When Napster trained a generation to see music as a free commodity, decimating the record industry, we were assured that musicians would continue to make money via touring. Now that the coronavirus has put a stop to live performance, musicians have very little to fall back on. The culture favors streaming, but artists notoriously earn almost nothing from streaming. Music-lovers who are not facing immediate financial danger might want to help out artists by buying records instead of streaming them — digitally or physically.
This Friday, March 20, the estimable Bandcamp site will forego the 15 percent that it usually takes from sales, meaning that all proceeds will go directly to artists. To celebrate this generous gesture, I've picked a few recent contemporary-classical releases on Bandcamp that are worth hearing. You can always sample the embedded tracks and determine whether or not you agree.
— Feldman, Piano Music; Philip Thomas (Another Timbre)
— Feldman, For Bunita Marcus; Aki Takahashi (Mode)
— Anna Höstman, Harbour; Cheryll Dvuall, piano (Redshift)
— in manus tuas; recital by violist-composer Anna Leilehua Lanzilotti
— nocturnes and lullabies: music of Nicholas Deyoe, Wolfgang von Schweinitz, Rebecca Saunders, Philip Cashian, Linda Catlin Smith, Maura Capuzzo, Marc Sabat; Richard Valitutto, piano (New Focus)
— David Lang, the loser; Rod Gilfry, Conrad Tao, Bang on a Can Opera Ensemble (Cantaloupe)
— Linda Catlin Smith, Drifter; Quatuor Bozzini, Apartment House (Another Timbre)
— Cenk Ergün, Sonare & Celare; JACK Quartet (New Focus)
— Michael Pisaro, Fields Have Ears, with Philip Thomas, piano (Another Timbre)
Go to NewMusicBox for a symposium on the new music world's response to the virus.
