The Beethoven@250 Campaign

Help produce multimedia & live events in celebration of Ludwig's 250th!

Beethoven's upcoming 250th birthday in 2020 is an unprecedented opportunity to inspire a whole new generation of music lovers for the 21st century. It is our goal to produce multimedia projects, events, and educational opportunities to spread Beethoven's inspiring music and message of humanism, hope and harmony.

Celebrating Beethoven@250 - Year 2020-21
The International Beethoven Project (IBP) is a not-for-profit organization founded in 2008 with the mission to promote Beethoven’s legacy of creativity, compassion and courage, and to use Beethoven’s fame, story and music to generate renewed interest in classical music and its joys. Beethoven believed in the power of human brotherhood across all nations and cultures, in a more just and peaceful world, and in the power of music and the arts to help bring harmony to humanity. This vision and these ideals have guided IBP’s many experiments and endeavors over the past decade, and have led us to a clear roadmap for an impactful celebration of Beethoven’s 250th anniversary in 2020 and 2021.
Beethoven’s 250th birthday, December 16th, 2020, serves as a focal point and once-in-a-generation opportunity to highlight the uplifting message of a superstar of music history to the world, and through that, to open wide the doors of classical music culture to help generate new and younger audiences who will keep this music alive well into the 21st century.
To do so, we have homed in on three major areas of focus to maximize IBP’s impact and reach.
The International Beethoven Project (IBP) is planning to produce and release work intended to celebrate its namesake, inspire audiences and artists, and educate curious people everywhere, leveraging media and the Internet to do so in this time of coronavirus and economic crisis.
IBP’s approach in this unusual moment is based on Beethoven’s own when faced with challenges: to exemplify courage, compassion and creativity.
Our Beethoven250 project will be centered on three primary initiatives:

- The 250th Beethoven Birthday Bash multidisciplinary online festival in December 2020
- A worldwide “do-it-yourself” Beethoven Birthday Bash with Beethoven fans new and old
- A Beethoven250 Legacy Collection Album of recordings, art and media produced by IBP
- Our aim is to raise 250,000 dollars in this 18-month campaign, an ambitious goal in line with our strategy to contribute significantly to the global celebrations of Ludwig van Beethoven and his important message of beauty and human brotherhood in these challenging times.

OVERVIEW:
The 250th Beethoven Birthday Bash: IBP’s first Online Festival
Instead of organizing a physical Beethoven Birthday Bash as we have done for the past ten years and in the spirit of innovation and flexibility which characterize IBP’s productions in general, we have decided to organize our first ever barrier-breaking online Beethoven Birthday Bash festival. The precise details of this plan will come into shape over the next months and a schedule will be announced in September. After seeing so many fascinating and successful performances and quickly-organized festivals ‘from confinement’ online these past weeks, we feel that this is the wisest and most promising course of action. In case the Coronavirus is at bay and it is possible for us to organize some physical events in December without putting anyone at risk, we will adapt and do a hybrid celebration combining public events with online performance streams. However, our primary focus these next months will be on developing an exciting one-of-a-kind online program, as in this year of Beethoven’s 250th it is most appropriate to share what we do with the entire world. Lastly and critically, we must do our best to help musicians and artists who are living through an extremely challenging period with few prospects. Supporting musicians and artists by paying them for their participation, even online, will make this a beautiful two-way birthday gift to, and from, Beethoven.
The “Do-It-Yourself” Beethoven Birthday Bash
We have also been planning to invite Beethoven fans, musicians and non-musicians around the world to a “do-it-yourself” Beethoven Birthday Bash! With a participation kit, people will be able to join in the celebration and help generate interest and excitement wherever they are, intrinsically taking part in this special moment in time. Participation entails a few easy steps, among which will be: holding a toast to Beethoven; sharing a birthday cake (with candles if possible); connecting to our online festival; sharing a couple of anecdotes which we will provide about Beethoven’s life; signing a digital birthday card to Ludwig; and of course, putting evidence of participation on social media with the hashtag #beethoven250. Whether alone or with friends and family, people everywhere will be able to join in this “Ode to Joy” and make their appreciation for Beethoven known in a very open and democratic way. In combination with our online Beethoven Birthday Bash programming, this will help us generate a broad worldwide audience for our participating artists and our mission of international and multi-generational engagement.
The Beethoven250 Legacy Collection Album
To top off this important year of Beethoven’s 250th birthday, we will produce the Beethoven250 Legacy Collection Album. Following from the definition of what an album is (“a collection of items gathered together around a theme”), this project will be multi-dimensional and bring together the best archival recordings and films from the last twelve years of the International Beethoven Project’s events, festivals and special projects, as well as the best videos from the coming 250th online Beethoven Birthday Bash. We will top this off with a new recording and film of the complete Beethoven Piano Sonatas along with a documentary about this recording and these pieces’ utmost significance in Beethoven’s life. This Beethoven@250 Album will be released in multiple parts on a dedicated and specially-designed website as funding, production and schedule allow between December 2020 and December 2021. This massive album will be made available first on a dedicated website, and then on physical platforms including CDs, DVDs, and a collector’s edition book. As the title indicates, this “album” is intended to leave a permanent historical record of the best produced work of the International Beethoven Project since its founding in 2008 up through this year’s 250th anniversary events. This collection is an important project which will showcase the creativity inspired by Beethoven’s spirit, and the excitement his music and story have generated up to this day as seen through the lens of hundreds of musicians, artists and scholars IBP has worked with over these many years.
Thank you for your support!