Indie classical

The "indie classical" genre is generally used to describe the music that follows certain classical music practices but is produced and distributed through independent record labels. The term was brought into widespread circulation by New Amsterdam Records's publicity apparatus, intended to represent composers whose "music slips through the cracks between genres." The term "indie classical" became controversial and by 2013, it had been strongly resisted by participants in the very community that the record label initially sought to describe. The term remains unsettled and its use has declined, although currently it is sometimes used interchangeably with "alt-classical" or "neo-classical", generally as a marketing label for music that crosses over between classical and other popular genres, associating artists who have little in common with the original movement.

According to composer and co-founder of New Amsterdam Records, Judd Greenstein, the intention behind the term "indie classical" was a shorthand description of the kind of music they were making under a "do-it-yourself" institutional spirit. For New Amsterdam, indie classical was not intended to provide a context with which to comprehend its individual albums and compositions, but a term to brand the label's identity and describe its innovations in the classical music market. The term's usefulness is still debatable, and because it was promoted by publicists and accepted by journalists, "indie classical" could also be dismissed as outsider public relations jargon.

Although the term "indie classical" had appeared in Billboard magazine as far back as 1950 in reference to "small-scale classical record labels", These composers wanted to carve out a place for themselves and for other composers who did not feel represented within "contemporary classical music" or "new music", which lead to the creation of their record label. In a December 2007 press release, they proclaimed that their mission was to represent "music without walls, from a scene without a name".

Nico Muhly, an established American composer with an international reputation, had become the poster child of indie classical for many writers. Muhly's commentary articulated the problematic stylistic associations with indie music, and his criticism noticeably affected the integrity of the indie classical term, debilitating its utilization and tarnishing it as a negative qualifier.