ClassicsOnline to Add the Catalogs of EMI Classics, Virgin Classics and Blue Note Records to Its Download Offerings

FRANKLIN, TN--(Marketwire - Aug 25, 2011) - The largest Classical music download site on the internet, ClassicsOnline (http://www.classicsonline.com/), welcomes the EMI Classics label group to its download service on August 25, 2011. Starting with a portion of the EMI Classics catalog and increasing to the full catalogs and future new releases of EMI Classics (http://www.emiclassics.com), Virgin Classics (http://virginclassics.com/index.php) and Blue Note Records (http://www.bluenote.com/), the addition of these labels will add thousands of albums to the offerings of ClassicsOnline by the end of 2011.

The importance of the catalogs of these labels is made apparent by the ensembles, instrumentalists, vocalists and conductors that appear on their decades of recordings, including the likes of Art Blakey, Thelonius Monk, John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, Evgeny Kissin, Sir Simon Rattle, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Maria Callas, Wilhelm Furtwängler, the Berliner Philharmoniker, Bill Charlap, Lionel Loueke, Joe Lovano, Jason Moran, Robert Glasper, Ambrose Akinmusire, and countless others.

Naxos (http://www.naxos.com/), the leading independent label of classical music, launched ClassicsOnline in May 2007 to serve as classical music enthusiasts' go-to resource for digital downloads, the latest releases and artist spotlights.

ClassicsOnline (www.classicsonline.com) is the largest Classical music specialty download site on the internet with over 46,000 albums comprising over 800,000 tracks available as DRM-free downloads, or via streaming subscription. The high quality of the downloads makes them indistinguishable from CDs for most listeners, and ClassicsOnline is currently developing the capability to deliver their galaxy of selections in lossless formats.

EMI Classics is one of the top global classical music companies. Its two labels, the London-based EMI Classics and Paris-based Virgin Classics, record exclusively with the finest musicians around the world, including Sir Simon Rattle, Antonio Pappano, Angela Gheorghiu, Joyce DiDonato, Emmanuel Pahud and Natalie Dessay amongst others, and with distinguished organizations including the Berliner Philharmoniker The company has an unrivalled catalogue of recordings with international superstars, including Plácido Domingo, Nigel Kennedy, Kiri Te Kanawa, Itzhak Perlman, André Previn, Daniel Barenboim and Riccardo Muti, and the historic recordings of Maria Callas, Mstislav Rostropovich, Victoria de los Ángeles, Dame Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Jacqueline du Pré, Herbert von Karajan, Otto Klemperer, Sir Adrian Boult and Sir John Barbirolli, as well as the longest-serving artist in the history of the record industry, the violinist and conductor Yehudi Menuhin.