4MBS Virtual Festival of Classics

A series of ten programs broadcast on 4MBS ClassicFM and streaming on the 4MBS website replicating some of the highlights ​of the cancelled 2020 4MBS Festival of Classics.

In May this year, the 4MBS Festival of Classics was to have presented twenty-two concerts in a dozen venues over three weeks celebrating the 250th anniversary of the birth of Beethoven. We were looking forward to bringing you Queensland’s classical musicians performing a wide range of Beethoven’s music in venues from QPAC to suburban halls, from the Sunshine Coast to the Brisbane City Hall but, in the best interests of the health of audiences and musicians, we had to cancel the Festival – for the first time in its twenty-six year history during which it had become the nation’s largest festival of classical music. A great deal of planning and organising goes into the annual 4MBS Festival of Classics, so we were very disappointed.

So, what to do? Well, as a radio station we can bring the music to you in your home or car or wherever you can access a radio or through streaming online. We’ve built a Virtual Festival of Classics with a dozen of the Festival’s concerts re-created through performances we’d recorded previously. As a bonus, we’ve taken the opportunity to include a work that was not to be performed in this year’s Festival but will be a fitting conclusion to the Virtual Festival – Beethoven’s Choral Symphony. It’s the Festival performance from a few years ago, conducted by Tahu Matheson, who is now Head of Music at Opera Australia.

I hope you can join us for the 4MBS Virtual Festival of Classics and that you’ll continue to enjoy the outstanding talent of Queensland’s classical musicians.

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