Union Musical Ediciones

The Spanish publishing house Unión Musical Ediciones (UME) has a long history of steady expansion that began soon after Ernesto Dotesio Paynter founded his music store and small publishing firm in Bilbao in the 1890s.

In 1898, he purchased Spain’s largest music publisher, Casa Romero of Madrid, and by early 1900 relocated his expanded business to Barcelona, naming it Casa Dotesio.

Subsequent expansion was rapid since in the first year of operation the company acquired Spanish publishers Zozaya, Fuentes y Asenjo and Casa Eslava. Dotesio’s programme of growth continued and by the spring of 1914 the greatly enlarged enterprise was renamed Unión Musical Española to reflect its dominant position in Spanish music.

With a main office in Madrid and branch offices in Barcelona, Bilbao, Valencia and other Spanish cities, Unión Musical Española was a key part of Spain’s growing stature among the international music community. It became associated with some of Spain’s greatest classical composers including Albéniz, Montsalvatge, Granados, Vives, Turina, Rodrigo, Ernesto, Rodolfo & Cristóbal Halffter, Mompou, Toldrá, Esplá and Guridi. Throughout it also built a reputation for publishing Spanish folk and popular music.

In 1990, the company joined Wise Music Group and changed its name once again, this time to Unión Musical Ediciones. Today, UME undertakes leading projects in the audio-visual and pop worlds, as well as representing Wise Music catalogues throughout Spain.

UME continues to thrive and to sign new copyrights of prestigious composers that today include Alberto Iglesias, Benet Casablancas, Joan Albert Amargós, and Angel Illarramendi.