The music industry is a major proponent of Web3 integration, with use cases ranging from song rights, blockchain-based streaming, and new digital releases.
Genres such as pop, EDM, and hip hop represent intangible tokens (NFTs) in the music industry. However, classical music, and especially opera, found its entrance now.
The Living Opera Web3 community, which combines classical music with blockchain innovation, has turned to emerging technology to give new voices to popular art and the artists who perform it.
Living Opera CEO Sola Parasidis told Cointelegraph in an interview that the premiere Magic Mozart NFT set is a way to introduce the innovative world of fintech to traditional music and vice versa.
“We want it to be easy to understand, low-risk and a way for people to feel comfortable.”
Parassidis explains that these NFTs pay homage to the concept of “musikalisches würfelspiele”, a dice game to randomly generate music from preset options. This is one of the earliest examples of generative art and is attributed to Mozart.
Musicians have used NFTs for additional revenue and fan incentives, such as Grimes’ $5.8 million digital asset project. For classical music, this can mean a whole new life and level of relevance for the next generation.
A survey from the National Endowment for the Arts found that the percentage of adults in the United States who had attended at least one opera in 2010 It decreased from 3.2 percent in 2002 to 2.2 percent in 2017.
The pandemic has exacerbated this by closing classical venues and opera houses around the world. The Metropolitan Opera, one of the world’s premier opera houses, said its July 2021 revenue was down $25 million from last year.
Related: Experts explain how music NFTs can improve the relationship between creators and fans
Living Opera COO Christos Makridis told Cointelegraph that NFTs open a new way for classical artists and opera singers to bypass the traditional grant and grant process.
“Blockchain-based digital assets remove traditional barriers, proposals, artist endorsements, etc. so that the artists can connect directly with benefactors and avoid a lot of administrative costs.”
Makridis says NFTs give artists in this genre access to “short-term liquidity” that hasn’t existed before.
Some classical artists have worked in private NFTs, such as New Zealand composer Matthew Thomas Sung or American composer poser Christina Spinney.
In the year In 2021, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra was one of the pioneers of classical music NFTs. The orchestra issued the NFT as a fundraiser for musicians affected by the pay freeze caused by the Met Opera outbreak.
The DAO-like structure of Living Opera opens up micro-philanthropy for participating artists and their projects. Parasidis highlights the rarity of such innovations in a highly traditional industry and calls NFTs socio-cultural revolutionaries.
“They can be used as a means to attract voices, art forms and causes that need more visibility.”
Both Parasidis and Makridis say this technology will help engage young people in the arts and create new opportunities for long-time fans to engage.