Newsweek: Chris Roberts Q&A

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Classical Music's Digital Future
The chairman of Universal's Decca classical-music label talks about how classical has bucked the recording industry’s downward trend.
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By Alexandra A. Seno
Newsweek International

July 30, 2007 issue - The Internet is transforming the entertainment industries. The music industry has been particularly hard hit by the illegal downloading and is struggling as sales of CDs decline. But the classical music industry appears to be benefiting from the “long tail” effect—as a niche industry, it’s been able to exploit the Internet to broaden its audience and boost its bottom line. Christopher Roberts, chairman of Decca Label Group, the classical unit of Universal—the world’s biggest music company—spoke with NEWSWEEK’s Alexandra A. Seno about how the business is evolving. Excerpts:

NEWSWEEK: What types of music sounds best on portable digital devices?
Christopher Roberts: Consistent dynamics and an intimate sound—that often means baroque works, early music pieces, chamber music and solo instrumental music. These types of music do better digitally than they would ordinarily on CD.

Universal Music’s classical labels have had a great deal of success using digital because it presents a new way for us to present classical music and the younger generation of artists. Helene Grimaud, Janine Jansen, Lang Lang and Anna Netrebko have all had a great deal of success in the digital medium. In addition, certain great recordings by recognized artists such as Karajan, Solti, Barenboim and others, of the most popular works (Mozart’s Requiem, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony) also sell extremely well online.

Furthermore, success breeds success in digital, due to the presence of the charts on iTunes and other digital services as key drivers for sales. Placement and continued strong chart positioning drive digital sales, perhaps even more than in the traditional [retail] business.

According to Nielsen SoundScan, sales of classical music rose 22 percent in 2006 versus a decline of 5 percent for total album sales. Why did this happen?
Classical is not as subject to piracy, and also not as popular for track-by-track sales digitally, which erodes full album sales in more youth-oriented genres. Many people on the Internet are browsing on iTunes and other digital services with few clear ideas of what to buy. They are open to suggestion. They are not necessarily obsessed with any one genre of music. Digital encourages experimentation. When you see Lang Lang right next to Toby Keith and 50 Cent on the main page of iTunes, all of those artists get a chance to reach the consumer. It is not so odd for people to have an interest in Beethoven concertos as well as hip-hop and alternative rock, and that can only be a good thing for the development of our society and our performing arts.

Have young, good-looking artists like pianist Lang Lang and opera singer Nicole Cabell helped create new audiences for classical?
Younger artists like Nicole Cabell, Lang Lang and others move a consumer on the edges of classical music toward purchasing, especially given how easy it is to do online, with the close proximity of these artists to those from other, more traditionally mainstream genres.

Strong images from these artists certainly help, but perhaps not in the way that many people think. The paradox of digital is that, although space is theoretically unlimited, it is harder to browse through that infinite space. People want to be guided, to [be helped in finding] what they are looking for.

It is a myth that these young artists online are really converting nonclassical listeners into rabid classical fans. Instead, they help to move the listener at the edges of classical music front and center into the genre, to take a chance and listen. If you don’t like opera, you will probably not like Nicole Cabell, Anna Netrebko or Rolando Villazon. But if you see a singer who appeals to you, never mind an opera singer, but simply a singer, then you might be moved to take a chance, and that expands our marketplace for classical in a very powerful way.

Every few years, we read about the demise of classical music. What do you think of this?
Classical music may not always be in the mainstream, but a certain audience for it always exists, and always will. Fresh waves of new talent, new artists and composers, and new musical perspectives are always flowing in continually and keep classical music invigorated. The digital medium has breathed new life into classical music by bringing in audiences who might be generally interested but not specifically knowledgeable about classical music into the fold, turning them into classical buyers by breaking down the glass walls that tended to separate the classical section from the rest of a record store.

Do you release any classical music in digital-only format?
Yes, we currently have several unique digital-only concepts and products. Our DG and Decca Concerts series uses the speed and flexibility of the Internet to give people round the world the opportunity to attend [virtual] concerts in some of the world’s best concert halls with the world’s leading orchestras.

We also engage in digital-only catalog releases that take advantage of the unique opportunities of the digital medium. We are reissuing vast amounts of our back catalog that have long been unavailable at retail—even resurrecting entire labels like Argo and L’Oiseau Lyre—with digital as a driving force due to infinite shelf space and the much-discussed promise of the “long tail.”

We are also creating album concepts such as “The Works” which would not be possible in the physical world. Together with the editor in chief of Gramophone Magazine, we have put together the most critically acclaimed performances in the DG catalog of 10 of the most popular classical works as separate “albums” of varying length and at fair prices, no matter whether they would fill an entire physical CD or not. Released last month, these albums are currently dominating the top 20 of the iTunes Classical album chart, and they are only available digitally.

Is digital classical-music marketing different than traditional classical-music marketing?
Marketing is marketing—it really doesn’t matter whether it results in a digital or physical sale. Marketing in online or offline can result in a sale online or offline. There are some differences between digital and physical marketing, mostly to do with the fundamental nature of the Internet: infinite space and limited computer-screen size. The marketing of classical music for digital sale is driven extensively by positioning with the digital services. Because visible digital space is limited by the size of your computer screen, and other choices are only a mouse click away, you need to draw the audience in quickly, to draw attention to an artist, to urge the audience to experiment, and to discover more.
© 2007 Newsweek, Inc.

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Newsweek: The Long Tail of Classical Music

Classical Music's Digital Comeback
Digital downloads over the Internet are helping purveyors of classical music stage an encore.
By Alexandra Seno
Newsweek International

July 30, 2007 issue - Classical music hardly seems like a growth business. We're forever reading about how concert audiences are graying, and new artists must flounce around fiddling in tank tops and platform heels to get attention (think Vanessa-Mae and the gals from Bond). In fact, classical music is doing a lot better than you might think. Although total sales in all music categories (on- and offline) fell 5 percent last year, classical sales grew by a whopping 22 percent. "When I talk to people in the industry, everyone is making money," says Klaus Heymann, chairman of Naxos, the world's biggest independent classical-music company, based in Hong Kong.

So why are Heymann and his peers singing such a different tune? Because classical retailers have been the best at exploiting the potential of online revenue. The biggest companies of the classical genre are now earning about 20 percent of sales from digital music, double or triple the average for other categories. This is a tremendous advantage for them, as selling music in the digital format can be twice as profitable as it is offline. The bottom line: while this may well be one of the worst years for music sales in general since charts were started in the 1960s, most classical labels expect revenue to continue to rise.

Classical music has proved to be ideal for the digital-music era. The complex and subtle nature of the recordings makes them tough to pirate; the classical customer is technologically savvy and more likely to buy in bulk, and the viral nature of the Net has allowed the music to be heard by new audiences, fueling overall sales. "The classical-music sector has done a very good job of maximizing the opportunity of the Internet," notes Mark Mulligan, a digital music analyst at Forrester Research.

It's all part of the "Long Tail" theory of cybercommerce, in which companies do a good business selling a few units of many, many things. Many other musical genres still follow the traditional "big hits" business model: 80 percent of revenue coming from 20 percent of inventory (that's why labels generally push a few artists very hard). Classical is different—consumers like to geek out on niche recordings, reveling in different versions of the same work or finding obscure versions of well-known pieces. Of the 146,031 tracks offered by Naxos online, about half have sold only 10 units or less. Still, that was enough to push digital revenues to a quarter of the company's total $82 million in sales for 2006, increasing profitability and helping offset a decline in offline sales. Heymann, a serious classical buff who started the company 20 years ago, says, "We could live very comfortably if from tomorrow we never sold another CD."

Indies like Naxos have been the most aggressive online, but even at Decca Label Group, the classical division of Universal, the world's largest music company, the digital-music business now contributes a fifth of sales. This is in part because illegal peer-to-peer file sharing hasn't hit classical music at all, a sharp contrast to the way it has decimated the pop industry. Low-quality tracks, which are often uploaded as smaller files on networks like LimeWire and Gnutella, aren't a problem when you want to listen to relatively banal stuff like Britney. But they don't cut the mustard for complex orchestral compositions by Bach—the nuances and length of such pieces make them much tougher to share via peer-to-peer. Classical also benefits from the fact that most users want to buy an entire album, rather than a single or two. They may also want to download the liner notes, background on the artists, the recording venue, the composer, etc. A pop song can be enjoyed for 99 cents, while a piece of classical music will likely cost more than $10.

Of course, none of this will save the recording industry from its larger problems. Classical-music sales are about a fourth the size of country's, and barely 10 percent of rock's. Still, the success of companies like Naxos have provided a case study in how to optimize profits with the Long Tail. "Joan Tower: Made in America," a Naxos recording of the U.S. composer's work conducted by Leonard Slatkin of the National Symphony Orchestra, held the No. 1 slot on last month's classical charts. That meant selling merely tens of thousands of copies, but given that online production and distribution costs are so low, the recording is on its way to becoming one of this year's most profitable items.

The lesson for labels is that prepackaging global pop stars isn't the only way to profitability, and the result might be more exposure for a broader number of artists and more diversity for consumers. EMI digitalized some of its rare historical recordings by the late opera great Maria Callas, and Decca is resurrecting long-extinct labels like Argo and L'Oiseau Lyre in downloadable format.

At the same time, some industry watchers believe digital might also help create more classical megastars. Witness the rise of Lang Lang, a young, spiky-haired Chinese pianist who topped iTunes' charts in mid-May. The fact that he ended up on iTunes' main page helped push sales of his new album, "Beethoven Piano Concertos Nos. 1 & 4," even further into the top 15 of the general iTunes charts. "When you see Lang Lang right next to Toby Keith and 50 Cent, all of those artists get a chance to reach the consumer," notes Christopher Roberts, chairman of Decca, which produced the album.

Meanwhile, labels are working on the next big digital challenge—how to let consumers search a really, really Long Tail of recordings. Mike McGuire, vice president of Gartner Industry Advisory Research in the United States, notes that virtually all systems of organizing online music data were "designed for three-minute pop or rock songs." Finding a particular piece of Spanish piano music composed between 1850 and 1920, or looking for multiple movements that add up to a single title requires more-sophisticated technology. That's something Naxos developed for its own businesses, but is far from the current standard of popular digital-music retailers. The upside of this is that the digital revolution has given smaller labels like Naxos yet another way to level the playing field—by selling or licensing their own proprietary technology. Niche search technology is one of the hottest areas of technology development at the moment. A classical label that can score on that front may find its audience—and its sales—get a lot, lot bigger.
© 2007 Newsweek, Inc.

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Newsweek: "Along the River During the Qingming Festival"

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19650862/site/newsweek/

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A Rare Look at 'China's Mona Lisa'

A Hong Kong exhibit offers a rare glimpse of the 12th-century masterpiece known as 'China's Mona Lisa.'

By Alexandra A. Seno

Newsweek International

July 16, 2007 issue - Even among the stuffy bureaucrats in Beijing, the Song dynasty ink-on-silk painting "Along the River During the Qingming Festival" has an affectionate nickname: "China's Mona Lisa." Though it's a landscape, not a portrait, "Qingming" has a mysterious allure that has captivated the popular imagination and spawned debate about its hidden meaning, much like da Vinci's fabled work. But unlike the "Mona Lisa," which is on view at the Louvre, "Qingming" has been seen only rarely by members of the public.

Now's their big chance. The stunning 12th-century work by the court artist Zhang Zeduan is making its first appearance outside the mainland as the star attraction of "The Pride of China," an exhibit of 32 important paintings from Beijing's Palace Museum (through Aug. 11) marking the 10th anniversary of Hong Kong's return to Chinese control. The five-meter-long "Qingming" scroll—named after the spring holiday for honoring ancestors—features more than 800 figures, 28 boats and 170 trees in a buzzing waterside city.

It captures scenes of everyday life in finely wrought detail: traders lead camels, heavy with merchandise, through the city gate. Sedan-chair bearers balance wealthy passengers through busy streets. Children scream for attention while elders engage in chitchat. Stevedores unload sacks of food from boats. A woman's laundry hangs from a roof. " 'Qingming' is a great ambassador for Chinese culture," says Maxwell Hearn, curator of Chinese painting at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, who recently visited Hong Kong in connection with the exhibit. "It has enormous popular appeal. You don't have to understand calligraphy, brush painting, poetry or symbolism which infuses so much of Chinese art with meaning. It is about humanity."

As an imperial treasure originally meant for the pleasure of the emperor and select members of his court, "Qingming" has always been inaccessible to the masses—which has only strengthened its appeal. Since the time of its creation in the 12th century, the artwork's fame has spread mainly through stories in books and poems. Pu Yi, the last Chinese emperor, took the scroll with him when he left the Forbidden City in the 1920s. The painting was missing until it was found in a bank vault in the 1950s.

Now tea-colored with age, the scroll is considered too delicate to go on permanent exhibit. Beijing's regulations allow it to be on view for only three weeks at a time, after which it must be retired to the vault for years. But like all important Chinese works of art, it has been much replicated, ensuring that the public knows well what it looks like. In fact, one such 16th-century "fake" by Qiu Ying will take the place of the original Song piece during the second half of the Hong Kong show, beginning July 23.

In addition to its esthetic qualities, "Qingming" continues to fascinate because of what it celebrates: "a prosperous, urban state from the perspective of the working class," says University of Hong Kong art historian Yeewan Koon. The painting clearly depicts great Chinese achievements of the time—including innovations in architecture and engineering, as evidenced by a wooden bridge without piers and a variety of vessels designed to transport goods and people. "Qingming" also prominently illustrates trade in wine and grain, which were monopolies of the emperor and represent his control. The painting shows people from all strata of society thriving in a place held together by a sense of order and unseen powers. For Hong Kong, 10 years after reverting to mainland rule, that makes "China's Mona Lisa" an especially relevant guest.

© 2007 Newsweek, Inc.

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Art Smart 2

Another essay on art, this time on Southeast Asian art, that is worth reading and thinking about:

http://www.aaa.org.hk/newsletter.html#dia

Art Smart

Brilliant essay on the current art bubble:

http://www.theartnewspaper.com/article01.asp?id=677

Qingming Shanghe Du

It really is an amazing artwork. Not only because it is a visual encyclopedia of life in the Northern Song Dynasty, but also since it is a fine painting with great detail and very clever use of perspective.

It is the star attraction of "The Pride of China." Worth braving a trip to the wilds of Tsim Sha Tsui.

Chinese laws restrict the exhibition of a national treasure like this to three weeks (after which it must go "rest" in the vaults of Beijing). Qingming will be on view until July 22.