Andy Heath, Chairman, British Music Rights

Andy Heath has been a music professional for 35 years. He is on the board of the Beggars Group, one of Europe's leading and significant independent music companies, and is currently directing the Group's e-commerce strategy. He is an executive director of Playlouder, an on-line music service provider.

Andy is currently on the Boards of the Mechanical Copyright Protection Society and the Performing Right Society. He was the progenitor of the British Invisibles report on the foreign earnings of the music industry, which was so influential in Westminster and beyond. He was instrumental in forming, and was a founder director of British Music Rights, which was created to promote and raise awareness of the rights and the value of rights of creators and publishers to Government, European institutions and the wider public.

Chris Butler, Chief Operating Officer, Music Sales Ltd

Chris Butler has worked in the music publishing industry since leaving Durham University with a music degree in 1984. He held a succession of junior and middle management positions at Chappell Music (later Warner Chappell), before joining Novello & Co. as Director of Operations in 1989. Four formative years at the classical independent ended when Novello was acquired by the Music Sales Group in 1993 where Chris holds the position of Chief Operating Officer. In tandem with being the leading European player in the business of printed music of all genres, Music Sales also owns an expanding portfolio of copyrights worldwide. In addition to Novello these include catalogues such as Chester Music, G. Schirmer, Edition Wilhelm Hansen, Bosworth & Co, Sparta Florida, Shapiro Bernstein and Campbell Connelly. As well as publishing many of today's leading writers and composers through conventional channels, Music Sales is at the forefront of new and emerging technologies and pioneering Internet sites including musicroom.com and Sheetmusicdirect.com. Chris is a publisher board member of the PRS and is the chairman of the Classical Publisher committee at the MPA. Away from the industry he still finds time to pursue an active musical life and enjoys family life in rural Suffolk.

Nigel Elderton, Managing Director, Peermusic (UK) Limited

Nigel began his career in the music industry in 1975 joining the Finance Department of Chappell Music.

He moved to EMI Music Publishing in 1977 where, for the next twelve years, he held a variety of positions including; Professional Manager and Director of New Business Development responsible for TV and film synchronisation.

In 1989 he was asked to join MCA Music to head up their synch’ licencing division, and the following year he accepted a similar position at Polygram Music Publishing (with addtional A&R responsibilities) under the then Managing Director, Lucien Grainge. 

Nigel remained with Polygram until in late 1991 he was appointed Managing Director of Peermusic UK where he remains today.

In 1999 Nigel was promoted to the position of European Vice President responsible for co-ordinating and overseeing the activities of Peermusic’s European Creative Managers.

Nigel is an active member of many industry bodies including:-
       
• PRS Publisher Director and former Deputy Chairman (retired Dec ’06 having served the maximum 3 terms)
• Director of the Music Publishers Association
• Pop Publishers Committee (ex chairman)
• MCPS Commercial Committee
• Founding trustee of The Performing Right Society Foundation
• Director of British Music Rights – (recently appointed)

In 2005 he was awarded the Gold Badge of Distinction by the British Acadamy of Composers Authors and Songwriters.

Earlier this year Nigel accepted an invitation to become a Fellow of the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts – FRSA.

Sarah Faulder, Public Affairs Director, MCPS-PRS Alliance

Sarah has been fortunate to be able to enjoy a career which has so far revolved entirely around music rights, building on her early interest in music making (piano and viola).  She trained as a lawyer and became a partner with London law firm Taylor Joynson Garrett (now Taylor Wessing), specialising in music copyright and acting mostly for composers, songwriters and publishers.  She left private practice after 16 years to work in the heart of the music industry, first as Chief Executive of the Music Publishers Association and then as Chargée de Mission in Paris for BIEM and CISAC, representing collecting societies from all over the world.  In 2006 she was appointed to the then newly created position of Public Affairs Director at the MCPS-PRS Alliance.

During her long association with the International Association of Entertainment Lawyers she has held all the positions of office, including the presidency, and has also contributed to editing and writing a number of their books.  She chairs the Bliss Trust and is on the Board of the British Music Information Centre.  She is married with two teenage sons.

David Ferguson, Chairman, British Academy of Composers & Songwriters

David Ferguson is Chairman of the British Academy of Composers and Songwriters - http://www.britishcademy.com/ - and has worked as a composer for 24 years in rock-and-roll and TV. His works include Cracker, Bravo-2-Zero, and the Inspector Rebus series. Most recently he has completed the score for the feature film Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, with John Hannah and David Warner. He is also Chair of the Creators' Rights Alliance - http://www.creatorsrights.org.uk/ - an alliance of 17 organisations established in October 2000, representing 120,000 creators and content providers throughout the media, particularly television, radio and the press.

Mark Fishlock, Composer and Director, British Academy of Composers & Songwriters

Mark is a director of the British Academy of Composers and Songwriters and British Music Rights, as well as being chairman of the Academy's Media Executive. He sits on BMR's Communications Committee and is also a member of the Ivor Novello and Gold Badge awards committees for the Academy. Mark is a familiar face at many of our events and music industry seminars, where he has represented British Music Rights on panels, most recently at 'In The City 2001' in Manchester.

Having started out playing in bands in the late seventies, Mark became a sound engineer at Dick James Music Studios in Holborn. During his time at DJM he worked on a number of record, advertising, library music and film projects, including the soundtrack to Derek Jarman's short film Imagining October. When the studios closed down, he became a media composer, his first commission being a corporate video soundtrack for Hawker Siddeley.

Broadcast and video work has since included: Heart of the Nation, Flesh and Blood; a series of 12 programmes about hypnosis presented by Paul McKenna; the seven plays in the English Shakespeare Company's production of The Wars of the Roses; George Best: Genius; Patrick Moore's Guide to Astronomy and a two hour history of the British Army. He also provided music for the BBC's late lamented soap Eldorado and Nathalie Dupree's Southern Memories, a cooking series on American television. Mark has also written music for commercials, two 90-minute audio histories of England and France, several talking books and has provided over 100 tracks for a number of library albums.

In recent years he has returned to songwriting and has written or arranged over 500 children's songs for English and French language courses. In 2002 he began collaborating with Barrie Guard to write songs for the Ukrainian pop star Ani Lorak.

Richard Manners, Managing Director, Warner Chappell Music Publishing

Richard entered the industry in 1983 as a Talent Scout after a year as Social Secretary at University. Whilst at the independent Blue Mountain Music he enjoyed first successes with signings such as James, Mars, and bizarrely, Joe le Taxi.

He was made MD in 1988 and subsequently moved to Island Music with the same role in 1990. Over the next four years Island's success included Pulp, Massive Attack, The Beautiful South, Tricky and the Cranberries. In 1994 Polygram Music merged with Island Music and Richard became Managing Director of the combined Polygram/Island Music. Polygram Island became established as the #2 publishing company in the UK, and under Richard enjoyed chart success with The Lighthouse Family, Ash, Stereophonics, Suede, Stannard & Rowe, East 17, Bjork, and more. He stayed at Polygram/Island until 1999 when he was appointed MD of Warner/Chappell.

His first 3 years at Warner/Chappell have seen international success with Mark Hill, Dido, The Strokes, Mirwais, Gregg Alexander and The Hives.

Steve Porter, Chief Executive, MCPS-PRS Alliance

Steve Porter is Chief Executive of the MCPS-PRS Alliance - one of Europe’s leading royalty collecting societies, which licenses music rights and pays royalties to 50,000 composers, songwriters and music publishers in the UK and many thousands more around the world

Steve joined the Alliance in 1998 having worked in senior management positions in the record industry and with Price Waterhouse in London.  First as Alliance Finance Director and latterly as Managing Director, Steve has extensive knowledge of the worldwide business of music rights management – particularly in relation to online business models.

Steve’s experience of the music industry and with other collecting societies globally, together with his commitment to improved service for members and customers alike, makes him ideally suited to drive the MCPS-PRS Alliance forward to reach its full potential.

Steve recently led the Alliance team in negotiations with Swedish society, STIM, that led to their announcing a joint initiative to create a new world class processing centre for music rights administration - ICE.

He is Chairman of CELAS, the Central European Licensing and Administration Service, operated by the MCPS-PRS Alliance and GEMA to license EMI Music Publishing’s catalogue for online and mobile usage.

David Stoll, Composer and Director, British Academy of Composers & Songwriters

David was educated at Oxford University and the Royal Academy of Music, London, and is a former Chairman of the British Academy of Composers & Songwriters. Although now best known for his concert and theatre work, he has also written many television and radio signature tunes and several library albums and tracks. He has written a large number of works, words and music, especially for children.

Recent work includes the score for As You Like It (RSC), Henry VIII (A&BC) and Gulliver (Masque Youth Theatre).  Recent concert work includes the Gallions Concerto, and his fourth String Quartet.  Much of David's music is available on CD.  Other recent work includes several library tracks and the music for a computer game.

David is interested in education and has written two books on teaching composing in schools; he frequently runs pupils' workshops and also training sessions for teachers.  He initiated and led two government funded projects: IN TUNE IN EUROPE, a seminar for European writers of music and song, and BUILDING MUSIC, exploring the role of visiting composers in primary schools.

For more information on David Stoll and his music, please see www.impulse-music.co.uk/stoll.htm.