Looking for recorded performances of Classical works

[rick costello]

I recently developed a royalty free music website and I'm looking for recordings for my 'classical music' category. If you are a composer or performer who owns the rights to your recording, and you are looking to promote your talents, please consider adding it to my site. http://www.freemusicpublicdomain.com/royalty-free-classical-music/

[Monsieur Croche]

https://www.youtube.com/v/essNmNOrQto

With all due respect, giving it away for 'promotion,' i.e. 'doing it for the exposure,' is for the more / most desperate of amateurs and hacks.

So, sorry, the answer is no. 
Thank you, but... just no.


Best regards.

[rick costello]

With all due respect, that's your opinion. Jon Sayles is an incredibly talented classical guitarist whose playing is top notch. Because he freely shares his music with the world does not make him desperate, nor a hack. I'm proud to help him share his music through my website.
My experience with  the music industry is that for most it is a struggle. Those who have major success are few and far between.  For the legions of others, many who are very gifted and talented, their music fades into obscurity. Why not share it? Especially something as timeless as classical music.
Perhaps you have had success and for that I congratulate you, but your response comes off as a bit bitter.

[Monsieur Croche]

With all due respect, that's your opinion. Jon Sayles is an incredibly talented classical guitarist whose playing is top notch. Because he freely shares his music with the world does not make him desperate, nor a hack. I'm proud to help him share his music through my website.
My experience with  the music industry is that for most it is a struggle. Those who have major success are few and far between.  For the legions of others, many who are very gifted and talented, their music fades into obscurity. Why not share it? Especially something as timeless as classical music.
Perhaps you have had success and for that I congratulate you, but your response comes off as a bit bitter.

Who funded Mr. Sayles through all the time and costs of buying and maintaining a decent instrument and his lessons.  I imagine that Sayles, too, has had former successes and a career which did pay him so that he can now afford to be generous and give away his recordings, gratis.  Hats off to Mr. Sayles, then.

The near myth of internet exposure (or online crowd funding) for a career in classical remains, at present, a near myth.  Even in the more pop genre arena, the likelihood of discovery by way of your music being publicly available via the the internet, being booked, put under contract, your music bought and paid for via being 'discovered' and picked up commercially is in the million to one ratio.

There will always be composers in all genres who are excellent, 'great' even, who are not picked up by any sort of wide general audience, and that will include as well the 'establishment' in relation to such composers.

I also think, 'just another opinion,' well, I don't know what, that is if you expect that any kind of genuinely contemporary classical -- including the most tonal and conservative stripe, would readily find even a small listening audience, let alone have any chance of worthwhile exposure that would lead to some career advantage wherein the composer might get paid in order to help sustain their efforts in being a composer vs. a part time accountant or barista -- on a channel with a mixed venue of pop, rock, soft jazz, and 'a bit of classical'...   IMO, that is just a wildly unrealistic far too overlong shot.  How many music managers, conductors, concert programmers, recording labels in and around the classical music arena comb the internet looking for new talent?  Nary a one.  They each have an in-place circle of colleagues upon whom they rely for recommendations of that sort.

When it comes to instrumental performers playing classical music now in the public domain, that is another ball of wax.  I would not even think to offer the more truly contemporary composer any hope, in that the market for classical, general, is 3% of the population, the audience for the modern and contemporary rep that much smaller, a fraction of a percent of that three percent.  If you programmed that repertoire (in which I am quite immersed, well enough versed) I believe you would more likely repel the target audience for a station with a mixed venue as you've described it, i.e. 'a little classical' sounds very average concert-goer, "A little classical music, because it is so relaxing," is antithetical to what most composers, any era, are aiming for or what they are actually doing or about.

I can easily imagine that the only time a classical performer or composer would, and should, 'offer it up for free for exposure' is during their undergraduate years, the graduate level already a time to more specifically target other professional performers and venues, though often paid next to nothing, in which to further expose their work.  I imagine those early years were for you, too, about the only phase of your career when you entertained 'giving it away for nothing.'

I more than appreciate that dilemma best expressed in the Joni Mitchell song, playing real good, for free.

I do think you have opened yourself up to a lot of submissions by very hopeful as yet sub-par performers and composers whose ambition does not quite yet, anyway, meet the ability or quality required to fulfill the ambition.  A quick perusal of the composer's section on this or many another music forum will pretty much confirm that.

I do wish you and those who submit works to you the best of luck, while I still think the entire premise has little or no real advantage for those who submit their works, while I wonder if your site will provide you at least some partial recompense for your expenses in running and maintaining it.

BTW, I'm not at all bitter, but as an older retired professional classical musician, I get more than a little angry when the 'do it for nothing because I/we can provide you with exposure' card is played, as it is almost invariably a card played by someone in business who is otherwise charging for every bit of effort and service they provide, and those charges including covering all other ancillary costs of materials, transport, etc, while thinking they can get some terribly eager for recognition young musicians, whatever the musical genre, to provide music -- for nothing.

Best regards.

[rick costello]

Monsieur Croche,
I like this response much better. Thank you for your input. You have many valid points but let me get to a few very basic things. First off, my intention is not to make money off of someone elses work. I can't recoup the yearly expenses I incur now let alone pay back all the years of investment into my music. I assure you, my intentions are noble. 
Secondly, using the term 'promote' was misleading and I should have expanded on that. I'm simply looking for artists who may have recordings that are sitting dormant with no revenue being generated. Perhaps they want to share their music and the fruits of their labor instead of letting it fade away.  They already incurred the expense and they are never going to get it back so why not?  I hope there are a few out there like me who simply want their music to be heard.