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PRESS RELEASE March 28, 2023
CUPERTINO, CALIFORNIA Apple today launched Apple Music Classical, a brand-new standalone music streaming app designed to deliver the listening experience classical music lovers deserve. With Apple Music Classical, Apple Music subscribers can easily find any recording in the world’s largest classical music catalog with fully optimized search; enjoy the highest audio quality available and experience many classical favorites in a whole new way with immersive Spatial Audio; browse expertly curated playlists, insightful composer biographies, and descriptions of thousands of works; and so much more. Apple Music Classical is available on the App Store beginning today and is included at no extra cost with nearly all Apple Music subscriptions. The combination of Apple Music Classical and Apple Music provides a complete music experience for everyone, from longtime classical fans to first-time listeners, and everyone in between.

The World’s Largest Classical Music Catalog

Search Built for Classical Music

Classical works have multiple movements and tracks; famous pieces have hundreds of recordings with different orchestras, conductors, and soloists; and many composers have their own special catalog classifications, from Bach’s BWV to Mozart’s K. With these complexities in mind, Apple Music Classical has redesigned search to instantly deliver exactly what users are looking for using all combinations of keywords, from composer and work, to opus number, conductor, artist, or instrument, and even a work’s nickname. Looking up a work reveals all its recordings, plus an Editor’s Choice performance. And searching for a composer displays all available works.

An Interface Designed for Classical

The Apple Music Classical interface ensures listeners always know who and what they’re hearing, with everything laid out at a glance: work name, orchestra, conductor, contributing artists, and even year of recording. And when it comes to curating a personal library, Apple Music Classical lets listeners add more than just albums, tracks, playlists, and artists — it also supports uniquely classical categories such as works, composers, and recordings.

Exclusive New Artwork

Apple Music Classical listeners will also enjoy exclusive brand-new artwork, including hundreds of playlist covers, as well as unique, high-resolution digital portraits for many of the world’s greatest composers. Commissioned from a diverse group of artists, each image blends historical research with color palettes and artistic references from the relevant classical period. With the majority of these new works designed on Mac and iPad, the results display an attention to detail, bringing listeners face to face with leading classical figures like Bach, Beethoven, Hildegard von Bingen, Chopin, John Dowland, Fanny Mendelssohn, Shostakovich, Tchaikovsky, Vivaldi, and so many others unlike ever before.
Additionally, Apple Music has partnered with many of the greatest classical institutions in the world — including the Berlin Philharmonic, Carnegie Hall, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra, the Metropolitan Opera, the New York Philharmonic, Opéra national de Paris, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the San Francisco Symphony, and the Vienna Philharmonic — to bring Apple Music Classical listeners new, unique, and exclusive content and recordings at launch and beyond. Apple Music Classical will also host several live performances featuring a few of these incredible partners at Apple Store locations around the world as part of the Today at Apple programming beginning in March 2023. To sign up for Today at Apple events, visit apple.com/today.
  • Beginning today, Apple Music Classical is available for download on the App Store everywhere Apple Music is offered, excluding China, Japan, Russia, South Korea, Taiwan, and Türkiye.
  • Existing Apple Music subscribers can immediately enjoy Apple Music Classical at no additional cost.
  • Apple Music Classical is available for all iPhone models running iOS 15.4 or later. 
  • Apple Music Classical for Android is coming soon. 
  • To listen to music on Apple Music Classical, users must have an internet connection.
  • For more information, visit apple.com/music and follow @appleclassical on Twitter.

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