The Blue Concert, this video platform which was to highlight the musicians of the Quebec classical scene, will ultimately not see the light of day. At least not in the short or medium term. The project has stalled, as interest in digital shows has declined significantly since the end of the pandemic. Quebec had invested $800,000 in it.
The platform was to be inaugurated in spring 2023. But in the end, the Concert Bleu website was never put into service. The board of directors, which brought together several influential members of classical music in Quebec, was dissolved a few months ago.
The instigator of the project, the baritone Marc Boucher, explained in an interview with The duty that the Concert Bleu is at a standstill, because Quebec refused to financially support the second phase, which provided for its implementation. The Ministry of Culture had already granted $800,000 for the development of the first phase in 2021. The initiative, launched the previous year by Marc Boucher, was inspired by the defunct Blue Basket.
It was the time of the pandemic, when buying local was trendy, when theaters were closed. The Blue Concert, with its offer of recording of shows, must have responded to an obvious need, especially since Quebec artists had no source of income during this period. But we must admit that the context changed a lot when the pandemic ended.
“Quebec considered that the priority after the pandemic was the return to theaters, and we accept that,” summarizes Marc Boucher, who is general and artistic director of the Classica Festival.
Have we overestimated the interest?
Even if the pandemic is over, he still believes that there is a demand for a platform that highlights classical music in Quebec. “I have friends in the Magdalen Islands who listen to plays on the TNM website. In big cities, people have access to almost every concert. But Quebec is a vast territory. A platform like the Blue Concert would allow our talents to shine everywhere,” illustrates the one who still hopes for the relaunch of the project.
Guillaume Lombard, who sat on the board of directors of the Concert Bleu, does not seem to share his optimism. “We were convinced, during the pandemic, that it would become a habit for people to listen to concerts in streaming. That’s not what happened. There are people who still pay to watch concerts by major international orchestras that they would not otherwise have access to. But there are very few people who would be ready to pay a subscription of $5 or $10 to listen to the concert of a Quebec artist who is on a 25-date tour across the province,” says the president of the house. music publishing company Ad Litteram.
The former administrators of the Concert Bleu are not ready to say that the $800,000 injected by the Ministry of Culture was of no use, even less that it was wasted. This envelope notably enabled the development of a beta version of what the website would have been. “It’s very little, $800,000, compared to all the cultural aid,” puts Guillaume Lombard into perspective.
The Blue Concert was an ambitious project to say the least. First, because it was in competition with the global giants of streaming listening, such as Apple Classique or Qobuz. But also because Marc Boucher had committed to redistributing 70% of the income to the rights holders when the project was launched.
To carry out the second phase, additional aid of $500,000 was requested from the Ministries of Culture and the Economy, in vain. Ultimately, we also hoped to obtain the support of patrons. It was also planned that the Blue Concert would generate revenue through subscriptions and advertising. “There were still a lot of question marks about the profitability of the project,” acknowledges Marc Boucher.