New York, NY (July 28, 2023) – Four months after its acquisition by Universal Music Group (UMG), multi-award-winning label Hyperion Records is making the treasures from its celebrated 43-year-old catalog of recordings available on all streaming platforms for the first time from today.
Hyperion has set an ambitious goal to release the entire catalog of over 2,000 recordings for streaming by Spring 2024. The first 200 albums were released today, with subsequent collections to follow every two weeks from September 15, 2023.
Opening its treasures to streaming is an eagerly-awaited milestone for a label that was founded in South London in 1980 by Ted Perry – who drove a mini-cab at nights to fund the early recordings – and which became one the best-loved classical music labels in the world.
In addition to the initial release of 200 catalog albums, three of Hyperion’s newest releases are also available for streaming from today. These include the latest Dvořák album from the Grammy Award-winning Takács Quartet; a dazzling selection of choral anthems from Stephen Layton and Trinity College Choir Cambridge, and a new issue in The Orlando Consort’s acclaimed survey of France’s great poet-composer Guillaume de Machaut.
In future, all new Hyperion titles will be simultaneously available for streaming, physical purchase, and download.
The first 200 catalog albums released today were selected to represent the story of the label, celebrating the qualities that have made Hyperion a beacon of classical excellence over the past four decades. There are key recordings from many of Hyperion’s formidable roster of artists, including Arcangelo, Mahan Esfahani, Marc-André Hamelin, Angela Hewitt, Stephen Hough, Polyphony, and Takács Quartet among many others.
The choices demonstrate the label’s unparalleled reputation for exploring wide-ranging repertoire, spanning 900 years of Western art music from the 12th century to today, across sacred and secular, choral and solo vocal to orchestral, chamber and instrumental, much of it unique to Hyperion.
Hyperion’s high editorial standards will be maintained in the streaming world, with its recognizable cover artwork, detailed and well-researched digital booklets, usually in English, French, and German, being made available within streaming platforms that carry the option. Sung texts for choral and vocal music will also be available to streaming platforms with the functionality.
