The Recordings and Musical Editions Company (EGREM), dean of Cuban record companies, arrives at its 58th birthday with new spirits and a clear objective. This is how its general director, Mario Escalona, expressed it to Cuba Si:
«The times have imposed a redesign within the music industry and we have talked all these days about how we have to re-found ourselves. Refounding is not abandoning what we have done, but adapting it, conditioning it, seeing when and in what opportunities we can continue developing the conservation of heritage, find new talents and seek, above all, that Cuban music remains alive.
Music from Cuba and for Cuba
“The way today, which is the essence of what we are going to work on this year, is to focus more strongly on the digital world. In other words, today everything that has to do, not only with the presentation in the already traditional distribution channels, we have signed with international companies that cover that market, but also to go a little further inward, to move from Sandunga, which is a new platform that music has, managed very well by ARTEX on behalf of all the record companies, also moving through a space that has now emerged with the research of the University of Informatics Sciences (UCI), and giving a little more national personality to what we have been doing.
“That can produce a very different impact, first towards our people, our followers, our public, who are not used to consuming music with a certain sense of payment, that is, we have always been used to moving in a different way, but with the technologies, we are already talking about around four million people who are moving in the consumption of digital products, be it through PCs, phones… so it could be a very important change, and that is one of the proposals that we are making with great force».
Connected with live music
«This that we have commented joins to move more all the variables that there are of the streaming. Based on data from the SP, an association that makes an annual report, the streaming today becomes the most successful model for disseminating music and, therefore, we have to go and move in that scheme, try to make these transmissions from the shows that we have in the Houses of Music themselves, and also look for that they have a distribution channel that allows the artist to monetize his work, and us, to accompany him».
Retro wave, vinyl is back
«In addition, we intend to continue, without abandoning the physical world, finding opportunities to move to some trends that are also occurring today with the record, in which we go to a retro format, which is vinyl. We are thinking of making some productions in cooperation with an international association, which will allow us, to that international niche that music is looking for, to return to the hands of that history that we have, those magnificent covers that we have in the archive, in a way different”.
