Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

Opened to the public in 1903, theIsabella Stewart Gardner Museumis a world-class museum that houses more than 5,000 art objects, including works by Rembrandt, Michelangelo, Raphael, Degas, and Sargent. It is also known for its phenomenal music program, lectures, and symposia, as well as the museum’s nationally recognized Artist-in-Residence and educational programs.

Online, it is well-known as the producer and distributor ofThe Concert, a classical music podcast that features unreleased live performances by master musicians and talented young artists, recorded at the museum’s Sunday Concert Series. The podcast is free, distributed under aCreative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works license(Music Sharing), andwidely popular.The Concertwas one of the first classical music collections to be shared under a CC license, and the ISGM was one of the first art museums to actively distribute digital content under a CC license.

We’vetalkedaboutThe Concertbefore, but wanted to learn more about the series and the decision to use CC licenses for the project. We recently caught up with Director Anne Hawley and Curator of Music Scott Nickrenz, who were able to provide a lot of great information about the series and how CC licenses have played a role in its success.

Those in the CC community best know of the ISGM as a result of your highly successfulThe Concertpodcast. What was the inspiration for the podcast series? Why did you choose to release it under a CC license?

Anne Hawley: We launchedThe Concert– the museum’s first podcast – in September 2006, as a way to continue the museum’s long history of supporting artists and creative artistic thinking. During Isabella Gardner’s lifetime, the museum flowed with artistic activity: John Singer Sargent painted, Nellie Melba sang, and Ruth St. Denis performed the cobra dance within these walls. Isabella Gardner was a committed patron of artists and musicians and the museum has always followed her lead. The podcast is the latest example of this; it’s a modern way to bring the museum’s wealth of programming to a wider audience, promote the exceptional work of the musicians who perform here, and ultimately expand the reach of classical music.

音乐一直是加德纳花园的重要组成部分。1903年新年之夜，博物馆对外开放，观众们欣赏了波士顿交响乐团成员演奏的巴赫、莫扎特、肖森和舒曼的作品。据一位客人说，这是一场“难得的享受”的音乐会。在加德纳的一生中，博物馆接待了著名音乐家和后起之秀，包括作曲家古斯塔夫·马勒和文森特·丹迪，钢琴家伊格纳西·扬·帕德雷夫斯基和大提琴家巴勃罗·卡萨尔斯，并举办了令人难忘的音乐会，包括1903年为纪念伊莎贝拉·加德纳的生日而创作和演出的莱弗勒的《异教诗篇》的首演。Four years later, the work had its “official” premiere at the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

Today, the Gardner’s music series is the oldest of its kind in the country, with weekly concerts and special programs that enrich and draw musical connections to the museum’s special exhibitions and permanent collection, while continuing Isabella Gardner’s legacy as a music lover and patron of the arts.

Scott Nickrenz: We had hundreds of hours of fabulous live performances on CDs just sitting in the museum’s archives, so creating the podcast seemed a natural way to literally “dust off” these musical treasures and share them, expanding the reach of our concerts and promoting the talented artists who perform here to a worldwide audience. It’s the performances and the generosity of our artists that driveThe Concert— and the CC license that fuels it.

The Concertfeatures free, unreleased recordings of live performances recorded in the museum’s intimateTapestry Room. New programs are posted on themuseum’s websiteon the 1st and 15th of every month, and listeners can subscribe to receive free, automatic updates. Podcast episodes contain about 45 minutes of music featuring selections from the museum’s recording archives, with a brief introduction that provides context and makes connections among the featured works. The podcast is linked to our online music library, where works are archived individually. The online library – growing every month – currently includes almost 150 works.

Thanks to the “Share Music” license, the Gardner’s program is unique in encouraging the public to download, or save, classical music performances from the Gardner – and share them with friends and family.

Anne Hawley: The podcast is a true collaboration, bringing together the talents of emerging and established musicians who perform inThe Concertseries, the freedoms offered by Creative Commons licensing, the legal expertise ofJeff Cunardand theBerkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School, the support of theInternet Archive, and the work of many people here at the Gardner Museum.

We like to think that, were Isabella Gardner alive today, she would be an active subscriber to our podcast feed, just as she was an innovator and forward thinker during her lifetime—an “early adopter” of all the arts! We’re delighted thatThe Concertcontributes to the democratization of classical music through technology.

What kind of results have you seen from using a CC license forThe Concert? How important has that license choice been to the project as a whole?

Anne Hawley: The Creative Commons license has been key to the entire project.The Concertbroke new ground, marking the first time an art museum actively encouraged sharing and free distribution of its online programming through a “some rights reserved” copyright license. We were also one of the first classical music collections to encourage and legally allow file sharing of its music.

Scott Nickrenz: I was really excited when I heard about the possibilities offered by a CC license, and knew that it was what we had to do for the podcast. Our goal withThe Concertwas to bring what we do at the museum to the widest number of people possible worldwide, and CC has allowed us to do that.

Through the podcast and our online music library, we’ve reached hundreds of thousands more people than can attend our concerts live each year in our intimately-sized concert hall. To date the podcast and music library have been accessed by listeners in 116 countries across the globe, from Azerbaijan to Croatia. I’m thrilled that we’ve been able to use the power of the internet to spread classical music, in a way that fits how people live and listen to music today.

Anne Hawley: These are extraordinary performances that Scott brings to the museum, and the new ways of distributing music—online and almost instantaneously—make them incredibly accessible. We’ve gotten extremely positive feedback from all across the world, most recently from a listener “up a mountain in Eastern Crete.” The podcast has helped us to reach many people who might not otherwise know about the museum or have access to these kinds of performances.

The launch ofThe Concertwas heralded by the media as well as listeners for its revolutionary approach in offering free music and encouraging sharing. Bostonistcalledthe creation of the podcast “a totally hip move” and Fast Companycommentedthat using technology to share the museum’s “classical goodness” is “just the way Isabella would have wanted it.”

The Concertrecentlly reached over 1 million downloads. Thelicense you all chose允许免费分享音乐-你看到两者之间的关联了吗?CC许可是如何影响播客的传播的?

Anne Hawley: Absolutely – making these high-quality recordings free and shareable is a major part of whyThe Concerthas been so successful. In thinking about the podcast, it was important to us to really embrace the way people are listening to music today. And it seems to have worked: in the first six weeks alone, we had over 40,000 downloads from 83 countries–which was unprecedented for a classical music podcast–and we reached the one-million download mark this past May.

Scott Nickrenz字体我们欢迎文件共享，因为这是人们分享经验和发现事物的一种新方式。我们把音乐的介绍放在一个特定的背景中，因为我们想为所有熟悉古典音乐的听众提供帮助。本期播客收录了当今许多重要的艺术家和冉冉升起的新星，他们都是这个项目的热情和支持伙伴。

Renowned pianist Jeremy Denk, one of the musicians heard onThe Concert他称播客“不仅对参与其中的音乐人来说是一个很好的机会，对听众来说也是……这样的项目支持了古典音乐中的新声音，并为听众创造了听到这些声音的新机会。”

我们希望这些艺术家和这首音乐能够被那些原本不会听到它的人听到。很明显，分发古典音乐的旧模式已经今非昔比;我们想要接触到他们所在的地方，那就是在线。我们希望人们能充分利用我们提供的服务。我一直把这整件事想成“莫扎特病毒”——我们希望它能传播给尽可能多的听众!

What is up next for ISGM?

Anne Hawley当前位置我们一直在探索新思路，探索尖端科技如何帮助我们将加德纳博物馆的完整体验带给世界各地的艺术和音乐爱好者。The launch and success ofThe Concerthas been a wonderful and educational first step, and we look forward to breaking still newer ground and embarking on many other technology-fueled initiatives in the future. Stay tuned!