Today, Sony/ATV Music Publishing announced it has centralized its two production music divisions – Extreme Music and EMI Production Music – as one global operation and named Russell Emanuel as its President & CEO. The appointment gives Emanuel oversight of Sony/ATV’s global production music business, which will combine the strengths and experiences of both companies to better serve its composers and clients around the world.
EMI Production Music is home to top libraries including KPM, Music House and Juice, and Extreme Music represents an unrivaled roster of A-List talent such as Quincy Jones, Hans Zimmer, Sir George Martin, Labrinth, Rodney Jerkins, Ramin Djawadi, and many more.
Sony/ATV Chairman and CEO Jon Platt stated, “Russell is undeniably one of the best in the business, and I’m pleased to recognize his expertise and influence with this new leadership role. His vision to integrate these two successful production music entities will further support our composers, clients and catalogues on a global scale.”
Russell Emanuel said, “I am extremely thankful and excited for this incredible new opportunity. It’s a dream scenario to harness two iconic brands, cutting edge technology and extraordinary talent to create a dynamic next chapter, which will be both evolutionary and revolutionary.” Russell has served as CEO, Chief Creative Officer and Co-Founder of Extreme Music and Bleeding Fingers Music (BFM) for twenty-two years.
Under Russell’s leadership, Extreme Music and Bleeding Fingers are renowned as producers of award-winning film and television scores and have become trusted music sources for top productions. Bolstered by a unique creative partnership with Hans Zimmer, Russell and his team at Bleeding Fingers have become the go-to music team for original scores for iconic series including The Simpsons, Planet Earth II, Blue Planet II, Superfly, Apollo Mission to the Moon, The Planets, Masterchef, Queer Eye, Seven Worlds, One Planet, and the recently-premiered Planet Earth: A Celebration.
Before creating Bleeding Fingers, Russell was already established as a leader in the composing industry with the success of Extreme Music, which he co-founded in 1997. Extreme Music was created as a business that would provide production music for projects that did not have access their own composers, while retaining incredibly high standards of passion and quality. Russell grew the company to such a large success that it was purchased by Sony/ATV in 2008, with Emanuel remaining as CEO.
