Electronic Classical Music – Classitronic

Classitronic.net is an attempt to create a point of contact for both the fans and makers of Electronic Classical music, or Classitronic as some have called it and hence the name of this weblog. Some where you can find new interpretations of classics, see who’s doing what and if you are new to this, you can find out about the past masters Isao Tomita and Wendy Carlos whom first started this style back in the late 1960’s and early 70’s and more recently by William Orbit with his album Pieces in a Modern Style (2000).

For a long time I tried to find websites which were dedicated to Electronic Classical music or classical synth music or however you might call it. You can find blogs and sites on almost every type of electronic music like dance, trance, ambient, hard house, dubstep, jungle, etc etc and there are some many websites about classical music it boggles the mind and the eyes and yet there is virtually nothing for this style, which for want of a better description I and some others have termed Classitronic (Classical Electronic) but it could also be called ambient, chill out or even trance (less the four on the floor drums) depending upon the composer and the style of the performer.

Wendy Carlos kicked this style off with Switched on Bach was the biggest selling classical album for a long time and Isao Tomita played to hundreds of thousands of people around the globe and sold a lot of albums but after the mid 80’s they had all but disappeared from the mainstream music scene, but who were the successors?, William Orbit did one album in 2000 with Pieces in a Modern Style 2 due for release in Summer 2009 ( so the record label Decca must think there is a market or they wouldn’t back it ) but thats about it.

Ah, I hear you say if it so good why is it so thin on the ground, I personally think that at the moment it seems to fall between two stools, on one hand the pure classicists think we are the spawn of the devil for ruining there beloved works and on the other the modern electronic crowd seem to be scared off by the word classical.  So what does that mean for the future?, I personally  think this has great potential, it has the best attributes of both, the structure and form of the classical but with amazing sound palette the electronics and synths.  After all the classics have been with us for 400 years and electronica is as mainstream as you could get now, they have been combined before, lets do it again.

We have seen from the 60’s where Wendy Carlos  started it, and then how Isao Tomita expanded on this in the 70’s and 80’s. Now the novelty of squeeks and pops is long past and synths are everywhere the time to return to the music is ripe and with modern equipement and distribution via the internet (because record labels are only interested shifting volume to make money, no matter how niche they say they are, they will probably just laugh at you), the typical bedroom artist can produce the same quality of work that only pro’s with large bank accounts could do before. This becomes a self fulfilling prophecy, the more of this style that is made and got out there, the more people will want to hear more of it. Thats my theory and I can no reason why this should not become as popular again as it was 30 odd years ago.

So, if you are an artist that does this then email paul.shillito@classitronic.net or leave a comment on the Contact Us Page about what you do and we will add you to our current artist list, or if you have material you would like to show case you can put it in to our soundcloud group and it will appear both here on the “listen on soundcloud” link in the right hand menu and on soundcloud too.