On March 25, 2020, Daniel Hope launches Hope at Home, a new television series for our socially distanced times. Professionally produced by Kobalt Productions for Europe’s ARTE television network, the series comprises 14 half-hour episodes of live musical performance by leading classical artists, interspersed with English and German talk. For two weeks, Hope at Home will stream live, daily, at 1pm EDT (10am PDT; 6pm Berlin CET) on the ARTE Concert website, where each episode will then be archived for 90 days, and on Deutsche Grammophon’s YouTube channel, where selected highlights will subsequently be available.

As Hope recognizes, livestreamed music offers an invaluable lifeline as we navigate the COVID-19 pandemic, especially to those in need of comfort and entertainment. In addition it enables performers to stay connected with their audience. The professional format of Hope at Home represents livestreaming at its best, combining the special intimacy of world-class home music-making with the high-quality audio experience without which classical music cannot ultimately thrive. Hope explains:

“We need to and must stay home at this time. But we also need to share music as a source of comfort and inspiration. I hope this livestream, with high quality recorded sound, will go some way to fulfilling this.”

For this unique series, the violinist has converted his own 1895 Belle Epoque living room into a fully-equipped television studio, complete with remote cameras and microphones. The sound will be recorded by renowned engineer Tobias Lehmann of Teldex Studios. Besides performing himself, Daniel Hope looks forward to featuring well-known artists living in Berlin, including Max Raabe, Albrecht Mayer, Christoph Israel, Sarah Willis and actor Sebastian Koch (Homeland, The Lives of Others), who will all perform and talk about what music means to them at this time. There will be live interaction with the viewing audience on Twitter, with Hope responding to questions, and sometimes even taking musical requests, in real time.

All safety measures will be observed in accordance with the current laws and recommendations of the Federal Republic of Germany. No more than two artists will perform together at any one time, and they will always take care to keep at least two meters (about 6 feet) between them. Using remote cameras, members of the film crew will be safely dispersed on different floors