LSO hooks up with Harry Potter publisher
OrchestrasThe London Symphony Orchestra has found an original way of monetising its backlist of self-made recordings – sell it to academics.
From the press release:
Bloomsbury Digital Resources, part of Bloomsbury Publishing, today announces several new streaming collections with one of the world’s leading orchestras, the London Symphony Orchestra. Launching with an initial selection of over 80 recorded concerts, the collections will grow each year as new seasons are added. These new performances will be exclusively available to the global academic community on Bloomsbury’s platform.
The London Symphony Orchestra Collections will provide students and faculty with access to hundreds of performances… Featuring a
wide-ranging repertoire of orchestral and symphonic music, the collections launching today include music from all periods, from Bach to Mahler to 21 st century composers like Soweto Kinch and Hannah Kendall. Concerts feature renowned conductors such as Sir Simon Rattle and Sir Antonio Pappano as well as guest musicians Leonidas Kavakos, Gerald Finley, Barbara Hannigan, Julia Bullock and many others.
Anna Wright, BDR Digital Portfolio Director, says: “Bloomsbury Digital Resources has had the privilege of bringing world class arts content into classrooms for years, thanks to longstanding partnerships with many leading arts organisations. We are thrilled to embark on this partnership with the LSO, which represents a significant expansion for us into the realm of premier classical music performance. As organisations, Bloomsbury and the LSO are aligned in our aims to inspire new generations through excellence and accessibility of content and in setting ambitious Diversity, Equity and Inclusion goals to help make our respective fields more diverse.”
The London Symphony Orchestra Collections will be sold on a subscription and perpetual purchase basis globally to academic libraries. Details will be announced soon.
Very sound idea. Academic publishing is a racket, with publishers selling (often poorly produced) books for cover prices of upwards of £70-80, in the expectation that university libraries will simply “vanish” the cost within their overall budget. For publishers, though certainly not writers, it’s a license to print money; and for all their endless kvetching about money universities are certainly not short of cash when it comes to flashy, ugly new buildings and vice-chancellors’ salaries.
I hope the LSO milks them for every penny they can in the remaining few years before a critical mass of undergraduates realises they’re incurring huge debt for worthless qualifications, and the whole model collapses. That way, at least the money will so some actual good.
Academic book publishing is very much not. No one makes money off it. The price of those books compensates for low circulation.
Now, articles, on the other hand, are an absolute rip-off.