Andrea Bocelli’s Live “Music For Hope” Concert Was The Most Streamed In The History Of Classical Music

The classical performer’s “Music For Hope” online concert amassed over 2.8 million live viewers and over 30 million views post-stream

If there’s any caveat to mass festival and concert cancellations behind the coronavirus pandemic, it’s the bevy of wide-ranging live streamed performances popping up left and right, even within the world of classical music.

On Easter Sunday, Italian global music icon and five-time GRAMMY nominee Andrea Bocelli set a new milestone for classical music after over 2.8 million live viewers tuned in to hear the artist perform classics like “Ave Maria” and “Amazing Grace” from the Duomo di Milano cathedral in Milan.

According to an LA Times report, the “Music For Hope” concert saw 28 million global views within the first day of its launch, the most of any classical music event in history. By now, the video has been seen nearly 36 million times. It is also reported that around one million fans joined the “waiting room” ahead of the stream on YouTube.

You can check out the concert in full below:

Bocelli underscored the massive event’s success and powerful unification in a statement, saying “It was an immeasurable honor and privilege to lend my voice to the prayers of millions of people, gathered in a single embrace — a small, great miracle of which the whole world was the protagonist and which confirms my optimism about the future of our planet.”

Aside from setting new records online, Bocelli’s nonprofit foundation, the Andrea Bocelli Foundation, has collectively pooled more than $270,000 in proceeds that will be used for ventilators and protective equipment for the Hospital of Camerino in Italy.

Andrea Bocelli was first nominated for a GRAMMY in 1998 under the Best New Artist category. He has earned five total nominations throughout his illustrious career for his standout albums Si and Cinema, as well as leading tracks “Sogno” and “The Prayer.”