Spirit Music Group has launched Spirit Production Music following its acquisition of the production music division of Alan Ett Creative Group (AECG), according to an announcement made today by David Renzer, SMG chairman and Jon Singer, the company’s coo/cfo. Alan Ett will head the new division out of Los Angeles.
AECG, which includes the Opus 1 Music Library, The Music Collective and Audio Horizons companies, has over 150,000 high quality production music tracks and represents over 40 unique music libraries.
“This is a major step for Spirit,” said Renzer in a statement. “With Opus 1, The Music Collective and Audio Horizons, Alan Ett has built a vibrant ecosystem of companies focused on production music services able to provide high quality custom music/scoring, to quality vocal music as well as providing global administration services to various film/tv production companies. Joining forces with Alan to create Spirit Production Music gives us the optimum platform to enter the production music space – and one that we plan to aggressively build on. Our aim is to continue to expand with an impressive array of services to all music users — be they television production studios, film companies, trailer music users, digital services, corporate entities, or advertising agencies.”
Ett, who founded AECG in 1991, has composed and produced thousands of hours of music for television, video and film. He lived in Europe for four years as a concert artist before moving to Los Angeles to begin writing for TV and film, commercials and DVDs. He also helped devise the A-O20, the first shock mounted 20MB hard disc, and served as a consultant with the Roland Corp. on the development of the first MIDI software, the MPS or Music Processing System.
He completed his undergraduate work in music at The University of Miami and the Master of Music at New England Conservatory. A faculty member of Boston’s prestigious Berklee College of Music, Ett was co-founder of the Berklee Jazz Choir and Vocal program. The many boards on which Ett serves include the Board of Directors for the non-profit Artist House Music, the Board of Trustees of the Society of Singers, and the Board of Trustees of The New England Conservatory of Music, as well as the Advisory Board for the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami. Ett is a member of BMI, ATAS and NARAS. Ett will report directly to Renzer.
“Spirit has become an unstoppable force in music publishing and I’m thrilled to be joining forces with David Renzer, Jon Singer and the Spirit Music Group team,” stated Ett. “The launch of Spirit Production Music brings together extraordinarily creative and dedicated companies and I’m honored to continue to serve the composers and staff of Opus1, The Music Collective, and Audio Horizons. We are determined to build upon the success of these entities and to make Spirit Production Music the premiere destination for music services.”
The deal marks Spirit’s first foray into the production music space, although its executive leadership has already overseen some a number of production music entities. Among the initiatives launched under Renzer’s leadership at Universal Music Publishing Group was the acquisition of FirstCom, KillerTracks, APM, Bruton & Chappell, and BMG’s library assets along with the re-branding of its production music division, Universal Publishing Production Music which grew into one the global leaders in production music encompassing such libraries as Atmosphere, Bruton, Chappell, Chronic Trax, EVO, FirstCom, KillerTracks, MasterSource, Network Music, OneMusic, Galerie, Koka Media, Match Music, UBM, RCAL, and Vitamin A.
Spirit Music Group, founded in 1995, is one of the world’s leading independent music publishers, owning and/or managing more than 75,000 songs spanning seven decades and every musical genre. The company is headquartered in New York with offices in London, Los Angeles, Nashville and the Netherlands. Spirit is a portfolio company of Pegasus Capital Advisors, the New York-based private equity fund manager that has been providing creative capital and strategic solutions to growth companies since 1996.
This article was found on billboard.com
