Samuel Barber: Absolute Beauty

Known for his mournful "Adagio for Strings," Samuel Barber was never quite fashionable. This acclaimed film is a probing exploration of his music and melancholia. Performance, oral history, musicology, and biography combine to explore the life and music of one of America’s greatest composers. Features Thomas Hampson, Leonard Slatkin, Marin Alsop and many more of the world's leading experts on Barber's music, with tributes from composers Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland, Virgil Thomson and William Schuman. The film was broadcast on PBS, and screened at nine film festivals internationally, with three best-of awards. It was named a Recording of the Year 2017 by MusicWeb International.

House of Ricordi

The film covers a hundred years in the lives of the Ricordi family, the Milan publishing house of the title, and the various composers and other historic personalities, whose careers intersected with the growth of the Ricordi house. It beautifully draws the parallel between the great music of the composers, the historic and social upheavals of their times, as well as the "smaller stories" of the successive generations of Ricordi.

Four Minutes

Jenny is young. Her life is over. She killed someone. And she would do it again. When an 80-year-old piano teacher discovers the girl’s secret, her brutality and her dreams, she decides to transform her pupil into the musical wunderkind she once was.

Shut Up and Play the Piano

The documentary follows Chilly Gonzales from his native Canada to late '90s underground Berlin, and via Paris to the world's great philharmonic halls. Diving deep into the dichotomy of Gonzales' stage persona, where self-doubt and megalomania are just two sides of the same coin.

TÁR

As celebrated conductor Lydia Tár starts rehearsals for a career-defining symphony, the consequences of her past choices begin to echo in the present.

John Cage: I Have Nothing to Say and I Am Saying It

This 56-minute documentary on America's most controversial and unique composer manages to cover a great many aspects of Cage's work and thought. His love for mushrooms, his Zen beliefs and use of the I Ching, and basic bio details are all explained intelligently and dynamically. Black Mountain, Buckminster Fuller, Rauschenberg, Duchamp are mentioned. Yoko Ono, John Rockwell, Laurie Anderson, Richard Kostelanetz make appearances. Fascinating performance sequences include Margaret Leng-Tan performing on prepared piano, Merce Cunningham and company, and performances of Credo In Us, Water Music, and Third Construction. Demystifies the man who made music from silence, from all sounds, from life.

Andrea Bocelli - Vivere Live in Tuscany

Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli grew up in Lajatico, a rural village in Tuscany, where his family still farms nearby. In July 2007, on the slopes of his ancient hill town, a special theater was constructed for a one-night-only concert of his greatest popular hits along with new songs performed to honor the occasion. Some famous musical friends dropped by and the magical result is Andrea Bocelli - Vivere - Live in Tuscany, premiering this December on PBS.

In Search of Beethoven

In Search of Beethoven offers a comprehensive documentary about the life and works of the great composer. Over 65 performances by the world's finest musicians were recorded and 100 interviews conducted in the making of this beautifully crafted film. Eleven interviews are included in the Extras and Six complete movements.

Nodame Cantabile: The Movie I

Chiaki is an aspiring conductor who faces the challenge of leading an orchestra which is made up of substitutes. Nodame gives her support to her beloved as she works hard towards achieving her dream to pass a promotion exam at their music conservatory. Will Chiaki be able to revive a broken down orchestra and launch his musical career? What will become of Nodame and Chiaki's relationship?

Songs of Love from Hawaii

Embark on a mesmerizing musical journey through the multi-faceted history of Korean American immigrants in Hawaiʻi with SONGS OF LOVE, a captivating reverie of song and history.

Concentus Moraviae 2010

Boulez at 80

Pierre Boulez conducts the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus in a special concert from the Barbican, as part of the composer's 80th birthday celebrations. The programme contains two compositions by Debussy; Jeux and Trois ballades de Villon, as well as Daphnis et Chloé by Ravel, featuring soprano Elizabeth Atherton as soloist.Presenter Charles Hazlewood interviews Boulez and discusses the concert with guest Sir Peter Maxwell Davies.

CODA

This short animation draws on advanced digital technologies to offer a new vision of dance in cinema. With motion capture (MoCap) and particle processing, designers Denis Poulin and Martine Époque create virtual dancers free of their morphological appearance. In this balletic and hypnotic film, dynamic traces carry the motion of the real dancers behind the on-screen movements. Addressing environmental themes by way of metaphor, CODA is a fused universe where space and time collide, deploy, and dissolve. In this technically and formally innovative film, luminous bodies in the infinite space of the cosmos transform and evolve to the rhythms of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring.

Lindsey Stirling: Brave Enough

Beginning on the eve of her thirtieth birthday, “Brave Enough,” documents violinist Lindsey Stirling over the past year as she comes to terms with the most challenging & traumatic events of her life. Through her art, she seeks to share a message of hope and courage and yet she must ask herself the question, “Am I Brave Enough?” Capturing her personal obstacles and breakthrough moments during the “Brave Enough,” tour, the film presents an intimate look at this one-of- a-kind artist and her spectacular live performances inspired by real-life heartbreak, joy, and love.

The Nutcracker

The Nutcracker is Mikhail Baryshnikov's breathtaking and critcally acclaimed Emmy nominated production. The thisspectacular performance is danced by the magnificent team of Baryshnikov, one of the greatest classical dancers of the century, and Gelsey Kirkland, both chowcased at the peak of the their careers, with members of the American Ballet Theatre.

The Beat That My Heart Skipped

A ruthless real estate agent discovers a passion for piano and auditions with help from a young virtuoso, but the pressures of his corrupt career threaten to derail his musical aspirations.

The Life and Loves of Beethoven

Lyrical biography of the classical composer, depicted as a romantic hero, an accursed artist.

Eroica

British filmmaker Simon Cellan Jones directs the BBC drama Eroica, starring Ian Hart as Ludwig van Beethoven. Shot on digital video, this TV film depicts the first performance of Beethoven's Third Symphony, June 9th, 1804, in Vienna, Austria. Prince Lobkowitz (Jack Davenport) has invited friends to listen to Beethoven conduct his new symphony for the first time. Among the aristocratic attendees are Count Dietrichstein (Tim Pigott-Smith), Countess Brunsvik (Claire Skinner), and composer Josef Haydn (Frank Finlay). The actual musical score is performed by the Orchestre Revolutionaire et Romantique, under the direction of John Eliot Gardiner.

Winter Allegro

Days of Happiness

Emma, a talented conductor and rising star on the Montreal scene, has a complicated relationship with her father and agent Patrick. She has to face up to her emotions and decide whether she wants to successfully combine her career with her love affair with Naëlle, a recently separated cellist and mother of a young son.