QUICK HITS: Sony Music France • DREAMSTAGE • WMG A&R, Philippines • Word Collections • more
• Sony Music has named Marie-Anne Robert as managing director of its French operations, making her the first woman to fill the role. She joins from Believe.
• Music live streamer DREAMSTAGE has added Jesse Kirshbaum, former CEO of award-winning entertainment marketing agency Nue, to its leadership team as the CMO of the company. Kirshbaum will oversee the marketing team at DREAMSTAGE, working closely with Erick Charles, now VP of Marketing & Strategic Partnerships.
• Warner Records has named Steve “Steve-O” Carless to the newly created post of President, A&R.
Carless was most recently the founder of his own SC Company, driving projects for artists such as Beyoncé and Polo G. Over his career, he has held senior A&R and creative posts at Def Jam Recordings, Atlantic Records, Republic Records, and served as President of Uptown Records.
• Sarah Ismail has been promoted to Managing Director, Warner Music Philippines. As a core member of Warner Music’s regional executive team, Sarah will oversee its operations throughout the Philippines.
• Grandstand has announced the promotion of Jaclyn Ulman to Senior Public Relations Director. Ulman, who is based in New York City, joined Grandstand Media in 2018 as a Senior Publicist, after getting her start in music publicity at Press Here and then Motormouth Media.
• Word Collections, the digital rights and royalty collection agency launched in 2020 by TuneCore and Audiam founder Jeff Price, representing the spoken word copyrights of icons such as George Carlin, Robin Williams, Richard Pryor, Muhammed Ali and others, has confirmed aggreements to represent the music publishing catalogs of songwriters Metallica, Thomas Dolby, Bridgeport, and Gerencia 360 .
Expanding from spoken word to music, Word Collections now provides global direct copyright licensing and collection with digital services not only for comedians and other spoken-word performers but also for self-published songwriters and music publishing administrators.
• Relative Music Group, in partnership with Sony Music Publishing, announced the signing of country music hitmaker Nick Donley to a worldwide publishing agreement.
Donley’s No. 1 hits include “Sittin’ Pretty” by Florida Georgia Line; “Unapologetically Country” and “4×4” by HARDY; “That Ain’t Me No More” by Matt Stell; “Mama Got The Chair” by Chevel Shepherd; and more.
• Sony Production Music announced that after ten years, EMI Production Music has returned to its flagship brand name KPM Music. The company also unveiled a modernized KPM logo and symbol, an abstract visualization of vinyl records, reflecting KPM’s evergreen collection and rich heritage.
