Indy music company NewSong Music Group opens in Asheville’s Echo Mountain Recording

Jason Sandford

Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.

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Here’s the press release about NewSong Music Group:

Brooklyn based NewSong Music Group and Asheville’s Echo Mountain Recording announce that NewSong has opened an office in Echo Mountain’s internationally recognized and prize winning recording facility. Located in the beautiful and music-rich haven in the mountains of western North Carolina, this will serve as NewSong’s southern outpost.

The Asheville office is being headed by producer and NewSong director and co-founder Gar Ragland, a native North Carolinian. “I’m very excited with this development,” says Ragland. “It’s great to be here in Asheville and back in North Carolina after so many years. Asheville is such a creative and vibrant community, and we’re looking forward to contributing to its cultural and entrepreneurial fabric in many different ways.”

NewSong Music is an independent music company founded in 2001. Its mission is to build and service a supportive community of performers and songwriters across all genres of music and levels of skill, and to identify the truly exceptional artists within this community. It then works closely with these talented artists to develop their careers and introduce their music to a broader, international audience. The Asheville office will complement NewSong’s office and studio facility in Brooklyn’s Gowanus neighborhood.

NewSong’s programs include the Mountain Stage NewSong Contest, its annual performance and songwriting competition produced in collaboration with National Public Radio’s Mountain Stage show, a record label (NewSong Recordings), and an artist management division. It also produces and curates concerts with partners that include Arts Brookfield and Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York and the Milton Rhodes Center for the Arts in Winston-Salem, NC.

NewSong and Echo Mountain’s partnership first originated in the spring of 2012 with Echo Mountain’s sponsorship of the Mountain Stage NewSong Contest. As sponsors, Echo Mountain will host the recording of the fully-funded grand prize album awarded to this year’s overall winner of the contest. The winner will be determined at the live performance contest finals held on October 20, 2012 at New York’s Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.

The winning album will be produced by Iestyn Polson, whose credits include David Gray, Patti Smith and David Bowie. And it will be released on NewSong Recordings.