Stewart Copeland joins the Music Sales Group

1st October 2006

A warm welcome to renowned percussionist and composer Stewart Copeland, the latest composer to ink a deal with the Music Sales Group. Having leaped to international fame with the award winning innovative post-punk band The Police, Copeland moved beyond the rock arena in the mid-80s when he returned to his classical roots with creative pursuits in concert and film music. His numerous film scores include Oliver Stone's "Wall Street," the seminal score for the Golden Globe-nominated soundtrack for Francis Ford Coppola's "Rumble Fish," the score for Bruno Barreto's Oscar nominated "Four Days in September" and his Emmy nomination for the Showtime pilot and series "Dead Like Me." His work in television is also evidenced by his contributions to "The Equalizer," "Babylon V," and most recently "Desperate Housewives." The rise, subsequent success and ultimate demise of the Police over an eight year period were all recorded and kept as a video diary in 8mm film by Copeland, the band's founder. That diary became the film "Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out," which premiered in January 2006 at the Sundance Film Festival and debuted on the Showtime network in August.

Copeland's concert works include the ballets Lear for the San Francisco Ballet (choreographed by Victoria Morgan) and Prey for Ballet Oklahoma, several orchestral works, including Arise Awake for chorus and orchestra for the Brighton Festival, and the operas Holy Blood and Crescent Moon for the Cleveland Opera, Horse Opera for BBC Channel 4 and the chamber opera The Cask of Amontillado (after Edgar Allan Poe's timeless tale).

Copeland continues to perform having made his percussion solo debut with the Seattle Symphony in a concert with his own compositions, and tours with groups such as the percussion quartet Ensemble Bash, the progressive group Gizmo, and his 20-piece ensemble Orchestralli, which presents concert arrangements of his original scores.

On signing his new contract Copeland remarks, "I'm all puffed up, and yet very humbled to join the company of Barber, Ives, and Ellington. With stable-mates like these, my nostrils are flaring and the music is rising!"

Barrie Edwards, President of Music Sales Corporation, comments: "We welcome the multi-talented Stewart Copeland to Schirmer/AMP, our new Schirmer Media division, and to the international companies of the Music Sales Group. We're very much looking forward to bringing his innovative operas, ballets, and concert music to audiences who may previously only have known him as a percussionist and film composer. As we work with him on new projects in a wide variety of media we expect the energy of his music will resonate widely."