BOSTON, MA.- Just over two and a half years after launching the free classical music podcast The Concert, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is delighted to announce that its successful podcast programs and corresponding online music library have surpassed the one-million download mark.

The Concert, which launched on September 15, 2006, features live recordings of classical masterpieces from the Gardner Museum’s weekly concert series. Curated by Gardner Museum Music Director Scott Nickrenz, the programs include a wide range of music – from classical masters Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart to musical greats of the 20th and 21st centuries, including Leon Kirchner, Michael Tilson Thomas, and Julius Hemphill. May 15th will mark The Concert’s 70th podcast program, featuring works by Antonio Vivaldi and Charles Ives.

“I think the success of the podcast and music library really speaks to the fact that there is a strong desire for quality classical music programming on the web – and it’s particularly exciting that we’re able to provide it for free,” says Scott Nickrenz, the museum’s music director.

The podcast and online recordings enjoy a steady audience of over 30,000 listeners per month, and the museum’s online library has grown to include almost 150 classical works. The Concert and the Gardner’s online recordings have been discovered and enjoyed by people in 116 countries across the world -- as far away as Bangladesh, Uganda, and Kuwait. The Concert has inspired messages of support and appreciation from across the Charles River and across the globe: from Belgian innkeepers, nuns at the Philippines’ only classical radio station, university students in Colombia, and – most recently – from “up a mountain in Eastern Crete.”

“We are delighted to be able to share the fantastic music that is made in the Gardner’s Tapestry Room with listeners everywhere,” says Anne Hawley, Norma Jean Calderwood Director of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. “Isabella Gardner left her museum ‘for the education and enjoyment of the public forever,’ and podcasting has provided us with a new way to bring the museum’s programming to a worldwide audience.”

The Concert has been the subject of feature articles in publications including The Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, and the popular blog BoingBoing highlighting its quality programming and groundbreaking use of flexible copyright. Fast Company called it “one of the most popular classical podcasts to date” and blogger Alex Ross, music critic from The New Yorker, has cited The Concert as case-in point for the “non-death” of classical music.

Each program contains approximately 45 minutes of music, prefaced by a brief introduction to the included works. New programs are posted on the 1st and 15th of each month, and are available through iTunes and at http://gardnermuseum.org/music/podcast/theconcert.asp. All works featured in the podcast are accessible through the Gardner Museum’s online music library at http://gardnermuseum.org/music/library.asp.

The Gardner Museum’s first podcast, The Concert features free, unreleased recordings of live performances by master musicians and talented young artists recorded at the museum’s Sunday Concert Series. New programs are posted on the museum’s website, www.gardnermuseum.org, on the 1st and 15th of every month, and listeners may subscribe to receive free, automatic updates. The title The Concert is in part an homage to the Gardner Museum’s treasured Vermeer painting “The Concert,” stolen in 1990.

All podcasts in The Concert are offered under a “Share Music” license from Creative Commons, meaning that users are free “to download, copy, file-share, trade, distribute, and publicly perform (e.g. webcast)” the podcast for any noncommercial purpose. The Gardner Museum’s choice to allow free sharing is a first for an art museum.

Upcoming podcast programs include performances by artists featured in this season’s live concerts, including the Gardner Chamber Orchestra, the Claremont Trio, Musicians from Marlboro, pianists Jeremy Denk and Paavali Jumppanen, clarinetist José Franch-Ballester, and flutist Paula Robison.