Korean musician and entrepreneur Micky Jung has launched a classical music streaming application called Classic Manager. An open-source, membership-free app, users can access a regularly updated database of music no longer protected by copyright.

For Jung, the app was a response to what he sees as the increasing insular world of classical music. “The classical industry is a conservative and closed culture, which made the music most difficult to access,” he said in an article published by the South China Morning Post. “Beethoven’s music should have been made easier to access than, for instance, K-pop boy band EXO’s, but in reality it is not.”

“People who want to learn to play a Beethoven piece buy the score and a CD, but still they don’t know how to begin to learn the piece. The culture – as if it is made difficult only to allow the few with refined tastes in music who can relish these pieces – is mostly unchanged since its beginning and this is making the whole industry doomed.”

Jung attributes to K-pop’s popularity to its accessibility, and believes that classical music should be equally available to anyone interested in the genre, given its timeless appeal.

“K-pop ascended...