Concord (entertainment company)

Concord is an independent creative rights company that develops, manages and acquires sound recordings, music publishing and theatrical performance rights. It is a private company, funded by long-term institutional capital and members of Concord’s management team. As of the beginning of 2019, the company had approximately 500 staff members in Los Angeles, New York, Nashville (headquarters), London, Berlin and Miami.

Concord
Private
IndustryEntertainment
Founded2015
Headquarters10 Lea Avenue, Suite 300, Nashville, TN 37210
Area served
Nashville, Tennessee
Los Angeles, California
New York, New York
London, United Kingdom
Miami, Florida
Berlin, Germany
OwnerGreat Mountain Partners, Company Management
Number of employees
500
DivisionsConcord Recorded Music
Concord Music Publishing
Concord Theatricals
Websitewww.concord.com

Concord’s master recording portfolio contains more than 16,000 active albums,[1] while its publishing catalog contains more than 400,000 copyrighted works spanning all musical genres.[2]

Concord Theatricals provides a comprehensive service to the creators and producers of plays and musicals, including theatrical licensing, music publishing, script publishing, cast recording and first-class production. Authors it represents include Irving Berlin, Marvin Hamlisch, Lorraine Hansberry, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Rodgers & Hammerstein and August Wilson.[3]

History

The origins of Concord can be traced back to when auto dealer and jazz enthusiast Carl Jefferson started the Concord Jazz record label in 1973. He sold the label to Alliance Entertainment in 1994 and succumbed to cancer the following year.[4] In 1999, film/television producer Norman Lear and entertainment executive Hal Gaba purchased the company (Concord Jazz and Concord Records) after Alliance filed for bankruptcy.[5]

In 2004, Concord Records acquired Fantasy, Inc., owner of Prestige, Fantasy, Milestone, Riverside Specialty, and the post-Atlantic Stax catalog. Concord then combined with Fantasy to form the Concord Music Group.[6] Several label acquisitions and partnerships followed including Telarc (2005)[5] and Rounder Records (2010).[7]

In 2013, Concord Music Group was acquired by an investor group led by Wood Creek Capital Management and Sound Investors, LLC.[8] Many of the same investors also owned a majority interest in independent music publisher Bicycle Music Company.[9]

Concord Music Group was merged with Bicycle Music in 2015 to become Concord Bicycle Music.[10] As Concord Bicycle Music, the company acquired Razor & Tie, Vanguard, Sugar Hill, Wind-Up, Fearless Records (2015)[11][12] and Musart Music Group including its Edimusa publishing arm (2016).[13]

In 2017, Concord Bicycle Music purchased European-based publishing company Imagem Music Group.[14] After acquiring two theatrical licensing companies, Tams-Witmark Music Library and Samuel French in 2018, the company formed its own Theatricals division.[15]

The company changed its name to Concord in early 2019. Concord operates in three principal lines of business: Music Publishing, Recorded Music and Theatricals.

Concord Music Publishing

In 2017, when Concord purchased the Imagem Music Group, it tripled the size of its catalog bringing it to nearly 400,000 copyrights. The Imagem purchase also brought classical music publisher Boosey & Hawkes and The Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization into Concord Music Publishing.[10] Concord’s publishing catalog now includes a vast array of popular music, classical music and many song and stage standards.

In January 2020, Concord acquired a stake in PULSE Music Group, a move into chart-focused A&R.[16] Effective July 2020, Concord will administer the catalog and future signings for PULSE, an additional 10,000 songs.[17]

As of 2020, Concord Music Publishing’s active roster includes Mark Ronson,[18], Hillary Lindsey[19], Noah Goldstein,[20] Ruston Kelly,[21] Denzel Curry,[22] Walshy Fire,[23] Varren Wade,[24] Tofer Brown,[25] Steve Robson,[26] Justin Parker,[27] Dolly Parton,[28] Steve Reich, John Adams,[29] Eric Whitacre,[30] The Revivalists,[31] Jacob Collier,[32] Glen Ballard[33] and Jason Robert Brown.[34]

Concord Music Publishing’s catalog of songwriters and composers includes Pink Floyd, Daft Punk, Iron Maiden, Phil Collins, Igor Stravinsky,[29] George Harrison,[35] Imagine Dragons,[36] Sammy Cahn, John Fogerty, Robert Johnson, Trent Reznor, Pete Seeger,[33] Irving Berlin, Aaron Copland, Joan Sebastian, Marvin Hamlisch,[37] Leonard Bernstein[38] and Sergei Prokofiev.[39]

Concord Recorded Music

Concord Recorded Music is made up of the original Concord Music Group labels at the time of the Bicycle Music merger (Concord Records, Concord Jazz, Fantasy, Rounder) as well as Loma Vista Recordings (2014)[40] and Fearless Records (2015).[41] This area of Concord's business also includes its KIDZ BOP brand and its Craft Recordings catalog division. In early 2019, the company opened an office in Miami for Craft Latino Recordings.

Concord Records and Jazz

Fantasy Records

Fearless Records

Loma Vista Recordings

Rounder Records

Craft Recordings

Craft represents the many labels for which these artists' originally recorded, including Sugar Hill, Vanguard, Musart, Savoy Jazz, Stax Vee-Jay, Fania, Independiente and Varese Sarabande.[14] Craft also represents the R.E.M. catalog originally released under Warner Bros. Records.

Craft Latino Recordings

KIDZ BOP

Concord’s KIDZ BOP label has sold 20 million albums, generated 3 billion streams, has a featured channel on Sirius XM and an international tour under its name.[69][70]

Concord Theatricals

Concord purchased theatrical licensing companies Tams-Witmark[14] and Samuel French, and combining then with R&H Theatricals, launched its Theatrical division in 2018. Concord Theatricals services both creators and producers of musicals and plays with theatrical licensing, script publishing and cast recordings. It also develops, licenses, produces and invests in musicals and plays for production.

The professional and amateur theatrical licensing catalog includes Samuel French, R&H Theatricals and Tams-Witmark, representing the works of Rodgers & Hammerstein, Marvin Hamlisch,[15] Irving Berlin,[29] Rodgers & Hart, Cole Porter, George & Ira Gershwin, Jerome Kern, and Kurt Weill, and shows and songs by musical theater composers Lin-Manuel Miranda, Adam Guettel, Jason Robert Brown, Shaina Taub and Michael John LaChiusa.

Concord Theatricals also licenses hundreds of Broadway musicals including Wizard of Oz, A Chorus Line, Hello Dolly, Bye Bye Birdie, Dreamgirls,[34] Hair,[71] and Gypsy.[72]

Playwrights include August Wilson, Neil Simon,[15] Tom Stoppard,[73] Tennessee Williams,[74] Dominique Morisseau, Anne Washburn, Mac Rogers,[75] and Edward Albee.

Concord Theatricals also works with Andrew Lloyd Webber and the Really Useful Group to license the composer and his collaborators’ musicals, including Jesus Christ Superstar, School of Rock, Evita,[76] Cats,[34] and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.[77]

Concord Theatricals is a co-producer on the currently running Broadway shows of Hadestown and Jagged Little Pill. [78]

Other Enterprises

In 2019, Concord formed a Film & Television Development and Production Department to oversee all long-form audio-visual content produced by both Concord and third-party companies. This includes music-related documentaries, biopics, scripted theatrical and television projects and music performance films.[79]

Concord is also a member company/investor in Techstars Music and has invested in a range of technology startups.[80]

References
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  2. Christman, Ed (January 7, 2020). "Concord Music Publishing Buys Stake in Pulse Music Group, Forming New Joint Venture". Billboard. Retrieved 30 January 2020.
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