Classical Speeds Digital Movement

Digital distribution continues to play a central role in shaping the future of the classical music recording business.

While it is too soon to tell if digital will bring younger fans to classical, growing new-media activity among labels, orchestras and artists indicates that a requiem for the genre would be premature.

As Billboard first reported in January, initial numbers are encouraging. In the United States, some artists were seeing digital downloads account for as much as 73% of sales (Billboard, Jan. 28), and London-based labels are looking more and more at online as a potential savior.

"As the physical channels and outlets contract, increasing our activities online is the answer," says London-based Jonathan Gruber, VP of new media for classics and jazz at Universal Music Group International (UMGI), which includes the Deutsche Grammophon and Decca Records classical labels.

Shipments of classical recordings captured 4% of the global market last year, according to international trade body IFPI. Digital deliveries accounted for 7%-12% of classical sales, a higher rate than the 6% share digital music takes from the total recorded music pie.

"We know classical is less susceptible to online piracy compared with other genres, largely due to the over-40s demographics, who are less prone to digital piracy," says Keith Jopling, IFPI director of strategic analysis and research.

UMGI has embraced digital classical music. A digital version of French pianist Helene Grimaud's recordings of works by composers Arvo Pärt, John Corigliano and Beethoven for Deutsche Grammophon was UMGI's first foray into the digital arena. Released in January 2004, it went straight to No. 6 on the iTunes Music Store's overall album charts.

Early this year, UMGI launched two new brands, DG Concerts and Decca Concerts, to form partnerships with international orchestras to sell digital downloads on iTunes (Billboard, April 1). Gruber says DG Concerts releases have entered the iTunes top 50 pop chart in seven countries.

"Universal's revenues from digital downloads of classical music for the first half of this year is more than three times higher than for the first half of last year," Gruber says.

EMI Classics, which recently appointed former Decca Music Group president Costa Pilavachi as its president, is digitizing its catalog during the next two years and has re-edited about 150 tracks for use as master ringtones.

Theo Lap, EMI Classics VP of A&R and international marketing of classics and jazz, believes "digital could be the technique that is going to make classical music pick up energy and take the ball forward."

For marketing, he hopes to encourage more classical artists and orchestras to record more videos of their performances.

Independent classical label Naxos has branched into a digital-media operator with the launch of the subscription-based Naxos Web Radio, which comprises more than 60 digital radio stations devoted to classical music.

A key challenge is selling a genre built on complete works rather than individual tracks. Pricing is an issue when tracks range from 50 seconds to 50 minutes.

Since hundreds of works are in the public domain, there are numerous versions of the same compositions, sometimes by the same artists and orchestras. "It is up to us to leverage our marketing know-how to make it work," Gruber says.

Top international orchestras also hope to make money. The United Kingdom's Philharmonia launched the country's first webcast of an orchestral performance in April 2005 and has since produced the first orchestral podcast in October via iTunes.

And the London Symphony Orchestra has set up LSO Live, its own label, in 2000 to compensate for the diminishing number of contracts available from the major labels. Since April 2005, it has sold digital versions of its recordings on iTunes and offered ringtones via its LSO Ringtones unit.

Chaz Jenkins, head of LSO Live, has seen evidence that online channels could find a new classical audience. "If you give them the opportunity to experiment in the way they like to receive music today," he says, "they will discover more for the future." ••••