Pentatone acquired by San Francisco Conservatory of Music

The San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM) and PENTATONE have announced that SFCM will be the record label’s new home. PENTATONE will continue to operate as an independent company.

The partnership, made possible because of a private donation, involves the sharing of resources including engineers, orchestral talent, educational resources, masterclasses and professional development sessions. PENTATONE joins an existing alliance between SFCM and management company Opus 3 Artists, which the Conservatory acquired in 2020.

David Stull, SFCM president said: ‘Bringing PENTATONE in–house creates an extraordinary backdrop to explore new ideas for performing, recording and distributing music… Our collaboration will provide invaluable opportunities to students while giving new life to one of the world’s greatest labels.’

One of PENTATONE and SFCM’s first formal collaborations will be a recording of the National Brass Ensemble conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen as part of Summer@SFCM’s National Brass Ensemble Academy. The concert will include the debut of a work Jonathan Bingham, a winner of the SFCM and the SF Symphony’s Emerging Black Composers Project.

SFCM students and PENTATONE artists now have access to SFCM’s recording studio and SFCM will invite the PENTATONE team to campus in 2023 to participate in a project which will culminate in the release of an album.

Sean Hickey, PENTATONE managing director said: ‘We are pleased that [the partnership] affords us the potential for meaningful collaboration in the areas of higher education, recorded music, and music management and the shared resources that we hope to enjoy as a result. The record industry is changing drastically and now is a good time for one of the largest and most–celebrated independent classical labels to forge deeper and more strategic partnerships.’

Founded in the Netherlands in 2001 by three former Philips Classics executives, PENTATONE has won both the Gramophone and ICMA Label of the Year awards. You can find out more about PENTATONE here.