22nd April 2016 would have been the 100th birthday of violin legend Yehudi Menuhin, and Daniel Hope dedicated a complete album to his former mentor and close friend. After fleeing from the Apartheid regime in South Africa and ending up in England, Hope’s mother was offered a job as a secretary to Yehudi Menuhin, and later became his manager.
The album, My Tribute To Yehudi Menuhin, is a beautiful selection of works, mostly commissioned by or for Yehudi Menuhin. It was released internationally in February 2016.
In order to celebrate this outstanding violin legend and his 100th birthday, Daniel Hope’s label Deutsche Grammophon teamed up with the Danish startup PLAYWITHAPRO for a very special event: an online masterclass with Daniel Hope.
PLAYWITHAPRO are specialists for classical music teaching videos by the world’s greatest teachers, scholars and musical artists of the classical instruments.
The idea behind was to offer an online forum regardless of whether or not you’re a beginner or a professional musician, for a free livestreamed masterclass and Q&A session on PLAYWITHAPRO with Daniel Hope.
For the announcement of this special masterclass a special video ID with Daniel Hope was shot. Daniel Hope explained in this teaser clip that he is happy to answer any questions participants might have. This ranged from how to become a professional musician to how technically or interpretatively to deal with certain issues regarding playing style. This video clip was rolled out on social media, artist, label and partner websites.
Additional social media campaigns, newsletter marketing and blog promotion helped to increase interest for this unique event. Before the actual event users could vote on the special fan area of Deutsche Grammophon website (MyDG) for the favourite tracks on the album, which the fans wanted Daniel Hope to present and demonstrate in his live masterclass. They could also submit any questions which they would like to ask Daniel Hope.
On 28th April at 5pm CET, the masterclass took place in the ground floor of the Universal Music building in Berlin, also the home office of Deutsche Grammophon.
PLAYWITHAPRO installed a pop-up studio in the building and the masterclass was streamed live in Facebook and on the PLAYWITHAPRO website.
The event was not only watched by fans around the globe online but also an audience at the Universal Music building could see it live.
The absolute highlight of the masterclass was a live teaching of a violin student who was participating online from Italy. Before, during and after the show the masterclass was communicated via Deutsche Grammophon, Daniel Hope, PLAYWITHAPRO, Universal Music and KlassikAkzente, Germany’s leading classical music platform run by Deutsche Grammophon, on social media (Facebook, Twitter and Instagram) and the specific websites.
In order to capture this special masterclass and the impressions of the artist as well as the team involved, this documentary clip was produced.
Total organic reach via all channels was more than 250,000 users plus an additional reach of 200,000 via Facebook campaigns. During the live chat on Twitter parallel to the show, Adam Simonsen, a classical clarinetist selected questions for the Q&A from around the world.
In addition to the online masterclass where the album was also promoted as the central piece of the learning session, a second-phase album promotion and marketing around Menuhin‘s 100th birthday was successfully set up. As a result, the album My Tribute To Yehudi Menuhin re-entered the German Pop Charts on #78 (its first entry was #43) It also went up the Classical Charts again from #13 to #3 and has dominated the Amazon Classical charts at #1 for weeks.
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