December 2003

25 Emerging Companies

Nashville Post Names Compendia A Company To Watch 

By David A. Fox

As long as music lovers desire new releases by established artists, independent record company Compendia Music Group will have room to grow in its niche. One-year-old Compendia counts among its roster of artists Joan Osborne, Terence Trent D’Arby, Kansas and the late Robert Palmer.

Compendia also has a consistent moneymaker in its impressive catalog of recordings, a vestige of the company’s previous incarnation, Platinum Entertainment. Included among its more than 10,000 diverse titles are tracks from the Oak Ridge Boys, the Beach Boys, George Clinton, the Blues Brothers, Pete Townsend and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

Compendia recently shuttered its Georgia-based distribution arm in favor of outsourcing that role to an independent market leader. As a result, Compendia now can devote its energy and resources exclusively to developing and maintaining its growing stable of artists, which include gospel, Christian, adult contemporary, country and classical artists on four distinct label imprints.

Compendia launched operations in November 2002 out of the ashes of a federal bankruptcy court-administered reorganization of Platinum. Unlike most previous entertainment and media industry reorganizations in which company assets were sold to reduce debt, Compendia’s founders recognized the value of the bankrupt company’s master library and trusted that those assets could be used to revive it.

Michael Olsen, a former Yale University drama schoolteacher and general manager of the Denver Symphony Orchestra, leads Compendia as president and COO.