Classical music agency HarrisonParrott, with associated agency Polyarts, has this week announced a new publishing service for composers. Birdsong Music Publishing, which will support composers working across varying genres, includes six composers on its initial roster.

The new service will focus on protecting and exploiting copyright in musical works, while offering management support to the composers. 

Jasper Parrott, co-Founder and Executive Chairman of HarrisonParrott Ltd, said: 

Throughout over 55 years of my life in music, composers of our times have been an indispensable part of my and my colleagues’ work and at the heart of the mission of HarrisonParrott – to contribute to the renewal of the canon of live performance and the enrichment of the great heritage repertoire with which we are richly gifted. The launch of Birdsong is the realisation of an ambition we have had for many years, and it is exciting that this symbolically important step should chime with the urgent need to support creativity in the post-COVID music world.

‘I’m so excited to be working with the fantastic people at Birdsong,’ said British-American composer Freya Waley-Cohen – who has been commissioned by the LA Philharmonic, BBC Proms, Wigmore Hall and Philharmonia Orchestra. ‘They listen to and support my artistic visions and goals, and are inspiring and energising themselves. I believe that what they are doing is innovative and bold at a moment when our industry needs it, and having the power of HarrisonParrott behind them makes for a dream combination.’

Also on the company’s roster are Ben Rowarth, former winner of the NCEM Composer Award, British composer Charlotte Bray whose song cycle Crossing Faultlines will premiere at Oxford Lieder Festival next month, Peruvian composer Jimmy López Bellido, German conductor and composer Christian Schumann, and Finnish composer Sauli Zinovjev.

For more, visit: www.harrisonparrott.com/birdsong