R E C O R D I N G S
roundup Review of 2013/14
Chair’s Message from Andrew Ward This has been an outstanding year for NMC, with achievements on every front. Of course, this is only fitting as we approach our 25th anniversary but these successes are all the more remarkable given the increasingly challenging environment in which we operate. In particular, 2013/14 has been a year of important new partnerships. As is well known, NMC has enjoyed significant and constant support from the Holst Foundation since our inception. This is now coming to an end as Holst’s work has come out of copyright but we are delighted that the Britten-Pears Foundation and the Delius Trust have stepped in to help fill this breach. We have forged exciting new digital relationships with London Sinfonietta and Sound and Music that increased the range of repertoire we offer and extended our audience reach. We have successfully engaged with other new audience development activities as well – for example, using an online download widget to bring a previously unknown Britten song to 1,000 individuals across 59 countries. We have achieved considerably more media attention this year, with all our releases receiving coverage in the national press and two of our discs appearing in The Sunday Times Top 100. There has been a significant increase in our fundraising activity. Indeed, over the last three years we have increased the income fundraised from sources other than the Holst Foundation from 27% to just under 50%; we have achieved a tenfold increase in the number of Trusts and Foundations investing in us; and we have successfully introduced a Producers’ Circle to enable a greater level of involvement by key supporters. But most exciting of all has been our major opera appeal which has led to three landmark opera releases, funded by individuals and organisations. So as we look back over the last year – with 8 full length CDs, our first DVD and 14 digital only projects – we can draw much satisfaction. But we cannot stand still and put our feet up. NMC is a unique national asset and I know that everyone involved is determined to do whatever they can to promote and develop our work, but the truth is we need more partners, more friends and more supporters and it is essential that we find novel ways in which a greater number of individuals and organisations can be involved in our important, exciting and excellent work. If you would like to know how you might get involved with the work of NMC Recordings we would love to hear from you.
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The Britten-Pears Foundation is delighted to have become a core supporter of NMC, helping to secure its busines model. We believe that having key works of contemporary music recorded for posterity is an extremely important part of ensuring that they are heard and NMC plays a very important part in the ecology of new music. This support for NMC strengthens our commitment to new music, a cause we feel sure Britten would have commended. We very much look forward to working with NMC on a number of new projects, developing a real and constructive partnership. Richard Jarman General Director of the Britten-Pears Foundation Other CD, 0.7% % D, 2 ce C 3% D, Fran yC % an ,3 CD
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Australia CD, 1%
NMC Shop MP3, 1% NMC Shop FLAC,
Spain CD, 1%
SOCIAL MEDIA & WEBSITE Third Party Digital Stores, 17%
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Use of technology continues to be an important way of reaching, and growing our audience, NM ensuring that more people have the USA CD, 16% opportunity to experience the work of British composers. We saw marked annual increases in % 5 D, pC our use of Twitter (followers up 20%), Facebook ho S C NM UK CD, 34% (Likes up 33%) and e-newsletter (mailing list up 76%) and our website stats similarly grew, with Trade CD, 8% an average page views a month of 10,495 and nearly 5,000 individual visitors a month. The top 2013/14 Total Sales (% revenue) referral site was The Guardian (5%) with 17% of audiences members viewing on tablet or mobile. In 2013/14 we began exploring alternative ways of engaging our audience and capturing data and this has had a positive result, including a successful campaign offering a free track – Britten’s ‘Roman Wall Blues’ – using the TopSpin download widget. It had over 1,000 downloads from people internationally (50% = UK, 18% = USA, 32% = other) and as a result our e-mail list increased by 45% in just one month. The download also attracted much media coverage with features in The Guardian, Limelight (Australia), Gramophone and on In Tune (BBC Radio 3), plus significant online activity on Facebook and Twitter. , 2%
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In 2013/14 we worked with: Darrett Adkins Christopher Austin BBC Singers Birmingham Contemporary Music Group Claire Booth Iain Burnside Michael Chance Oliver Coates Nicholas Collon Gerry Cornelius Colin Currie
Sir Mark Elder Ex Cathedra Lionel Friend Hallé Hallé Soloists Helen-Jane Howells Paul Hoskins Sophia Jaffé Jane’s Minstrels Andrew Kennedy London Sinfonietta Jane Manning
Andrew Matthews-Owen The Nash Ensemble Navarra Quartet Sarah Nicolls Northern Sinfonia Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble Pavel Haas Quartet Jamie Phillips Rambert Orchestra Jean Rigby Lucy Schaufer
Jeffrey Skidmore Markus Stenz Mark van de Wiel Huw Watkins Richard Watkins Samuel West Ryan Wigglesworth Roderick Williams Alexandra Wood Thomas Zehetmair
EXPENDITURE & FUNDRAISING HEADLINES We increased the proportion of funds being invested in originating and distributing our work to 75% of total expenditure and continued to invest in our fundraising function as a result of which we have continued to diversify and increase our contributed income including: • 361% increase in annual raised/pledged funds over three years (£36k in 2010/11 to nearly £130k in 2013/14) • Funding from trusts and foundations (excluding Holst) and donations has risen from 27% of turnover in 2010/11 to 49% in 2013/14 • The number of trusts and foundations investing in NMC has increased nearly tenfold to 30 since 2010/11 • Friends base has grown by 224% in three years, with negligible attrition rate • Our Opera Appeal boosted donors to NMC by 20% • Our new Producers’ Circle higher giving tier had attracted 15 donors by the end of 2013/14
2013/14 Expenditure by type
EARNED INCOME 2013/14 was a particularly difficult period for the classical recordings retail market with sales across physical and digital down 18.5%. NMC performed slightly better than the average and saw a significant increase in audiences accessing our recordings via downloads and streaming. Whilst streaming in Artistic origination Artistic production particular is not, as yet, generating as much per Marketing/sales/distribution Fundraised income stewardship Governance Administration unit income as CD and download sales, it is crucially taking our catalogue to a noticeably growing world-wide audience, which fulfils our charitable aim of making important British culture available to as many people as possible. We again generated income through licensing, with work from the NMC catalogue being featured in Michel Gondry’s animated film Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy? (tracks from Howard Skempton’s Ben Somewhen, NMC D135) and in an online advert for Prada (Anna Meredith’s HandsFree, New Music 20x12).
2013/14 Income by type (£000)
Reserves
120
During 2013/14, the Board progressed its strategic plan to build towards an enhanced reserve to mitigate the effect of a cessation of NMC’s Holst Foundation funding.
*includes pledged funding 100
Income £k
80 60 40 20 0
Holst
ACE
T&F*
Donations Legacies
Friends
Income Sources
Grants
Earned
2010/11 2011/12
2012/13 2013/14
Press Recognition in 2013/14 Mark-Anthony Turnage: UNDANCE
Richard Causton: Millennium Scenes
‘The sheer rhythmic quality of Mark-Anthony Turnage’s music makes it surprising he had not been writing ballet music from the outset of his career. The warmest of recommendations’
International Record Review - Outstanding Recording ‘Causton is among our most imaginative composers, and these five works, all substantial, often with flaring brilliance, are almost too much to take in’
Gramophone
The Sunday Times
Music of Memory
Digital Discoveries, vol. 1 to 8
‘Glittering textures are impressively agile. A very engaging recital’ BBC Music Magazine
‘[Philip Cashian’s] Horn Trio has vitality and sparkle, this recording will grab your attention’
‘A landmark release that’s both challenging and essential’ Classical Guitar Magazine
Classical Music Magazine (on vol. 4)
Britten to America
Anthony Payne: Phoenix Mass
‘Plenty of food for thought and pleasure to be had here’ BBC Music Magazine
‘Fiercely constructivist yet compellingly eloquent’ The Sunday Times
‘A disc of incidental music should not be as much fun’ Gramophone
‘Riveting ... a fascinating collection’
Alexander Goehr: Since Brass, nor Stone ...
Joseph Phibbs: The Canticle of the Rose
The Sunday Times’ Top 100 Best Albums of 2013
‘Every idea is telling, every phrase beautiful’
‘These performances render the sound worlds of Goehr’s sources so consummately that his own twists and turns through them come through persuasively’ Gramophone
The Sunday Times
Elliott Carter: 103rd Birthday Concert (DVD)
Philip Cashian: The House of Night
International Record Review - Outstanding Recording BBC Music Magazine - Choice of the Month
The Sunday Times’ Top 100 Best Albums of 2013
‘The performances by a cast of Carter devotees are flawless’ Gramophone
NMC Recordings Ltd
Somerset House Third Floor South Wing Strand, London, WC2R 1LA
Tel: 020 7759 1827/8 www.nmcrec.co.uk nmc@nmcrec.co.uk @nmcrecordings /nmcrecordings
BBC Music Magazine
‘These works draw you in with a well-judged pacing of their sometimes frenetic activity and mesmerising stillness’ BBC Music Magazine
‘This is glorious fast music, hardly pausing for breath, full of child-like energy’ Tempo ‘Terrific stuff’ Gramophone
NMC Patrons Alfred Brendel Hon KBE Vladimir Jurowski Lady Panufnik Sir Simon Rattle OM CBE Lord Dennis Stevenson of Coddenham Dame Mitsuko Uchida
NMC receives core funding from: THE DELIUS TRUST
NMC Recordings is a registered charity no. 328052.