MUSIC : Delos: The House That CDs Built

An industrial park in a partially undeveloped part of Chatsworth may not seem a likely setting for a cultural endeavor, however commercial. Yet there resides Delos International, a record label whose recordings range from Eugene Ormandy’s last two with the Philadelphia Orchestra to Joe Williams’ Grammy winner, “Nothin’ but the Blues.”

Named for the Greek island sacred to Apollo, Delos may seem a figurative island in the surrounding light industry sea, but the inhabitants are happy to be there. Fifteen years ago, when the company began, it operated out of offices in the home of founder-president Amelia Haygood.

Then came the compact disc. The first Delos CDs were released in 1983, and “within a year, CDs tripled or quadrupled our market,” Haygood says. “We ship by truckloads now, instead of little trips to the post office.”

Now the company issues only CDs, and unlike most of its larger competitors, all of the 50 discs that Delos plans to release during the next 12 months will be new recordings, not re-releases. “I think it (the market) is being so oversaturated from the vaults of the majors, that we have to run just to stay in place,” Haygood says.

Staying in place means increasingly wide-ranging work. Last month, for example, the company sent a team to Brazil to record three discs from the International String Competitions at Joao Pessoa. One recording will feature the three contest winners in Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 2, Bartok’s Viola Concerto and Tchaikovsky’s “Rococo” Variations.

Another disc will be of rarities by Villa-Lobos, and the third will be of performances, with orchestra, by the competition jury--violinist Josef Gingold, violists Walter Trampler and Bruno Giuranna, and cellists Aldo Parisot and Janos Starker. The Orquestra Sinfonica da Paraiba will be conducted by Eleazar de Carvalho.

International endeavors such as the Brazilian adventure represent an expansion of what Haygood sees as her company’s mission. “What we set out to do 15 years ago was to find American talent--artists and artistic groups--who were in the shadows because they were American, and put them on the international stage,” she says.

“The American market is very undiscriminating. We have such an inferiority complex in the face of imports. We ought to be international, and we aren’t.”

While a graduate student at the American University, Haygood went to work for the U.S. State Department, eventually becoming involved in cultural exchange programs as editor of publications for the Interdepartmental Committee for Cultural and Scientific Cooperation, under Dean Acheson. There she grew frustrated with what she perceived as the provincial status accorded American artists sent abroad.

“We were almost exporting imports, we were being so conservative and conventional,” Haygood recalls. “It was like sending American artists (overseas) in handcuffs.”

After a 22-year career in psychology and the death of her husband, those thoughts ere there when Haygood founded Delos in 1973. “Of course, I’d thought about it a long time,” she says of her sense of mission.

The company’s first recordings featured harpsichordist Malcolm Hamilton, pianist Carol Rosenberger, organist Robert Noehren and viola da gambist Eva Heinitz. Both Noehren and Rosenberger, who works for Delos in developing artists and repertory, have continued to record for Delos, each with recently released discs. Other Americans prominently associated with the company are soprano Arleen Auger--Delos made her first United States recording--and conductors Gerard Schwarz and James DePreist, with whom Delos has exclusive contracts guaranteeing it first refusal rights, according to Haygood. All three also have new Delos releases. (See accompanying review by Herbert Glass.)

Haygood is proud of the Delos recordings Schwarz has made with his Seattle Symphony and DePreist with his Oregon Symphony, and adamant about the developmental benefits that accrue to orchestras with recording. She says her company is also planning to add the Milwaukee Symphony to its catalogue.

The Delos commitment, however, is to the conductors and not the orchestras. Schwarz also records for Delos with the London Symphony and Scottish Chamber Orchestra, including an extensive, ongoing Haydn project with the latter group. DePreist has recorded with the Royal Philharmonic for Delos and has a recording of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 11 with the Helsinki Philharmonic due out soon.

Cost is certainly an element in any decision about recording orchestras. A four-hour session runs around $50,000, and at least two or three such sessions are needed for each disc.

“We can afford European orchestras,” Haygood says. “American orchestras are notoriously pricey.”

The Delos commitment to contemporary American composers is also not overwhelm ing. “We have to be careful not to do too much (contemporary music),” Haygood cautions.

Still, her company has recorded the music of three recent Pulitzer Prize winners--Stephen Albert, Joseph Schwanter and Ellen Taafe Zwilich. Delos has also just released “The White Election,” a song cycle by multimillionaire composer Gordon Getty, though there Haygood’s interest was as much in soprano Kaaren Erickson as in Getty’s songs.

“Sound production is a forte with us,” Haygood asserts proudly. “We’ve always stayed on the leading edge of sound technology.”

In pursuit of that goal, Delos has used the services of audio engineer John Eargle on a contract basis since 1979. Eargle maintains his own consulting company, working in product development for businesses such as Northridge speaker manufacturer JBL. He is also a prolific author, with three professional handbooks and more than 100 technical articles to his credit.

“I like to temper all those activities with recording,” Eargle reports. “What I like about Delos is that they don’t have any preconceived notions about how the engineering should be done.”

The efforts to provide impeccable sound reproduction for its artists, and to bring them before the widest audiences, have kept Delos pioneering. Last summer, the label was the first to introduce commercially three-inch CDs, the CD equivalent of singles, with 15-20 minutes of music.

“What I’m looking for is a new market,” Haygood says. She believes Pocket Classics will appeal to young and first-time buyers.

“I don’t think it is ever going to be the mainstream,” she acknowledges. However, she adds, “Big sound on a little disc is intriguing. It’s something that draws people in to listen to music.”

Delos is not moving into the area of CD-video quite as quickly as it has exploited new audio technologies. Though some work on story boards has already been done, “I don’t know if the first we do will be abstract or actual camera work,” Haygood says.

Delos did provide the sound track for R.O. Blechman’s animated, WGBH production of Stravinsky’s “L’Histoire du Soldat.” Haygood vows that her company will have at least six videos of its own, with music drawn from its existing catalogue, by Christmas, 1989.

“Every company should have a reason for being,” Haygood believes. “Technology is just a vehicle, but you must use it effectively to get artists on the world stage.”