If so, you’re familiar
with
Klaus Heymann’s work. Even if you haven't seen the logo, you hear some of the results of his work nearly any day you tune to West Virginia Public Radio.
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A familiar sight in many classical music collections |
Heymann is founder and president of Naxos, one of the few major companies producing and distributing classical
recordings. It’s not by CD sales alone that Naxos exists
– they also run the streaming Naxos Music Library, license music to film and TV, and
distribute a whole bunch of labels.
I've already read several interesting interviews with Heymann, so I was a bit
unsure as to what new things I could ask him. I’m also not really a business
expert (Unless borrowing one of my dad’s business magazines to read about Spotify counts? Probably not...)
We did find plenty of things to discuss, including the music
that has influenced him, different trends in classical music recording industry, and
how radio still impacts classical music sales. On a sort of strange whim, I also asked him for his advice for the newspaper industry (one of his
first jobs was for a newspaper).
Listen to our interview below (streaming or download):
Interview with Klaus Heymann, founder and president of Naxos
Listening back to the interview, it caught my ear that he discussed several things in
terms of “placing bets." We don't know the future, but people are trying a lot of interesting things. Some of the small bets that he mentioned include digital books with embedded music and classical music apps.
It was a good discussion, but I still feel that I missed asking something crucial that I still haven't figured out.
What questions would you ask a classical music executive if you got a chance to chat with one?