Three more orchs join Google Play. What’s the big deal?

Three more orchs join Google Play. What’s the big deal?

main

norman lebrecht

November 13, 2015

The Sydney Symphony, the London Philharmonic Orchestra and the Orchestre de Paris today joined five world-leader bands in selling their streams and recordings on Google Play Classical Live.

The initial signatories, announced with great fanfare in June, were the Boston Symphony, Cleveland, LSO, New York Philharmonic and Royal Concertgebouw.

The benefits, so far, have been questionable. The orchs get Google branding but not much else. With the collapse of Qobuz, the streaming cloud looks more nebulous than ever.

google-teams-up-with-orchestras-to-target-classical

press release:

13 November 2015: The Sydney Symphony Orchestra has today become the first orchestra in the Asia-Pacific to join Classical Live, an exciting digital initiative by Google Play Music making the best current concert recordings from the world’s leading orchestras available to listeners around the globe.

 Featuring recordings from the Boston Symphony Orchestra, The Cleveland Orchestra, LondonSymphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, and Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam, Classical Live is the first and only initiative offering current concert recordings exclusively on Google Play Music for digital download and streaming.

 The SSO joins the program with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Orchestre de Paris, by releasing the second symphonies of Schumann and Sibelius with Chief Conductor and Artistic Director David Robertson, and an excerpt from Respighi’s The Pines of Rome with Charles Dutoit, recorded by ABC Classic FM at the Sydney Opera House.

Comments

  • Matthew says:

    “Google branding but not much else”. LOLZ. Thanks Grandpa.

  • john says:

    No big deal at all, the agency in charge of arranging the deal made money for doing nothing.
    Anyone looking for music will look at other platforms.

  • Alvaro says:

    The google brand is so useless, right Norman. Thank god you do not avise anybody on investments 😉

  • herrera says:

    Google is already tracking and keeping a record of all my emails, every site I visit, every search I make, every key stroke I make, and making it all available to the NSA, so why not include all the music I listen to?

    “Do no evil” my ass, Google.

    (If you don’t ever hear from me here again, that means Google blocked my access to all websites.)

  • Christy says:

    Yes, orchestras should concentrate on physical CDs. That’s where the money is in the future. Attaching themselves to these archaic organizations aggregating music worldwide is a sure disaster.

    😉

  • MOST READ TODAY: