English Chamber Orchestra Launches ECO Live with TEATIME MUSIC

The English Chamber Orchestra will present 'Teatime Music', a series of four weekly afternoon tea concerts streamed directly into your living room. Starting on Sunday 13 September at 16:00, the concerts will feature an eclectic programme of music designed to delight audiences both familiar and unfamiliar with classical music. Whether you are enjoying an old favourite or looking to explore a new world from the comfort of your own sofa, there's something to appeal to all with repertoire that includes Debussy's The Afternoon of the Faun, William Walton's Façade, Mendelssohn's Octet in E-flat major and Stravinsky's The Soldiers Tale. Tickets are available to book now. Each concert will cost £10 and a season pass for all four is just £32.

The world's most recorded chamber orchestra, the English Chamber Orchestra will use the filmed medium to invite audiences to a visually stunning event as orchestras must adapt to the new challenge of bringing their music-making into people's homes. The series will be filmed in the beautiful Georgian setting of Beckenham Palace Mansion with design touches to suit the music of each piece. Cutting edge binaural recording techniques will create an immersive, live experience. The Neumann KU 100 binaural microphone captures sound in the way that our ears do, giving the listener the 3D sensation of being in the room so that every audience member has the best seat in the house. It is best experienced through headphones, though also provides excellent sound quality through speakers if you'd like to listen with all the family.

English Chamber Orchestra are delighted to be working with new streaming service 4forty.io on this series as their inaugural orchestral project. Designed and built by Spork Digital Ltd, 4forty.io is a new, ticketed, audio and visual streaming service for orchestras, concert venues, music hubs and more; designed to give arts organisations and other institutions more flexibility and control over what they stream, how they stream and how much to charge for access. It is an idea born out of the desire to help the arts sector in the UK find balance and a way forward in the age of COVID-19, which puts organisations very much in the driving seat of their own content.

Paul Wing, General Manager of English Chamber Orchestra, said: "This is a very exciting venture for the orchestra, and in these incredibly difficult times for orchestras and arts organisations, this has allowed the orchestra to get back to doing what it does best - first-class performances - whilst engaging with worldwide audiences in a way that captures the joy of live performance, and provides the orchestra with an essential source of revenue."

Giles Cambray, Managing Director of Spork Digital Ltd said: "Projects like this are exactly why we created 4forty.io. It's heart breaking to have seen so many musicians on hold during the pandemic, and I'm really excited that ECO can perform again to a wide and diverse audience online."