Here are some excerpts from the April 13th article in the New York Times
"CRI IS DEAD. LONG LIVE CRI!"

   Fortunately, the CRI master tapes were carefully preserved.  They
   now pass to New World, which was founded in 1975 with support
   from the Rockefeller Foundation.  Its initial mandate was to
   produce a 100-disc anthology of American music from William
   Billings to William Bolcom.  Some 7,000 copies of the anthology
   were provided free to American schools and libraries.   But after
   the project was completed, New World stayed in the nonprofit
   recording business.  It continued raising funds for projects
   that would most likely have been ignored by for-profit labels,
   recordings ranging from Lou Harrison's Piano Concerto to a concert
   by the Nashville Mandolin Ensemble.

   Like CRI, New World, with its annual budget of $1.2 million, has
   a policy of keeping every album available.  Producing custom-made
   cd's should help it meet that pledge.

   The new technologies are already compelling consumers to rethink
   what it means to collect recordings.  A cd is essentially a
   floppy disc coated in plastic.  The information on the disc is
   what matters, and there are ways to transmit it that do not
   involve shipping boxes of cd's to retail stores.  Mr. Schultz,
   who last year left CRI to become the executive director of Eliza
   Monte Dance in New York, pointed out that most composers today
   can digitally edit recordings of performances of their works,
   burn individual copies and distribute them on their own web
   sites.

   "CRI is less paramount than it used to be," he said.  "Its become
   a sort of dinosaur." Maybe so.  But the imprint of CRI, a label
   enormously respected within the field, lent prestige to a
   composer's recording and provided assurance that it would be
   maintained.  If savvy young composers are becoming desk-top
   record producers, it's because they feel they have no choice.

   And will New World be as open to new projects?  What will happen to
   projects already in the pipeline at CRI?

   For example, the New York-based pianist Donald Berman, who gave
   a recital of works by Charles Ives and Carl Ruggles last week
   at the Miller Theater, had a notable critical success in 1999
   with his CRI album "The Unknown Ives."  This was to be the first
   in a series of three Ives recordings.  Mr.  Berman had also won
   approval for a CRI recording of the complete piano music by
   Ruggles.

   With the demise of CRI, Mr. Berman has had to start all over at
   New World.  Mr. Marotta has signed a letter of intent declaring
   that his company would like to complete these projects,  provided
   that Mr. Berman can secure solid financing.

   Meanwhile, other companies are noticing the success of the London
   Symphony and the San Francisco Symphony in distributing their
   own cd's.  During the 1950's and 60's the Louisville Orchestra
   built up a now historic archive of recordings of works by American
   composers.   Last month, the Santa Fe Music Group announced that
   it was releasing cd versions of four albums from the orchestra's
   First Edition series.  And a Canadian company, American Disc,
   is offering a service to digitize the archive of any record
   label, large or small.

   Consumers who doubt that an online future for the recording
   industry is coming should consider this: just five years ago,
   no one could have guessed that the San Francisco Symphony would
   be better off producing its own recordings than working under
   contract to the conglomerate BMG, its former company.  New World's
   plan to digitize the CRI catalog, which awaits only the approval
   of the New York State attorney general's office, seems a small
   but decisive step thoward that future.

Robert Berkoff...
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