The Universal Music Vice President with the interesting career path can see the future of classical music – and it’s digital.

For a man whose job it is to help save the future of the classical recording industry, Chaz Jenkins has had an unusual career trajectory. A former nightclub manager and promoter, he began working as marketing manger for the London Symphony Orchestra back in 1995. He launched the highly successful LSO Live label in 1999, the first “stakeholder label” in classical music. LSO Live went on to become the first classical label to make its entire catalogue available for download and streaming. To lure him away, Universal created a brand new post for him in 2012 and he now looks after promotions for Decca, Deutsche Grammophon and Mercury Classics.

Jenkins flew into Sydney from the States this week (losing a day somewhere in the black hole between time zones) in order to rally the troops at Universal Australia’s first “Classical Music Day”. Despite the current doom and gloom in the recording industry, mirrored by live event programmers struggling to engage with the Aussie audient in an election year, Jenkins remains upbeat. Limelight caught up with him just before...