Exclusive: Concord Music Announces New Nashville Location

Concord Music has expanded into a new office space located at 1201 Demonbreun Street, also home to the relocated Sony Music Nashville offices and the WME Nashville offices. Staff members from Concord Music labels Rounder Records and Sugar Hill Records have also moved from their previous Nashville locations into the new space.

Jim Selby, Concord Music General Manager

Additionally, Concord’s Chief Publishing Executive, Jake Wisely, has relocated to Nashville, as has Concord Music’s Chief Operating Officer Glen Barros and Concord Music’s Chief Financial Officer Bob Valentine. They are some of approximately 30 Concord staffers who have relocated to Nashville thus far. Barros says the company plans to continue adding to its Nashville-based staff.

“We are trying to make a significant resource of people in Nashville,” Barros tells MusicRow.com. “It’s a combination of people moving here and filling open positions here. It may be that someone has a position in L.A. or New York and if they leave, then we will fill that position in Nashville.”

Concord Music occupies 21,000-square feet on the sixth floor of the 15-story building on Demonbreun, which is located in Nashville’s Gulch area. The new office’s airy, open concept layout is outfitted with two performance spaces and views of downtown Nashville.

Jake Wisely, Chief Publishing Executive, Concord Music Publishing. Photo: Beth Herzhaft

“We put the offices on the inner side so everyone can enjoy the views,” Concord Music’s General Manager Jim Selby says. “In fact most of the cubicles have better views than the offices, because they are against the windows. The offices are smaller than what you would typically see, but the idea is you use the whole space. There are breakout areas and lounges and a cafeteria. A lot of people actually have meetings there. We wanted people to use the entire space, so you can have department meetings and company meetings and there are smaller private spaces for phone calls and private meetings.”

The plan to expand the Nashville operations began two years ago.

“As we started integrating companies, it became apparent that having people centrally located between L.A. and New York would be beneficial to many people so from an operational perspective it came from having people all over the country,” Chief Financial Officer Bob Valentine says.

Glen Barros, Concord Music Chief Operating Officer. Photo: Beth Herzhaft

He continues, “It’s becoming more and more expensive to do business in those states, and it’s becoming harder for people to live in those cities and retain talent. Because we are in an industry that this town specifically has focused on so much, it became a long-term planning process, and we started thinking about other towns we may want to move our operations to. Nashville naturally came out in the conversation. There are a lot of people here already in the music industry, so if you are moving positions here, you’ve got a great pool of talent to draw from already and that’s not necessarily true in any other city other than New York City or Los Angeles.”

Bob Valentine, Concord Music Chief Financial Officer

The Nashville expansion comes on the heels of Concord’s recently-announced international representation of Dolly Parton’s publishing ventures, and as Americana-flavored music has seen a surge on the sales charts in recent years.

“The whole Americana scene is really expanding. We felt that a few years ago when we moved Rounder from Boston to here and of course adding Sugar Hill, so it’s just a continuation of that,” says Barros.