When The World Is Your Stage….
Globalization Opens New Doors For Niche Artists
For decades music executives and even artists themselves have shied away from many musical niches because their potential audience was too small to achieve an acceptable level of success. But now. with the global marketing and sales reach offered by the int coupled with affordable world travel, is any niche really too small to find audience?
While certainly not as small as some musical niches, classical music has been considered dead or dieing for more than a decade. Younger audiences simply have no interest . But despite tthe death sentance, the world's most successful male touring artist for the first half of 2009 was classical musician Andre Rieu according to Billboard. He ranked number 4 overall with 554,242 tickets sold and $57.4 million in gross revenue with only Madonna, Tina Turner and Britney Spears grossing more Rieu had already clinched the 8th position on Pollstar's 2008 touring chart.
It took Andre Rieu 30 years, but his success is truly global. In the last 12 months, his 55 piece Johann Strauss Orchestra has toured Japan, Australia, all over Europe and just completed a 35 city tour in the USA and Canada. He is currently making plans to tour South America, South Africa, United Kingdom, and Portugal. Rieu, who is fluent in several languages, always addresses the audience in their native language.
And being a global niche phenomenon is not unique to Andre Rieu. Many world music artists have parlayed niche success in their home markets into global careers. If it takes 1000 or 10,000 or even 100,000 true fans to build a lasting career; it matters far less than it once did if those fans live in one city or several thousand.
Another major benefit: we also get better music to listen to. I am forever grateful to live in an age where I can listen to Amadou et Mariam, Oumou Sangare, Ali Farka Toure and Tinariwen, despite the fact I’ve never been to Mali.
Having global reach is incredible, especially with the internet. I taught a webcam lesson to a US military man stationed in South Korea recently, which blew me away when I thought about it.
Definitely doesn’t hurt to speak several languages.
(PS, sorry to nitpick but this article could use a grammar/spelling checkup)
Say what you will about his music, but Yanni was one of the first artists to really build a DIY career on a global scale. He played completely off the radar of the “establishment” and took little help or money from a major label entity.
You can follow his tour in pictures here: http://www.mobypicture.com/user/andrerieu
Andre Rieu is NOT a classical musician. Nor is Andrea Bocelli. Sting is much closer.
I think this band gets it already:
“Face the Music” by the Electro/Pop Protest band Canorous’ first album, was produced and mixed by the Hungarian starlet “Alex” M. Jozsa trained at the London College of Music. It will be the first-ever digital-only release available in four different languages simultaneously around the world. Five of the singles from the album, “Rise Up”, “I Want My Country Back,” “Right to Care,” “Humanity” and “Heart Burned Away” are sung in English, Mandarin, French and Spanish. There is also a Canorous iPhone/iPod Touch Application featuring the bands Social Networking, Live Show M-Ticketing, exclusive Video and Audio as well as Human Rights/Social Justice news feeds, scheduled on the release date, September 11, 2009, in Apple iTunes App store and the BlackBerry App World store. They plan a tour and their second album release later this winter.
yes! also the fact that those artists can gather fans across the ocean, know that there are people willing to see them play and actually perform overseas…