New York (Top40 Charts/ EMI) - The Gramophone Listening Room is officially launching with some of the greatest names in the world of classical music: Sir
Simon Rattle, the great Berliner Philharmoniker and EMI, a company that has a long and distinguished tradition of recording the orchestra. To mark the release on
September 7 on a new Brahms symphony cycle from Rattle and his Berlin orchestra on EMI, The Gramophone Listening Room will be offering its subscribers the opportunity to listen - ahead of release, and exclusively - to Rattle's performance of Brahms's Fourth Symphony. It is available to stream ahead of its official release date from August 24th.
This ground-breaking initiative with a major record company also offers visitors the chance to attend a concert in the orchestra's virtual concert hall - the Digital Concert Hall. Users can sign-up for a free trail of the service at www.TellJack.com.
The Gramophone Listening Room continues the magazine's 86 year history of engaging with the latest technologies to broaden classical music's appeal to as large an audience as possible. This follows the launch of Gramophone's archive, gramophone.net, containing virtually every page of the magazine published since April 1923.
TellJack is the technology behind the Gramophone Listening Room, allowing subscribers to receive recommendations from the editors of the magazines, as well as the ability to listen to albums before their release date.
"TellJack is our desktop application that allows the delivery of content direct to the consumer," explains Jack Brand commercial director John Hazell.
As a former trade marketing director at EMI and managing director of HMV in Australia, Hazell has a breadth of experience in the music business and he is convinced that the Jack Brand-run services will prove popular with aficionados of everything from Classical to Dance, folk or Rock.
"Our belief is that passionate consumers are happy to pay a little to have albums recommended by editors they trust delivered directly to them. In the digital world everybody has access to everything. What we are saying is that people don't want access to the whole sweet shop, they don't have time - they want someone they respect guiding them with a few carefully selected choices. The club promotes the music encouraging purchase, so everyone benefits. When the Gramophone Listening Room delivers content to a subscriber, it's about delivering the passion and trust behind the brand.
Lee Woollard, from EMI Classics went on to say "We are extremely pleased to be able to partner with Gramophone.net to present Sir Simon Rattle and the Berliner Philharmoniker in this major new recording of the complete Brahms Symphonies. The exciting new Listening Room initiative is a great way to engage and excite the Gramophone readership by offering exclusive audio previews of our new recordings by way of new technologies. We're delighted to be able to begin this new partnership with performances which should prove a new milestone in the history of recordings of these works, and a valuable addition to the growing catalogue of Sir Simon and the Berliner Philharmoniker."
