BYU Music Group’s two record labels, BYU Records and Tantara Records, have caught the attention of many classical music aficionados with albums featuring BYU choirs, orchestras and the popular acapella group BYU Vocal Point and will soon attract even more of a national audience.
Starting this month, BYU Music Group will partner with Naxos, the nation’s largest independent classical music distributor.
“BYU has their own unique following as do we, so in theory, we will both expand the number of people we reach with our partnership,” said Raymond Bisha, Naxos Director of Media Relations.
Naxos of America is the number one classical music distributor in the United States and Canada. In addition to major offices in places like Hong Kong, Naxos has strong distribution in dozens of other countries as well.
The partnership has been in the making for the last year according to Ben Fales, general manager of BYU Music Group. Fales is looking forward to helping align the missions of both parties.
“We’re producing a lot of great music here at BYU and we wanted to find a partner to help get our music distributed on a national scale,” Fales said. “We pursued Naxos because I knew they had a strong commitment to classical music and we wanted to partner with an organization who would respect that.”
The distribution group has already proven that it is capable of expanding BYU’s reach to a wider audience.
“Naxos is the most active classical music label in the world. In terms of distribution, we work to distribute physical releases and downloads with digital music providers,” Bisha said. “In short, when we distribute a label, we can cover the gamut.”
BYU Music Group is an enterprise center in the BYU School of Music and part of the College of Fine Arts and Communications. The BYU choirs, orchestras, and even the popular a capella group BYU Vocal Point appear on the BYU Records label while BYU School of Music faculty artists appear on the Tantara Records label.
“BYU has a renowned music program and we have always been of the belief that great music happens where it happens, not always in traditional classical music venues like London, New York or Vienna,” Bisha said.
Writer: Shelbi Anderson
