“Even with copy protection, classical music has surprised many doomsayers with its robust sales over the past year. On Apple’s iTunes, which controls over 70 percent of the digital market, classical purchases account for 12 percent of sales, four times its share of the CD market. Last year, classical was the industry’s fastest-growing musical genre, despite the closing of Tower Records, which represented 30 percent of the total classical market share.”
Category: music
Have Amphitheatres Passed Their Prime?
“People who monitor the concert industry say the outdoor venues, known as ‘sheds’ in the business, aren’t as financially feasible as they once were. Arenas can bring in more revenue with tiered ticket pricing, and the land where many amphitheaters were built 20 years ago has become prime residential property with enticing real-estate values.”
On The Whole, She’d Rather Be In Philadelphia
After a highly unusual year spent shuttling between principal horn gigs in St. Louis and Philadelphia, Jennifer Montone has informed the St. Louis Symphony that she will be officially departing the orchestra in order to spend full time in her now tenured chair in the Philadelphia Orchestra.
Selling Early Music To Uninterested New Yorkers
A new organization in New York has launched with the unusual aim of providing support and publicity to the city’s various early music ensembles. “Critics and early-music fans in New York have lamented that, despite a growing number of period-instrument ensembles and vocal groups, and the continuing popularity of early music on recordings, it remains a backwater in the city’s musical life… [The new company] hopes to bring cohesiveness and vitality to the city’s patchwork of early-music groups.”
Järvi Scores Paris Directorship
Paavo Järvi has been named music director of the Orchestre de Paris, succeeding Christoph Eschenbach, who steps aside in 2010. Järvi’s star has been rising considerably in recent years as music director of the Cincinnati Symphony, and he will begin work in Paris two years before the orchestra moves into its new 2,400-seat home.
The Cleveland Conundrum
The Cleveland Orchestra is one of the very best (some would say the best) ensembles in America, but things have not been fiscally healthy at Severance Hall for some time, and orchestra insiders are privately acknowledging that the city may not be large or wealthy enough to support a major orchestra without serious outside help. Seeking new residencies in other cities is part of the recovery plan, but it isn’t exactly going smoothly so far.
Why Not Give Away Classical Music?
A star plays a free concert. And people come. “You know that classical-music concerts never cover their costs. Why not raise more money and give it away? Could it be any simpler? Perhaps – if our civilization didn’t complicate it so much.”
Royal Opera Buys DVD Venture
London’s Royal Opera House has bought itself a DVD recording and distribution company. “This gives us a substantial entry into the global DVD and digital marketplace. As a significant part of our digital strategy it also hugely increases what we have to offer our audiences both in and beyond the opera house, with new material for our Web site, and for education purposes.”
End Of An Era – Canadian Record Store Closes
Sam the Record Man, once Canada’s top music retailer, is closing its flagship Toronto store. “Citing ubiquitous music downloads, Jason and Bobby Sniderman, the sons of Sam Sniderman and present owners of the flagship Toronto store, said rarely does a day go by without a story about declining CD sales. ‘We are making a responsible decision in recognizing the status of the record industry and the increasing impact of technology’.”
New Life For CDs That Got Lost In The Market
Perhaps there’s a market for classical CDs that never quite found a niche in the record stores. Selling over the web, one label brings back some classics. “Of late, the Web site is focusing on the large amount of great music that went nearly unnoticed in the hectic 1980s-early ’90s heyday of the compact disc. Interestingly, its reissue priorities are based on the frequency of play on radio stations, which keep deleted titles in their libraries.”