun in the 1920s. I mean, after all, this is the decade of the Lost Generation, of, you know, mostly white artists and writers who, you know, gave up everything to come to France and live the good life.

And so, African-Americans when they came to Paris – if they met other black Americans – they would be told generally, “Well, the only place where there really is a concentration of our people is in Montmartre. And that is because of the jazz clubs. So if you want to meet other black Americans, wait until the sun goes down and then go to these jazz clubs and stay there basically until the sun comes up.”

Ok, Montmartre was and is to this day a distinctive Parisian community. It was as early as the early 19th century a place where because it lay beyond the city walls, alcohol was cheaper there because it didn’t have to pay the tax to go into Paris itself. So there were lots of speakeasy- lots of speakeasies, and lots of bars and cafes there. So it had- by the time African-Americans came in there- came there in the 1920s it had a tradition of over- almost a century of being a place where one went to enjoy good times.

There were tales of a so-called shoeshine boy, an African-American man who worked with the American Express outside Paris, who whenever he met African-Americans coming through would tell them – “Go up to Montmartre. That’s where our people are.”

Ok, these writers- people- the writers that came from America. Writers like Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, Claude McKay – basically the cream of the crop of the Harlem Renaissance who came during the 1920s were attracted to Paris for several reasons. They were attracted because of its literary prominence, above all. They were attracted by the fact that it was one of the greatest cities in Europe. And increasingly, they were attracted by the fact that so many of their colleagues also seemed to be coming to Paris in the summer.

So, they did represent something different. And yet at the same time, there was a strand of the writing of Harlem Renaissance writers – and you find this especially in Claude McKay – that celebrated a certain kind of primitivism. Claude McKay writes his groundbreaking novel Banjo – actually it’s set in Marseilles in the late 1920s – and it really celebrates the primitive, the idea of the non-intellectual. And it’s full of contradictions, of course, because it’s written by an intellectual. And it includes a self-portrait of Claude McKay as one of the primary characters.

Josephine Baker also falls into the whole primitivist narrative. In fact, there’s an interesting little piece by a woman named Paulette Nardal. Paulette Nardal was one of the famous Nardal sisters who really helped create the Negritude movement and brought together African-American, African and Caribbean writers. And at one point she called- she wrote an essay called Exotic Puppets, which was basically a hatchet job on Josephine Baker. And she talked about this little half case from St. Louis shaking her butt on the Paris stage.