"AT THE END OF THE DAY, IF THEY ARE ANY GOOD, THEY SHOULD HAVE A STACK OF CONCERTS AND THEIR SCHEDULES WILL SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES." The small recording company Channel Classics receives critical acclaim for just about every release and, despite mainly using performers who remain largely unknown in the UK, its releases are hailed for both excellent performances and quality of recorded sound. John Woodford went along to meet the man behind Channel Classics, producer, engineer and director Jared Sacks.

It has taken ten years for Channel Classics to achieve its high profile as a recording company. Although remaining a small, almost cottage industry firm based in Holland, it has achieved considerable success from a string of notable recordings of excellent, although, away from their native Netherlands' base, largely unknown artists. "It takes time", said Sacks, "despite having excellent artists and good quality recordings, to build up any sort of reputation in today's market, especially when you consider how many recording companies there are." Even before the founding of the firm, Sacks was no stranger to the high demands that both musicians and engineers make in the studio. He grew up in America before emigrating in 1974 via Switzerland to Holland, where he followed his calling as an orchestral horn player. Buying a house on a canal street in Amsterdam (from which the name of Channel Classics derives) and, finding that it had one room that was large enough to be used for recitals, he started organising a series of concerts which, as a hobby, was recorded. As the high quality of those early recordings appealed to many local musicians, before long work started to come in producing demo material in considerable quantities: "Things had developed to such an extent that, by 1987, I had stopped playing the horn in favour of what was, for me, a whole new and exciting ball game."

	Channel Classics now-familiar logo

That same year, he borrowed enough money from the bank to buy a digital editing suite, the only one in Amsterdam, and began working on everything from Heavy Metal to light Classical music. "Before two years were up, I had a staff of ten people and was doing such a lot of work for other record labels that the decision to start my own company seemed inevitable." Channel Classics was officially launched in 1990; the first recordings to be issued were of Baroque repertoire, not only because he knew a handful of period instrument performers, but also because he knew he could get away without having to pay royalties to composers! The performers included cellist Pieter Wispelwey (interviewed in March's issue of the Online Journal), whose first recording of Bach's cello suites, an early CC production, immediately drew attention from critics around the globe. "In those days, people were grabbing any CD they could get their hands on, a far cry from today, so distribution wasn't difficult to get and the rest is history!"

Perhaps because of his own experiences as a professional musician, Sacks believes that his role as a record producer carries a much heavier responsibility than simply the production of recordings. He sees the CD as an excellent means of promoting what he calls his "family" of artists: "Large recording companies might bring out ten CDs at a time, and will be very happy if only one of them does well. I'm not interested in that sort of approach…I believe more in building up the performer. Obviously I have to sell discs to make sure that we can fund the next production, but nevertheless we work hard at supporting our artists when they go on tour, especially when it comes to performers like Pieter Wispelwey, who has something like 130 concerts this next year."