UMPG acquires Puts’ GRAMMY Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning catalogue
Universal Music Publishing Group (UMPG), a leading, global music publisher, today announced that world-renowned composers Kevin Puts and Angélica Negrón have been respectively signed to exclusive, global publishing agreements. Through the new deal, the company’s Classics & Screen division also acquired Puts’ illustrious composition catalogue.
Natasha Baldwin, Executive Vice President of UMPG Classics & Screen, said: “We are delighted to welcome Kevin and Angélica to our Universal Music Publishing family, and particularly to our world-class Classics & Screen roster. They are both truly unique and trailblazing composers in their fields, and it is a huge privilege to support and amplify all to come in their artistic narratives.”
Winner of the 2023 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Classical Composition, Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Kevin Puts (G. Ricordi & Co) has established himself as one of America’s leading composers. Puts has been commissioned and performed by major organizations around the world including the Metropolitan Opera, Philadelphia Orchestra, Carnegie Hall, Opera Philadelphia, The New York Philharmonic, The Baltimore Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, Minnesota Opera, and many more. He has collaborated with world-class artists such as Renée Fleming, Yo-Yo Ma, Yannick Nezet-Seguin, and Marin Alsop, among others.
Across his catalogue, Puts’ emotional and richly complex music spans a broad body of award-winning work: three operas, four symphonies, numerous concertos, and much more. Following the world premiere of triple concerto Contact in March 2022, a recording with the Philadelphia Orchestra (Deutsche Grammophon) received the 2023 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Classical Composition. Additionally, for Puts’ breakthrough opera Silent Night, he was awarded the 2012 Pulitzer Prize following its 2011 premiere by Minnesota Opera.
Other critically acclaimed highlights include Puts’ The Brightness of Light, featuring Renée Fleming and Rod Gilfrey, and his fourth opera, The Hours, which is being reprised by the MET Opera next season with the same star-studded cast. Since 2006, Puts has been a member of the Composition Faculty at the Peabody Institute and is currently the Director of the Minnesota Orchestra Composer’s Institute.
Through the new agreement, the Classics & Screen division has acquired Puts’ acclaimed catalogue which includes operas The Hours, Silent Night, The Manchurian Candidate, Elizabeth Cree and orchestra works such as his four Symphonies, Credo, and orchestral works featuring soloists like Contact and The Brightness of Light, in addition to an entire body of instrumental and vocal works. Under the acquisition, Puts’ works will be published under the Ricordi imprint.
Puts said: “I’m thrilled to be joining Ricordi/UMPG Classics & Screen’s esteemed global roster of composers and artists at this particularly exciting juncture in my creative life. I look forward to our partnership and to what the future holds!”
Rising star and Puerto Rican composer Angélica Negrón (Decca Publishing) is flourishing across multiple musical genres: classical concert works, film/tv music, and songwriting. The recipient of the 2022 Hermitage Greenfield Prize, Negrón has been commissioned by the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Dallas Symphony, National Symphony, Opera Philadelphia, the Bang on a Can All-Stars, Sō Percussion, the American Composers Orchestra, and the New York Botanical Garden, among others. In Film/TV, she has composed numerous scores including an original score for the HBO docuseries Menudo: Forever Young, Landfall (2020) and Memories of a Penitent Heart (2016).
Beyond her solo career, Negrón shines as a talented co-writer alongside UMPG’s Latin/Reggaeton artists. Electronic indie band Balún, of which she is a founding member, released LP Prisma Tropical which was among NPR’s Top 50 albums of 2018 and #4 on Rolling Stone’s Top 10 Latin Albums of 2018. Buzzy song “La Nueva Ciudad” broke into Spotify’s viral charts in eight countries including Spain, Mexico, Chile and Argentina.
Angélica has upcoming premieres with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra (featuring singer Lido Pimienta), Santa Rosa Symphony & Eugene Symphony (First Symphony project), and The Hermitage Artist Retreat (as the recipient of the 2022 Hermitage Greenfield Prize). As an educator, Angélica has been a teaching artist with NY Philharmonic’s Very Young Composers program (2013-2021) and with Lincoln Center Education (2014-2018).
Said Negrón: “As I begin a refreshing new chapter in my artistic career, it is a privilege to join the roster of artists at Universal Music Publishing. I’m so thrilled to find a partner who will honor my fluid and diversified body of work. With the support of Universal, I can’t wait to uncover the unimaginable potential at the intersections of my work and passions, both within and beyond concert music.”
Jude Vaclavik, Director U.S. Classical Publishing & Promotion at UMPG, added: “With their singular and diverse artistic voices, Kevin and Angélica are among the most exciting composers in North America. As their publisher of choice, we are honored Kevin and Angélica have entrusted UMPG to support their bodies of work, and we look forward to delivering them the best creative opportunities.”
A division of Universal Music Publishing Group, UMP Classics & Screen is redefining what it means to be a composer. Representing UMPG’s global classical and screen composer businesses, its roster of world-class composers includes Nicholas Britell, Isobel Waller-Bridge, Max Richter, Alexandre Desplat, Hildur Guanodottir, Danny Elfman, James Newton-Howard, David Lynch, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Gustavo Santaolalla, and more. The division is home to iconic catalogs like Ricordi, Durand/Salabert-Eschig, and EMB, which includes composers Puccini, Respighi, Poulenc, Messiaen, Haas, Kurtag, David Lang, Julia Wolfe, Michael Gordon and more.