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Unique reimagining of music from Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker, mixed and produced by Kristjan Järvi
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Music track from orchestra’s innovative ‘Musical Chain’ series of classical remix videos
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nEscapes to release further singles from ‘Musical Chain’ series in 2022
Berlin 3 December 2021. The music track from ‘Nutty Christmas’, the Baltic Sea Philharmonic’s fourth video in its digital project ‘Musical Chain’, is released today on Estonian label nEscapes. The innovative ‘Musical Chain’ series of music videos features striking transformations of iconic classical pieces, a one of a kind in the orchestral world. With ‘Nutty Christmas’, Kristjan Järvi and the Baltic Sea Philharmonic have reimagined music from Tchaikovsky’s beloved ballet The Nutcracker in their own unique style, making a very special Christmas gift for listeners around the world. Mixed and produced by Kristjan Järvi, the track features 22 musicians of the Baltic Sea Philharmonic, who recorded themselves at home during late 2020. ‘Nutty Christmas’ is the third single from the ‘Musical Chain’ series to be released on nEscapes; the first, ‘Ascending Swans’, came out on 24 September, and the second, ‘Beethoven’s Twilight’, was released on 5 November. The ‘Beethoven’s Twilight’ single has so far had more than 11,000 streams on Spotify alone, featuring on 54 playlists, with the most listeners coming from the US, UK and Germany. Upcoming ‘Musical Chain’ tracks will be released on nEscapes during 2022.
A unique musical Christmas cracker
‘Nutty Christmas’ takes the ‘Dance of the Reed Pipes’ and the ‘Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy’ from The Nutcracker and fuses their inimitable melodies with contemporary beats to create a crackling, toasty new version of this iconic Tchaikovsky score. The video for ‘Nutty Christmas’ was released on the Baltic Sea Philharmonic’s social media channels in December 2020 and has since had almost 28,000 views on YouTube and over 72,000 views on Facebook, making it the most popular video in the ‘Musical Chain’ series. Beyond its success online, ‘Nutty Christmas’ was also broadcast to hundreds of thousands of TV viewers in Germany, Switzerland and Austria in the run-up to Christmas 2020.
The ‘Nutty Christmas’ video features musicians of the orchestra, most of whom filmed themselves outside in wintry landscapes and city streets lit up by Christmas decorations. Reflecting the international make-up of the orchestra, the film takes in performances from Wroclaw, Berlin, Hamburg, St. Petersburg, Moscow, Belgrade, Madrid and the countryside of Finland and Lithuania. A professional production team edited the video, which captures the Baltic Sea Philharmonic musicians in a fun and festive mood.
Musical gems recut for the 21st century
The ‘Musical Chain’ series of music videos launched in July 2020 with ‘Midnight Mood’, based on Grieg’s ‘Morning Mood’ from Peer Gynt. ‘Beethoven’s Twilight’, which features an electronics-infused music track inspired by the composer’s Symphony No. 5, was released in September 2020. The third video in the series, ‘Ascending Swans’, which came out in November 2020, has music based on the ‘Song of Praise’ from Sibelius’s Swanwhite Suite, one of the Baltic Sea Philharmonic’s favourite encore pieces. Following the release of ‘Nutty Christmas’ in December 2020, the most recent video in the series, ‘Midnight Sun’, was released in August 2021. ‘Midnight Sun’ took ‘Musical Chain’ in a new creative direction, with original music written and produced by Kristjan Järvi and visuals that combine monochrome images of nature and landscapes with eye catching geometric animations. The music track of ‘Midnight Sun’ was also released as a single, in both a radio edit and a long version, on BMG/Modern Recordings.
‘Musical Chain’ reflects the Baltic Sea Philharmonic’s boundary-breaking spirit, its passion for innovative collaborations, and its dedication to communicating through digital media the energy, style and freedom of its live performances. It is also a symbol of unity and solidarity in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic: inspired by the human chain formed by people across the three Baltic States in August 1989, it brings together musicians from across Europe with other artistic collaborators and professional video producers. ‘Musical Chain’ will continue in 2022 with musicians from the Baltic Sea Philharmonic showcasing their talents as performers, composers and producers, as well as working with other musicians and creative collaborators. A new video and accompanying single will be released early in the new year.
Baltic Sea Philharmonic – a revolution in music and culture
The Baltic Sea Philharmonic takes the orchestral concert experience to a new dimension. Every performance is a voyage of musical discovery, as the musicians perform the entire programme from memory, creating a one-of-a-kind artistic journey. Each concert is a unique spectacle of sound, light, visual art, technology, choreography and playing by heart, and under the electrifying baton of Music Director and Founding Conductor Kristjan Järvi every performance has a special energy that’s absolutely infectious. But even more than this, as a community of musicians from ten Nordic countries, the Baltic Sea Philharmonic transcends boundaries and has become a movement for bringing people together. Embodying all that is innovative and progressive about the Nordic region, this visionary ensemble is taking the traditional orchestral model further than ever before. ‘It is a living breathing creature, with boundless energy and enthusiasm for the new – an adventure in itself,’ says Kristjan Järvi.
