“At Prima Classic we care about each project as if it’s the only one we’re working on”: An Interview with Edgardo Vertanessian
October 14, 2025
By Hana Grubenko
This article originally appeared in Issue 48:4 (Mar/Apr 2025) of Fanfare Magazine.
The artistic life has never been easy, but it seems uncommonly hard nowaÍdays. Competition is fierce, audiences are oversaturated, critics and producers are ruthless in their judgments and selections, and the artistic path, which is supposed to be a creative search, has become a brutal game of survival.
In the jungle which is supposed to be the world of fine art, participants (in this case, musicians) are in danger of losing not just their identity, but also their dignity and sense of right and wrong. An artist needs an audience to convert his art into the bread and wine of daily life. Whether the art is worthy of attention or not decides the producing company toward acceptance or refusal, and a refusal can seem arbitrary and pave the road for despair.
For a musician an album is not a sounding flyer advertising his wares, but a piece of craft and soul. Desperately fighting for attention, artists sign unprofitable agreements, haunting famous labels to sign with and receive validation from them. Such validation is a mirage, because a label’s fame does not confer any benefit if the share of earnings for the recording is small.
The lack of options has made the game quite tough, but there is a change on the horizon! The independent record label Prima Classic, founded by Soprano Marina Rebeka and sound engineer Edgardo Vertanessian, is guiding classical recording out of the jungle and offering a return to genuine art. Led by a passion to produce and nurture beautiful music, Prima Classic doesn’t charge artists for a release in advance and shares 50 percent of earnings. This attitude may improve the market for classical music recordings and make a decisive change in the world of music.
Edgardo, it is a pleasure to welcome you at Fanfare! You have worked a lot with diverse artists and in different fields. What is the crucial difference between producing classical and pop music recordings?
Although I did work on some rock music albums, my main role when I worked with popular music (pop, rock, hip-hop, and dance) has been in a live environment, as the sound system designer and tuner (audio system tuning, very different from piano tuning!) for large tours in arenas and stadiums around the world. I’ve also dedicated a significant part of my career to mix different bands live, which was what I did until I retired from touring in 2023.
With Prima Classic we don’t participate in live events. All our recordings—save for a very few exceptions—are produced and recorded in the studio, with ample time calmly to find the best possible sound we can get. So, to answer your question, in popular music we manufacture a certain type of music or sound that could never be attained acoustically. This is done by means of synthesizers, effects, and digital manipulation that can actually create sounds that have never existed in the real world. In classical music we do the exact opposite: We search for the purest representation of what is being acoustically played by the musicians, the real natural sound. In other terms, in popular music the focus is on creating the type of sound that artists or producers first create in their heads, and in classical music the focus is on registering exactly the way the artist already sounds.
Classical music is a niche product; what is the strategy of Prima Classic to reach the wider audience?
We want to reach not only classical music lovers, but a much wider audience—people who may not be able to recognize a particular work or performer, but nevertheless enjoy the way they feel when they listen to classical music. The way to achieve this is through playlist positioning on the streaming services, a topic we are very focused on.
What do you think of crossover music?
I think it serves a specific purpose, which is to present a music genre to new audiences—say opera, for example, to a non-opera audience. Crossover is not really opera and it’s not popular music either; however, it points in the direction of opera to those who are familiar with popular music and who otherwise would have never heard of opera.
Do you produce it?
Not particularly, but we are doing some experiments in that direction, most notably Marina Rebeka’s new track “Tell the World,” which was composed and produced specially for her to try to do what I just described.
Does it endanger classical music in any way?
Not at all. They are two different things. For instance, when talking to lots of people about opera they usually bring up the name of Andrea Bocelli. And I love that fact, because they never even heard of Maria Callas or Mario del Monaco, much less of the current singers, but they’ve listened to Bocelli. This is a conversation starter and then one can suggest names of opera works and singers, and the person already has a reference and usually a lovely memory of what they heard as opera. We should never underestimate the power of first impressions, and crossover is a great generator of those to a lot of people. In fact, it is an ambassador of classical music to the wider world!
Prima Classic offers a very rare deal for the artist: You don’t charge musicians and you share 50 percent of wins. What are the conditions of starting the collaboration for a musical artist?
Yes, it’s called the 50/50 deal, and it’s our pride and joy! Before going further, I have to say that it’s a deal limited to a certain type of music that we believe can generate enough income, and applies to a certain number of the albums we produce, but it’s a fantastic deal for the artist. Basically, we finance the production of the recording and we release it globally in digital format, including Atmos. After the expenses have been recouped by the generated income, we share all further income 50/50 with the artist, and this includes streaming income, neighboring rights, and publishing income. In the event that the recording does not do well, the artist doesn’t have to pay anything. Unlike other labels, we love to share streaming income and pay our artists; we want them to make money so their efforts are recognized and they are motivated to continue to record. We are always looking for new recording projects and artists. We also consider pre-recorded material, as long as it hasn’t been previously released.
I also have to say that it’s not easy to make money in the current digital world, so it’s better to concentrate on producing great music and not so much on playing the system. We believe talent is always, sooner or later, recognized and rewarded.
You’ve got a mobile recording studio: How does it work? Could you produce live recordings of large orchestral and opera productions?
Yes, we have state-of-the-art equipment stationed in Europe, which allows us to easily record any size of production anywhere in Europe and the UK. We routinely cooperate with theaters and with other labels providing recording and production services in Europe.
From a solo guitar album to a fully staged opera, we can do it, and with the best equipment. Of course, that is a key factor for us, because as a label we don’t need to hire the technical personnel, which is usually the biggest cost of a recording. We also work with associated recording studios across Europe, the UK, the USA, and South America. We work with artists from the five continents!
Are you able to produce an album from anywhere?
The short answer is yes. Every recording is different, but as the saying goes, “If there’s a will, there’s a way.” So far, we’ve always managed to produce albums in all the places we needed to, either with our own resources or with those of our associates.
How do you distribute the recordings?
We distribute digitally through The Orchard (New York) and physically through Proper (London). It’s fundamental for a record label to have a great relationship with its distributors. There are lots of moving pieces in the music business, and everyone plays an important part. It’s a team effort!
Are Prima Classic’s releases available on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple music?
Yes, and in over 80 other streaming platforms worldwide!
To produce and to release an album requires an investment; once released, the album is available to stream for free. What would encourage anybody to purchase an album in that case?
Streaming is never really free, because the “free” platforms (or plans) have adverts which pay a very small amount to the music creator. But I agree that the readily available “music everywhere” model has demolished the perceived value of music, and a lot of people refuse to pay for it.
The streaming model as it is today was not meant for classical music or for any other niche genre, and thus it is not beneficial for us. The payout is divided between every track in the digital platform according to each track’s total number of streams, regardless of genre and, most importantly, regardless of what each user listened to. This system is unfair with niche music genres for many reasons. Classical music doesn’t lend itself to be listened “on repeat,” and there are many fewer listeners and playlists, which means much less exposure. And there is the streaming fraud issue, which are fake streams generated by bad people using bots playing “fake music” (these are very short tracks generated by AI with no musical value, but they count as streams anyway), and they suck up valuable streams to their pockets. This is the most important and difficult problem to solve now.
But today there is enough computing power available, so the solution will be a payout model based on what each person listens to every month, so if I listen to classical music 100% of the time, then 100% of my subscription fee will go to the artists I listened to, and not to the famous pop star of the day or the fake bots, as it is now.
And what about CDs?
We love CDs and we still produce some select albums in CD format, but it’s a format that is restricted to a certain number of people who still have CD players and are willing to pay for the CDs. We really regret this, but honestly, I don’t see a physical format becoming the new standard anytime soon. A lot of people are thinking of other ways to bring the music to a physical format, the natural evolution being some form of merchandising, but this is not applicable to every artist or music genre. In a way, the CD became a form of merchandising and a way for people to support the artists they like, for instance, buying them after a concert. People in Asia and some countries in Europe still buy CDs, though.
As a musician, I might ask what is the use of signing to a label? I might think that I could produce a recording and put it out myself on several streaming platforms and social media. Why would I be wrong, and why is a label very much of use?
This is the beauty of our times, that anyone can do it. Going with a label depends on the artist’s intentions and even the specific type of music. In my opinion, having a label gives the artist a certain credibility or backing, because a record label—when it is a real one and not just a fantasy name—has its own editorial line and this means that the artists on that label have something in common. In the case of Prima Classic, it will be two things: mastery of their instrument and the ability to express beauty through it, regardless of the type of music and the type of instrument.
A good label also has strong connections with the main streaming companies and will naturally have a better chance to get the music into playlists and in front of a wider audience. There is a lot going on behind doors that artists are unaware of, things like metadata management on multiple platforms, pitches to playlist editors, submissions for review, long mailing lists, accounting, deals in place with different companies and societies around the world, publishing and rights management, collaborations with other companies, social media, pitches for audio-visual synchronization, etc. There really is a lot to a record label, not just a name at the bottom of the album!
If artists want to develop lifelong careers, they have to have recordings reflecting their development, and the best solution is to partner with a record label that will support them through the years. The relationship between a record label and an artist must be one of mutual understanding and a complete alignment of their interests. This is why it is fundamental to have a 50/50 deal, because this means that either both win or both don’t.
My advice to artists searching for a label is to ask themselves the question: Why would this label do anything for me? There are two possible answers: “Because I pay them to do it” or “Because they will make money out there if they do, and we will both share it.” It is obvious which one is the answer most beneficial for the artist.
Do you produce vinyl or jazz?
There were albums for which we evaluated making vinyl, but so far, we haven’t done it. There aren’t enough vinyl sales in our music genre to support it, but if an artist wants to do it anyway we would help them, of course.
With regard to genres, as a label you have to choose a music genre—in our case classical music in the wider sense of the expression—and then develop an identity within that genre. Prima Classic’s identity is “beauty” in the traditional but very ample sense of the word. We can record anything from early music to Rachmaninov, and from choral to handpan. But we don’t do just any music that we like, because then we would be overreaching outside of our area of expertise. This long preamble goes to say that no, we don’t produce jazz and we don’t produce atonal music. We are very selective with the 20th- and 21st-century repertoire that we record.
Could you imagine a video channel, Netflix-like, for musical productions? I saw a short video of The Little Prince on your website, which would make a perfect candidate for such a stream, and Norma seems to have a cinematic potential too.
There are already classical music video platforms, and very good ones, but video content production is another business, completely different from music. We concentrate in what we understand and what we believe we do well, which is classical music audio recordings. We are always open to collaborations and in fact, as I said before, other labels often hire our recording services, and we have recorded and produced the audio portion for many opera video productions available on ARTE and Medici TV.
You started to work as a live music sound engineer for pop and rock concerts in 1997. What brought you to classical music?
I come from a nonmusical family, but I always loved music since I have a memory of it. I went to a six-year-long high school that had an intense program in electronics, and thanks to that I discovered my passion not just for music, but for audio and all the technical aspects of it. After studying music recording at the same time, my first job during my last high school year was as an audio assistant at a live rock concert; but my first real job was as an audio assistant at an amazing classical music recording studio. So, I had a taste of both worlds right away. And they are very different worlds!
Very soon I focused on audio for live shows and that has given me wonderful memories and lots of experience, but eventually classical music—opera in particular—became a very important part of my personal life. So, after 26 years with popular music, I decided to make the full switch to classical, and I am loving it.
What fascinates you mostly about music?
The ability that music has to change the atmosphere of a place, or bringing back memories, and the stirring of emotions, all that in an almost immediate way. No other art form has this power, and the magic is that music is absolutely abstract, invisible. You can’t see it or touch it or taste it or smell it, but when it fills the air lots of things happen. Now, this is very powerful because just as music charged with positive emotions can calm, heal, and soothe the human spirit, also music with negative emotions can awaken darker aspects of ourselves. Use it with care!
The year 1997 in combination with Buenos Aire, makes me think of Astor Piazzolla. Have you had any professional encounters with him?
No, I was too young to have the chance to meeting him, and although his family is very involved with his legacy, I never worked with them. But we do record his music all the time!
Any plans with tango at Prima Classic?
We just released an album called The History of Tango, with works by Astor Piazzolla and Cacho Tirao, played by the amazing guitar player Artyom Dervoed, along with the Russian National Orchestra. These were new arrangements for guitar and symphonic orchestra, a sensational album by all means.
We also released the solo album of Argentine guitar player Leonardo Andersen, who wrote some amazing tango-inspired works and included some Piazzolla as well! We have some ideas about other albums with bandoneon, but they are still in the development process.
Classical music is not as popular as it was 30 years ago and the demand shrinks. What prospects do future releases have?
This may be true for classical music “fans,” but there is a huge opportunity—the one we focus on—for delivering classical music to a non-classical music audience. The veracity of this can be tested very easily: Play a recording of a Chopin nocturne to any person of more than 40 years old and the majority will tell you they like it, without knowing that it’s Chopin or knowing anything about him. If the audience is more than 50 years old, the percentage of them liking it is even higher. That is a huge portion of the world’s population. There will always be an immense audience for beautiful music. We just need to figure out clever ways of making it easily accessible to them.
What could be done to change the dynamics and redefine the role of music globally?
I don’t have an opinion on that, but what I will say is that music now is played everywhere: in taxis, cafés, restaurants, elevators, and shops. This is not only annoying because we listen to what someone else decided to play; it’s one of the main reasons why music is perceived as of having very little intrinsic value. I would like to live in a more silent world, where music can have a more special place in people’s lives, when and how each person wants it.
If you could travel in time and record one deceased artist, who would that be?
Ah … what a beautiful dream! It would be more than one—the brothers Jean and Édouard De Reszke, the sopranos Giuditta Pasta, and Pauline Viardot. And Liszt….
Many thanks for the conversation! I’m looking forward to following up with new releases by Prima Classic.
Thanks to you, Hana and Fanfare. It was a pleasure speaking with you.
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