It is now set to protect the music for eternity as well, and some New Zealand works have made the first deposit.
The Global Music Vault uses breakthrough Microsoft technology called “Project Silica” to etch music data onto thin glass slides the size of coasters.
Each can hold 100 gigabytes of data, with layers of tiny engravings that can be read by artificial intelligence algorithms. They are kept in the vault on Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago.
Kiwi music licensing consultant Nathan Graves sits on the board of Global Music Vault and compared the technology to something a little more antique.
“A bit like a floppy disk used to be, it read the information and then pulled it into an interface.
“Then you can stream it, download it, do whatever you want with it.”
Graves said at this point: the music of the world remains at the mercy of the elements.
“There are many master tapes that were in foundations or in places where they got moldy. In some cases there have been fires and preservation of those precious items has been lost.”
The virtually indestructible slides solve that problem. They can withstand baked, boiled, sanded, flooded and electromagnetic pulses.
There are also benefits for the climate. The vault is a cold storage solution – and not just because it borders the North Pole.
The glass requires no energy as the data is written into its atomic structure, making it a sustainable alternative to energy-hungry data centers.
“It’s a great idea, it’s a bit sci-fi, but it’s also a great new format,” Graves said.
The first slide is a proof of concept and has not yet been filled.
But thanks to Graves, New Zealand has already secured a place with six pieces by composer Douglas Lilburn, who is considered the grandfather of New Zealand music.
It contains the iconic Overture: Aotearoa written in 1940 for New Zealand’s centenary.
Michael Brown, music curator at Alexander Turnbull Library, helped select the works and said Lilburn was an obvious choice.
“Lilburn is one of our most iconic composers.
“We’re really trying to put something culturally important in it as our first deposit, and Lilburn has that level of national significance.”
Brown said Lilburn was also a pioneer of music archiving in New Zealand.
He said Māori and Pasifika music will be among the first to be considered for the next entry, but no date has been set.
Brown is eager to work with other libraries, universities, copyright holders and kaitiaki to make further selections.
“There are many areas of NZ music to explore.
“Our popular music history is now quite long, recording a wide variety of artists and music groups that mean a lot to people over the years.”
In addition to the music by Lilburn on the first glass plate, pieces by Beatie Wolfe from the United Kingdom, the international Polar Music Prize, the International Library of African Music, the Argentine Orchestra of Indigenous Instruments and New Technologies, the Fayha Choir from Lebanon and Ketebul Music from Kenya. †