Are you being heard?

By TARA WERNER

The death of classical music," writes the pianist/scholar Charles Rosen, "is perhaps its oldest continuing tradition." Given the tiny market for New Zealand contemporary music and material performed by local artists, you'd think specialist recording labels would be well on the way to the morgue. Not so.

A small band of dedicated aficionados exists, music producers who have an almost obsessive commitment to promoting New Zealand composers and musicians - the sort of person who will support an up-and-coming young artist by backing them financially.

But think again if you have money in your pocket and the burning desire to become another Luciano Pavarotti or Cecilia Bartoli. Not all producers will accept newcomers just because their mothers-in-law have handed them $15,000 to record themselves.

The watchword with new recordings is selectivity, and that's healthy, says Wayne Laird of Atoll, one of the most innovative classical CD labels in the country.

"The variable musical quality of what could be called vanity recordings would generate a negative image. There's nothing wrong with saying no. It just isn't worth it," he says.

And there's a solid chorus of other producers who agree. Kiwi Pacific Records production manager Murray Vincent says, "People do come to us with recording ideas, but they have to convince us to produce them. The first stage is one of evaluation. I'd turn them down if they were not up to scratch."

Tim Gummer from Rattle Records agrees. "It would be like selling your soul, self-defeating. It would undermine your reputation. But when you think about it, all recordings are vanity projects since so often the artists don't make money, relying instead that a recording will help build their career."

The classical recording industry has never been about making heaps of money, but building career profiles. Producing an album is similar to creating a recognised form of calling card, adding creditability to the musician concerned. It's a way of opening doors, of necessary self-promotion in a highly competitive industry.

Yet stories abound of artists bankrolling a CD to add to their CV, as a way of boosting their egos. They may not be helping the industry by releasing repertoire that's already over-recorded, or with substandard performances unrestrained by the usual checks and balances.

A recording in New Zealand costs on average between $12,000 to $25,000 to make, depending on whether it is an individual musician, chamber group or orchestra, and the risks can be considerable for producers if a CD bombs in the market. Some recordings can climb to over $100,000 if a full symphony orchestra has to be hired to back, say, a pianist.

And the returns are relatively skimpy - a good-selling local CD may average sales of only between 1000 and 2000 in its lifetime.

While producers here may be averse to creating vanity products, they want to back New Zealand music to the hilt. And it's often done on a shoestring.

Take Laird, who for the past eight years has produced a constant stream of quality recordings from his garden shed. He records his artists in situ, such as a church or hall, then remasters the tapes in his small but high-tech studio.

As a musician (he was previously timpanist with the Auckland Philharmonia and a percussionist with contemporary music group From Scratch) Laird has an empathy with the artists he records and sees his role as being part of a closely knit team.

"Musicians are professionals who should be given the run of their project - it's like a partnership or even a symbiotic relationship. I'm at the interface between the musician and the recording. Good musicianship always comes through - the technology doesn't really matter that much," he says.

The CDs Laird produces sell well and he is popular with the musicians who have worked with him, including conductors Marc Taddie and Indra Hughes, pianists Michael Houstoun and Sarah Watkins, and violinist Justine Cormack.

Other labels, such as the award-winning Rattle, work on an even tighter budget, producing only a single CD a year, often funded by Creative New Zealand.

Recordings typically feature unique instrumentation, such as the densely textured guitars of Gitbox, through to the ambience of Maori instruments in Te Ku Te Whe, the hand-made percussion of From Scratch, and Dan Poynton's "gently" prepared piano.

Says Tim Gummer, "It's a really hard slog selling music in this niche, and yet it's very creative. Often the funding rounds determine what we can produce, and there are long lead-in times."

Then there are the bigger players, like the Wellington-based HRL Morrison Music Trust. Established by business financial adviser Lloyd Morrison in 1995 as a charitable trust to support New Zealand musicians of international calibre, all funds received are used to make recordings and present concerts in New Zealand and overseas. The trust also helps artists with projects which will develop their talents further.

The trust's first recording was a three-CD set of the middle period piano sonatas of Beethoven performed by Michael Houstoun, which won the 1995 Recording Industry Association of New Zealand's Classical Award, an honour repeated when the CD Strike - NZ Percussion Music won the same award in 2001.

Probably the longest-surviving label in the country is Kiwi Pacific Records, established in 1958 as an offshoot to Reed Publishing before striking out on its own.

Even with artists such as Kiri Te Kanawa and Dame Malvina Major on its books, the company still finds it hard going financially. "New Zealand has a total population of a big city, and that makes things difficult to market our music," says Murray Vincent. "We seem to appeal to the more mature audience rather than the younger age group."

Recording local product is certainly not for the money, says Terence O'Neill Joyce, chief executive of the Recording Industry Association of New Zealand (RIANZ).

"The total classical industry is only worth $10 million and you'll be lucky if contemporary music by NZ composers will achieve 2 per cent of this. If you did it purely on a financial basis you won't even touch it. So why do they do it?

"Well, it's for the love of the art and the desire to help. And I believe they are right - we all have the responsibility to promote our own classical musicians and composers."

Retailer Murray Marbeck, who is optimistic about the sales potential of local artists, devotes a corner of his Queens Arcade shop in Auckland entirely to New Zealand music and musicians.

"Yes, it sells, and I'd put it at 7 per cent of the classical market in the country," he says. "People do support local product, and I carry every Kiwi classical label. I wouldn't put them up for display if there was no money in it.

"In the end it comes down to the almighty dollar. But composers such as Lilburn, Farr and Body seem to do well. And these CDs don't always go to local buyers - overseas customers also want them. Local music can be among our best-sellers."