Artists’ and Composers’ Comments
Congratulations to Naxos on your 20th Anniversary! You have single-handedly revolutionized the recording industry by representing a wide range of young and old artists worldwide in an incredibly difficult market place. I am honored to be a part of this as a living woman composer! You have done a great deal to further the cause of both–as revealed by your extensive catalog of living composers and women musicians (including women conductors)–a risk that most major recording labels have not been willing to take. Thank you so much for your visionary and courageous thinking! And congratulations on all your successes!
–Joan Tower, composer
In the 1960s and early 1970s I was deeply involved with Nonesuch Records when it was directed by the late Teresa Sterne, where I not only copy-edited liner notes but produced LPs, helped in the selection of artists and repertoire, and was also able to record with the company both as pianist and composer. There was a sense of mission with that Nonesuch - nobody expected to make lots of money, and we produced albums on insanely small budgets - but a whole generation of young listeners grew up with us, attracted by the unusual material and low price. The label had a unique success, giving the lie to “market-forces”-oriented tastemakers while introducing a new roster of emerging major artists, many still active today.
When Ms. Sterne was inexplicably replaced and Nonesuch became the very different company it is now, that sense of a special forum for producing recordings — not angling for nor expecting mega-sales, but bringing albums out because they were worth doing on their merits, and most importantly making a go of the enterprise — essentially disappeared from the recording business for a very long while. In the classical-music CD market today there are many struggling small labels with anemic distribution; fewer big ones with somewhat better distribution but rarely much music of interest to advanced listeners; and very little in between.
This is where Klaus Heymann and Naxos Records come in. The company’s premise of bringing out well-played, unusual music of all kinds at a budget price recalls for me the grand days of the old Nonesuch. My first project with Naxos was as pianist, recording piano music and songs with my wife Joan Morris by my first composition teacher (I was eight years old when I started with him) George Frederick McKay–hardly a household name today but certainly a project very worth doing. Subsequently
Mr. Heymann has proved, with the worldwide distribution and great renown the label has garnered, that it is possible to run such a company and make it work, and brilliantly. He deserves every accolade he receives on this 20th anniversary of Naxos’s founding, and our gratitude.
–William Bolcom, composer
During the past 20 years Naxos has made a tremendous contribution to the industry, by making recordings affordable, by bravely recording so many works that were never before available on disc, and by making possible the dreams of so many artists and composers to record the projects important to them. I think the new business models and continuous technological innovations of the label will keep it in the forefront of recorded music for many years.
–Marin Alsop, conductor
I am particularly proud to be a Naxos artist because of the company’s open-mindedness to new composers, new music, new artists, new possibilities.
–JoAnn Falletta, conductor
Congratulations to Klaus Heymann and Naxos Records on the occasion of the 20th anniversary. As an artist, what I care about the most is the great music that’s part of my life. Close behind is my desire to have this great music accessible to as many people as possible. Among the most important ways for us to make the great canon of classical music available to the world is through recordings and digital streaming and downloading.
–Gerard Schwarz, conductor
Happy birthday, Naxos! With all the hand-wringing and procrastination that continues to afflict classical music these days (at least in the
–Joseph Horowitz, Author of Classical Music in America: A History of Its Rise and Fall
It is unbelivable that Naxos is already 20 years old. It seems like yesterday that we started recording the Beethoven Sonatas and the Mozart Concertos. Since then
–Jeno Jando, pianist
My collaboration with Naxos, which began 15 years ago, proved to be an extremely fortunate development in my life, but also in the lives of the orchestras I have conducted, and – most of all – fortunate for Polish music.
Recording about 40 CDs with standard repertoire and 30 with Polish music performed by Polish musicians has been a tremendous opportunity for the promotion of that music worldwide (almost 3 million copies sold over that period!). The Naxos distribution is impressive to say the least – wherever I go, be it in a London or Tokyo department store, or a small town in Spain or New Zealand – I find the CDs with my recordings. Admittedly, I recorded another 70 CDs, frequently for more famous and older companies (such as EMI or DECCA, to mention but a few) – but they are now hard to find on the market.
The only thing I regret is that Klaus Heymann is reluctant to record those works from the standard repertoire which he already has in his catalogue, performed by others. This is because putting one’s own recording in this catalogue is a firm guarantee that it will reach an exceptionally wide audience.
–Antoni Wit, conductor
My recording career for Naxos began in 1990 with the Cello Concerto by Alfred Schnittke. Since then I recorded almost the complete cello repertoire on 35 CDs – with more to come. During the process of recording all those years , I learned so much more about music itself and about all kinds of people involved in music making and the classical music business, that I continously could build up confidence and mature naturally as a cellist and as a musician. Naxos (Klaus Heymann) and I became close partners. Brillant ideas and a certain trust for each other guided us along our paths. I am most grateful for this and also for having had the possibilit y to introduce some of my best musical friends and bring them with me into new productions.
–Maria Kliegel, cellist
I just looked up the very first CD I recorded for Naxos as a conductor – Haydn/Boccherini Cello Concertos. Recorded in September 1987. As my next recording for Naxos is scheduled for May 2007, I can definitely declare that I am one of the few artists that have been with Naxos since the very beginning. Naxos has literally changed my life in almost every possible way. Needless to say, for the better. I can’t imagine any other label that would give a single artist so many different opportunities – today I am simply unable to count the dozens of CDs I recorded, concerts I played and conducted, hundreds of arrangements I wrote and hundreds of thousands of CDs sold. There simply is not enough space to list everything I was able to achieve thanks to my collaboration with this remarkable company. With a few exceptions, my life during the last twenty years was one with Naxos and I am genuinely happy to see it blossoming and going stronger than ever, especially in the not so easy circumstances of today. Finally, yet importantly, without Klaus Heymann I probably would not find out about the pleasures of wine drinking. That is just one of the things I am thankful for.
–Peter Breiner, pianist, conductor, arranger, composer
Naxos Records is a company which has become a gift to the music world everywhere. As most record people, producers, composers and others in the business are aware, Naxos has taken its rightful place as a leader in the recording world. In the process, this venerable international recording company has been able to save many great works which otherwise would have been lost forever in the distant past. May the wheels of Naxos Records go on and on into Eternity.
–Edward Thomas, composer
In the past 15 years or so, I have had a chance to record a few dozen CD’s for Naxos. The repertoire was very different and challenging. To work in the studio is not easy, as a conductor you have to produce immediate results. I can easily say, that the experience in the recording studio has made me a real conductor and a much better musician. When I started to conduct about 20 years ago, I wanted to become a good conductor and also wanted very much to be able to accompany well the soloists with whom I recorded or performed. Naxos gave me this chance. Where ever I have concerts, presenters and the public know my many recordings for Naxos and I get many compliments for them. It is very flattering.
–Dmitry Yablonsky, conductor
Naxos’s pricing policy means that CD buyers have been encouraged to take risks with the sort of music that they buy. This means that I have been able to introduce audiences to pieces which they would not normally listen to, through performances which I make as challenging as I possibly can. I take the view that if the buyer is taking a risk, then so should I.
–Jeremy Summerly, conductor
For a conductor and orchestra, Naxos provides the best possible international showplace these days. The company has also shown that the market for classical music is very much alive and kicking, and not only for Beethoven 5 ! It is THE label for all of us who as musicians and audience, like to try new things.
–James Judd, conductor
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