Status Active Country of origin United States Founded 2012 | Genre classical music Founder John Anderson | |
Official website Odradek Records web site | ||
Odradek Records is a cooperative, non-profit record label that releases recordings of classical music.
Contents
History
Odradek Records, based in the United States, was founded by John Anderson in 2012 as an artist-controlled label for performers wishing to release recordings with more freedom than with other labels. Designed according to the model of peer-reviewed scientific journals, Odradek Records allows submissions from any performer, and these submissions are evaluated by other professionals. The founder, John Anderson, described this process: "Artists are chosen anonymously based solely on a demo recording by a committee of myself and four others, who rotate year to year."
Odradek Records also organizes festivals to showcase its artists. The first festival was held in five cities in Italy in July, 2012, and featured six artists performing works by a dozen composers.
Odradek Records takes its name from a mythical creature in Franz Kafka's story The Cares of a Family Man.
Artists and composers
Odradek Records focuses on classical music for piano, and features artists such as Domenico Codispoti, Mei Yi Foo, Duo Masumi & Miho Hio, Pina Napolitano and Javier Negrin. Malaysian pianist Mei Yi Foo received a BBC Music Magazine recording award for her Musical Toys disc, featuring works by Gubaidulina, Unsuk Chin and Ligeti.
The label has released recordings by composers such as Liszt, Ravel, Hindemith, Ligeti and Schönberg, and has received the first recording rights from Boosey & Hawkes for Unsuk Chin’s Piano Études.
Economic model
As a non-profit record label, Odradek Records keeps only enough money to cover expenses, passing on all profits to the performers. Odradek Records provides access to their recording studio for all recordings.
Odradek Records' recordings are licensed under the Creative Commons “Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0” license whenever possible. This license is used for works in the public domain, but not for recordings of compositions that are still under copyright.