After a too-long hiatus...

Cafe Aman is reopening its doors.  It is very much under renovation, so please excuse the mess in the interim.

Part of what has prompted me back at this moment is the current round of discussions about the health (or lack thereof) of the classical music recording industry, and what influence the topmost tier of crossover artists have on this business. (These musings include a very short  piece on NPR's "All Things Considered" last week, for which I was interviewed.)

As Alex Ross hinted today, I'm currently working on a piece for Billboard that hopefully will help shed some light on this subject.

A few scattered thoughts in the meantime:

• Re the split between "core classical" and "crossover": I find that many purists take a certain umbrage at what kinds of releases are deemed "core classical" for SoundScan chart purposes. For example: in 2006, top-selling "core" albums included some old dude singing music by an even older dude, the 5 Browns, and Andre Rieu.
• A Billboard piece I wrote early in 2006 generated a great deal of media coverage about the convergence of Chris Anderson's "long tail" theory and the digital downloading of classical music.  While the numbers cited there have changed over the past year, this phenomenon is, I believe, going to continue to be the primary driver of the business of classical music for some time to come.  The labels and artists who are still dragging their collective heels about making their releases available digitally--and there are a surprising number of holdouts still--are really missing the boat.
• Two articles from the Wall Street Journal elucidate the realities of the larger record business. Yesterday's lede:   "In a dramatic acceleration of the seven-year sales decline that has battered the music industry, compact-disc sales for the first three months of this year plunged 20% from a year earlier, the latest sign of the seismic shift in the way consumers acquire music." Today: A report about the revised strategy at the Borders chain, which is one of the US' top sales outlets for classical music.

(The briefest summary of why such a lengthy break:  MMFCC and I have welcomed Baby Z to the fold. Just as MMFCC had anticipated, Z came into the world with a sound and pronounced aesthetic sensibility. Her first live concert, which she attended at four weeks old, was the Steve Reich marathon at the Whitney.  Other musics which have proved to be stunning successes include Schubert's Death and the Maiden Quartet, the RD Burman catalog, and Legend. Certainly, chronicles about our further adventures in sound are on their way.)

Comments

[pdf]

Babies are rumored to respond very well to dub, because the steady basslines are similar to a maternal heartbeat, heard from in utero.

[Mimi]

Yay! You are back! You've been missed.