Future Classical Music Sales

Anne Midgette recently interviewed Klaus Heymann, who has grown Naxos from a new budget classical label to a major leader in the industry. You can read the full article here, but a few excerpts are of interest:

“Physical sales are still surprisingly strong in classical music, unlike pop and rock. In June, Naxos was 12% up on the month’s budget. The year to date is up 6% over last year.”

 “Downloads are stagnating… growth is anemic: I think it’s up 1 or 2% over last year.”

 “Amazon is our biggest customer in many markets: the US, England, Germany.”

“We’re starting Blu-Ray audio doing a demo of John Corigliano's Circus Maximus…It sounds spectacular…It’s probably the high-end medium of the future.”

“SACD [is] almost dead… More and more indies are giving up.”

“I have no doubt we will do very well with digital things. There are lots of ways of making money now… it’s exciting.”

Overall, it's more evidence that the future remains unpredictable and murky.