Based on some ideas in my book, and a piece I wrote with Dr Allegre Hadida in BusinessWeek (“One way to save the music industry“) in July last year, we have submitted to the ReThink Music business model competition.
Allegre is an academic at the Judge School of Business in Cambridge. ReThink Music is run by Harvard Business School and the Berklee School of Music. ReThink Music will be hosted in Boston in late April 2011.
The idea is called “Social Remix” – it is about subscription for participation rather than retail to listen. It renders content immune to piracy while at the same time opening up new opportunities for creative remixing.
More detail anon…
Dr Johnny Ryan FRHistS 
Hi Johnny
I’ve been thinking about this recently, and wondering if you’ve had much response from the classical music sector. The ideas you put forward sound perfect for contemporary popular music in which things like karaoke and audience participation are fairly well established; and more fundamentally, the musical culture is one that emphasises either passion, attitude and style rather than virtuousity per se.
An orchestra costs a hell of a lot money, not only in terms of direct wages and so forth but also in the many many years of training that the players require – there’s a reason so many are allied to major broadcasters or (in the US especially, ironically) municipalities. Of course, there are lots of levels of classical music, of which the symphony orchestra is just one.