The Masterclass Media Foundation is a non profit organisation and UK registered charity (No 1113002) which films and records some of the world’s great musicians teaching and giving
masterclasses. The Foundation has two aims: first to create an archive of such masterclasses for the benefit of
future generations
Future generations are cohorts of hypothetical people not yet born. Future generations are contrasted with current and past generations, and evoked in order to encourage thinking about intergenerational equity. The moral patienthood of future ...
of students and scholars and secondly to make them available on DVDs and eventually through the internet, to music schools and students throughout the world. It works closely with the most prestigious music schools and has filmed musicians of the calibre of
Maxim Vengerov
Maxim Alexandrovich Vengerov (russian: Максим Александрович Венгеров, , mɐkˈsʲim ɐlʲɪkˈsandrəvʲɪtɕ vʲɪnˈɡʲerəf; he, מקסים ונגרוב; born 20 August 1974) is a Russian-born Israeli violinist, ...
,
András Schiff
Sir András Schiff (; born 21 December 1953) is a Hungarian-born British classical pianist and conductor, who has received numerous major awards and honours, including the Grammy Award, Gramophone Award, Mozart Medal, and Royal Academy of Mu ...
,
Bernard Haitink
Bernard Johan Herman Haitink (; 4 March 1929 – 21 October 2021) was a Dutch conductor and violinist. He was the principal conductor of several international orchestras, beginning with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in 1961. He moved to Lon ...
,
Stephen Kovacevich
Stephen Kovacevich (born October 17, 1940) is an American classical pianist and conductor. He is particularly celebrated for his recordings of works by Beethoven, Bartók and Schubert, and is known for technical skill, clarity of playing and an ...
,
Kurt Masur
Kurt Masur (18 July 1927 – 19 December 2015) was a German conductor. Called "one of the last old-style maestros", he directed many of the principal orchestras of his era. He had a long career as the Kapellmeister of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orch ...
,
Stephen Hough
Sir Stephen Andrew Gill Hough (; born 22 November 1961) is a British-born classical pianist, composer and writer. He became an Australian citizen in 2005 and thus has dual nationality (his father was born in Australia in 1926).
Biography
Hou ...
,
Evelyn Glennie
Dame Evelyn Elizabeth Ann Glennie, (born 19 July 1965) is a Scottish percussionist. She was selected as one of the two laureates for the Polar Music Prize of 2015.
Early life
Glennie was born in Methlick, Aberdeenshire in Scotland. The indig ...
,
Yuri Bashmet
Yuri Abramovich Bashmet (russian: link=no, Юрий Абрамович Башмет; born 24 January 1953) is a Russian conductor, violinist, and violist.
Biography
Yuri Bashmet was born on 24 January 1953 in Rostov-on-Don in the family of Abr ...
,
Håkan Hardenberger
Ulf Håkan Hardenberger (born 27 October 1961 in Malmö) is a Swedish trumpeter. Taking up the trumpet at the age of eight under the guidance of hometown teacher Bo Nilsson, Hardenberger pursued further studies at the Paris Conservatoire, with ...
and
Thomas Quasthoff.
Organisation and funding
The foundation is based in
Bristol
Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city i ...
, UK. It is funded partly by income from sales of its DVDs and partly through charitable donations and grants. The Chief Executive is
Mischa Scorer
Mischa Scorer is a British documentary film-maker.
Biography
Mischa Scorer worked as producer for BBC Television from 1965 to 1979, first in the Religious Broadcasting Department where he made such documentaries as "Padre Pio" (1968) for which ...
.
Achievements
• The MMF has released over 50 hours of masterclasses on 35 DVDs with a roster of musicians, including violin with Maxim Vengerov, piano with András Schiff, Stephen Kovacevich, Emanuel Ax, Joanna MacGregor and Stephen Hough, cello with Steven Isserlis and Frans Helmerson, conducting with Bernard Haitink, Simon Carrington and Kurt Masur, singing with Thomas Quasthoff and Joan Rodgers, percussion with Evelyn Glennie, trumpet with Håkan Hardenberger, viola with Yuri Bashmet, chamber music with Gábor Takács-Nagy and many others.
• The MMF has won acclaim in the specialist music press, notably in The Gramophone, The BBC Music Magazine, The Strad and International Piano Magazine (which awarded the MMF its “Educational DVD of the Year 2009”).
• Over 100 conservatoires worldwide have MMF masterclasses in their libraries – most have complete sets. Its customer base now also includes individual students in 60 countries.
• Extracts from MMF masterclasses have received almost a million hits on YouTube.
• In 2010 the MMF was recognised by Arts Council England with a substantial lottery award.
• The MMF has created audio files of all masterclasses for the benefit of blind and partially sighted people. These are being donated to the National Library Service of the RNIB in the UK. The US Library of Congress service for the blind has also ordered a complete set.
• 14 Academy Schools in the UK specialising in music have been given full sets free of charge.
• By the end of 2010 masterclasses will be available digitally for streaming and downloading.
• A number of important academic institutions including The British Library have asked to house the entire archive in perpetuity.
References
{{reflist
External links
Masterclass Media Foundation Website
Music education in the United Kingdom
Music organisations based in the United Kingdom
Organisations based in Bristol