‘I’d love to get rid of the baggage that’s associated with classical.’

August 6, 2024

Sean Michael Gross is here to change your mind about classical music.

The VP of Warner Classics UK & North America is on a mission. Not just to establish Warner Classics as a classical music powerhouse to rival Universal and Sony, but also to move the genre away from its elitist image to a younger, more diverse future – on stage, in the audience and behind the scenes.

His plan seems to be working. Warner Classics UK has increased its track consumption market share each year since Gross joined the company. He has helped power the success of contemporary artists such as Riopy, the French pianist/composer with the remarkable back story (Cult membership! Homelessness! Chris Martin from Coldplay!) who is rapidly closing in on one billion worldwide streams.

And, in a quiet Warner building just before a Bank Holiday weekend, he buzzes with equal enthusiasm at reigniting Maria Callas’ classic catalogue as he does at seeing the Vision String Quartet play a Through The Noise night in a rock venue where most of the crowd was “under 40, if not 30”.

It wasn’t always this way. As a kid, Gross lived in the heart of Hollywood – right by the Capitol Records building – but moved to Tennessee when he was 10. There, he discovered jazz – “I cornered the market when it came to teenage Tennessee jazz fans,” he chuckles – before moving to New York City for college, a few weeks before 9/11 (“One of those moments in your life when there was a before and an after, and you can never really see things the same way”).

A mean jazz saxophonist, he never fancied pursuing it professionally (“I loved the music but I didn’t want the lifestyle that went along with it”), instead securing an internship at EMI Classics – ironically working on what’s now a large chunk of Warner’s classical catalogue.

At the time, piracy was threatening to wipe out the record business, so he moved into talent management, first at Columbia Artists Management and then IMG. He then took up a role with classical PR firm 21C Media Group, building a wildly successful division dedicated to what is now known as digital content, long before most companies had switched on to the possibilities.

He spent a decade there before moving to the UK’s Askonas Holt agency, not long before COVID kicked in. He spent lockdown in a strange city in a new, unfurnished flat, before joining to lead Warner Classics UK in 2021. He added North America to his role last year.

Recently returned from parental leave, his advocacy for the classical genre can be seen in his additional role on the board of governors at the Guildhall School Of Music And Drama (where he arranged for Daft Punk’s Thomas Bangalter to give a talk when Bangalter made Mythologies, his first composition for orchestra).

Gross also successfully lobbied the Official Charts Company to reform its definition of classical, after Abel Selaocoe’s debut album, Where Is Home (Hae Ke Kae), was denied entry to the Classical Specialist Chart in 2022 (“He’ll get his No.1 next time: you can put that in print!”
Gross declares).

Black Lives In Music assisted with that campaign, and Warner Classics is also working with the organisation to showcase emerging talent at BLIM’s Classically Black Symposium in October.

Despite all that passion for the genre, Gross point blank admits that classical music was only his “second love”.

“Jazz was my first love, but sometimes it’s hard to work with something you love so dearly,” he says. “So, I decided to make classical my focus in terms of where I was going to build my career, because I would always be learning something. The repertoire is so vast, there’s so much to listen to and experience that it was always going to be a lifelong journey…”

Here he talks MBW through that journey, and where his travels might yet take him…

How do you view your role at Warner Classics?

I’m wearing a few different hats! Classics is not only a frontline business, it’s a catalogue business.

Like all labels, it’s a digital and physical business, but physical is a bit better represented, at least in the UK market, than it is with other genres.

We have some unique challenges with classical music in that a lot of our output is essentially covers of repertoire. When it comes to streaming and the consumption business, we’re competing against many different versions of the same repertoire, so there are some unique challenges
in marketing.

I see it as my job to drive success for our frontline artists and releases and to create opportunities to reactivate our catalogue across the two biggest streaming markets in the world for classical music.

In terms of the idea of unifying the UK and North American teams under my leadership, looking at the surface one could jump to the conclusion this was about streamlining or cost-cutting. But, in reality, there are some great advantages to it in that it’s allowing us to align our priorities, our resources and our budgets so we can put a much greater spend and resource behind campaigns that move the needle.

Warner has not, historically, been hugely renowned for its classical output. How do you change that?

Well, EMI Classics did have that, so we have that heritage without having the brand.

But our focus has been less on creating a very specific identity for us as a label, and more on the individual artists and developing them.

We sign artists that have passion, talent and potential, rather than only signing artists that fit within a certain box or identity for our label. Warner Classics is a more inclusive classical label in that way. It doesn’t just stand for one thing, it can stand for a variety of things.

“Warner Classics is a more inclusive label. It doesn’t just stand for one thing, it can stand for a variety of things.”

We have some of the greatest core classical artists today, from Alison Balsom and Gautier Capucon to artists that are really pushing boundaries of what classical music is like Abel Selaocoe or Fatma Said or Büşra Kayıkçı. There’s a broad range.

How have you managed to grow Warner Classics’ market share so successfully?

In a variety of ways. One is through our artist-led strategy, working tirelessly to build our artists’ brands and audiences in the UK from the frontline perspective.

Under the catalogue umbrella, there’s the legacy piece of us celebrating our icons from the past, reactivating their catalogues and introducing them to a new audience. And there’s also the piece recognising that a lot of classical consumption today is driven by lean-back consumption, mood- or utility- or moment-related programming.

We’re always thinking about creative ways in which we can capitalise on that through a DSP or commercial-led strategy tailored to a specific moment.

We hear a lot about how hard it is to break artists these days. Is it easier or harder in the classical world than the pop world?

It’s even harder! That said, it’s a great time to be a bit niche. All the traditional barriers to entry are gone, there’s no cost to experimentation for most people, and with a younger generation of music lovers, they’re more omnivorous than ever in not putting things into boxes in the same way that other generations before them have done.

From that perspective, there’s an openness to the artists, they’re not being thought of as ‘just a classical artist’ – their music is compelling and they’re compelling as personalities as well. There’s an ability to connect and develop in that way.

If you’re talking about breaking artists commercially, obviously there are challenges we face that are specific to classical music. We work in a repertoire-driven business, where the biggest names in classical music are not the artists, they’re the composers. People are searching for Bach or Mozart more than they are for artists.

You need a compelling story. Riopy composes music out of necessity, as a means of healing himself, and we’ve had millions of people around the world naturally flock to his music because they find it a source of comfort and healing because of his lived experience and coming out on the other side.

He’s a really incredible example of an artist with a lot of relevance today, whose music is connecting with a very broad audience.

How do you get around the repertoire/artist problem on streaming services?

We’re directly engaging with the DSPs and giving them a good reason to profile and programme our artists and releases. The DSPs are doing an increasingly good job at curation and editorial for classical music – the obvious example is the launch of Apple Music Classical – and the searchability and metadata problem that has plagued classical music for a long time has really been overcome.

“We’re engaging with DPS and giving them a good reason to profile and programme our artists and releases.”

That’s good for us because it means it’s not just same version of Chopin’s Nocturnes that’s being recycled over and over again. It’s presenting opportunities for artists recording today to get their music heard.

Pop music streaming algorithms seem to favour shorter, blander tracks. Does classical have the same issue?

There’s a misconception around the idea that tracks have to be short in order to be successful. One of our most successful Riopy tracks is 22 minutes long, it doesn’t necessarily have to be chopped up into three minute or 31 second bits.

We haven’t played that game. We want to cater to the audiences and do the best possible job by our artists and, if we do that, the success will follow. We’re not in it to game the system.

Does classical music have a diversity problem?

I’d be lying to you if I said it didn’t. Women, non-binary and ethnically diverse artists and composers have been underrepresented for the better part of a millennium, and there are systemic barriers that, even to this day, make it more challenging for certain communities to pursue careers in our field.

Many issues go back to access to music education. Classical music is one of those things that requires 10,000 hours of practise and immersion to achieve a level of mastery and, without access to instruments and education, it creates an unlevel playing field that means certain communities end up being disadvantaged.

Does it also still have an image problem?

I’d love to get rid of the baggage that’s associated with classical because of the outdated perception that classical music is stuffy, rigid or exclusive in some way. It doesn’t actually suit the music, the repertoire or the artists at all. That’s just a relic of 19th Century concert hall etiquette that has lingered for some time.

Classical music doesn’t have to be presented within one context, in these ivory towers. And it’s not just Last Night Of The Proms, as great as the Proms are. When you put the right artist in front of the right audience with a compelling programme and without any of that baggage, it’s quite an easy sell.

Look at what’s happening with jazz. We’re living through an amazing time for jazz now with Ezra Collective winning the Mercury and the success Yussef Dayes has had with Black Classical Music.

So, it’s really about connecting artists to that audience. For an artist like Abel [Selaocoe], it’s not proving difficult for him to grow that audience because the music he’s making is naturally extremely compelling and appealing to that demographic.

What effect will cuts in arts funding have on classical music in the UK?

It’s obviously concerning in that the arts drive a lot of our society and the economy forward. So, cutting arts funding in many ways seems counter-productive.

Its impact on our business is a concern, but we’re optimistic that many of these organisations are incredibly resilient and are looking towards creating new models and developing new sources of funding. In a way, although it’s a tough way to go about it, it’s forcing quite a few institutions to be very innovative and creative.

What about cuts to the BBC?

As an American living in the UK, I do not take for granted the value added by having a robust public broadcast network, especially one with such a commitment to classical music and the arts.

The BBC is in a tough position with the licence fee being frozen and is having to make some tough decisions. But the changes they’ve made as part of their new strategy for classical music are largely very positive – they’re better serving the public while also bringing a wider audience to the genre.

You just have to look at the latest Proms season to see the changing face of classical music – it’s a much broader and more diverse offering, but one with no less integrity.

That bodes well. Classical music is becoming more closely connected to the rest of the music industry, rather than further away from it.

If you could change one thing about the music industry, right here and now, what would it be and why?

Reinstitute music education as part of the standard curriculum in schools. If we want to do something to better humanity and increase empathy within our society, and lord knows we need that right now, we need to teach people with different perspectives to listen to each other and work together. And the best way to do that in my opinion? Have them join an ensemble or a choir and make music.