Alfred Music Joins Peaksware

Alfred Music has announced that it is joining the Peaksware Holdings, LLC portfolio of companies which includes MakeMusic, bringing together the leaders in educational music publishing and music technology.

Alfred Music and MakeMusic will continue to operate independently while sharing resources within the Peaksware group to advance innovations, provide additional content, and leverage distribution channels. MakeMusic will remain steadfast in its long-standing commitment to work equally with all publishing partners to provide the highest level of quality content for musicians and educators within SmartMusic. 

“Our long-term goal at Peaksware is to build an end-to-end ecosystem that connects composers, publishers, educators, directors, and musicians,’ explained Peaksware CEO Gear Fisher. “Alfred brings additional distribution opportunities for artists and composers while expanding the repertoire within SmartMusic for teachers and musicians.”

“We are excited about working with the Peaksware portfolio of companies and more closely with MakeMusic to significantly enhance Alfred Music’s mission since 1922 of helping the world experience the joy of making music,” said Ron Manus, CEO and Chairman of Alfred Music. “The combination of the industry’s leading music education publisher with the industry’s leading technology innovator will excite the entire music community. This is great news for our customers, publishing partners, composers, arrangers, and musicians who will benefit from working with both companies.”

Alfred Music produces educational, reference, pop, and performance materials for teachers, students, professionals, and hobbyists spanning every musical instrument, style, and difficulty level. Alfred Music  has over 150,000 active titles which represent a wide range of well-known publications—from methods like Alfred’s Basic Guitar, Alfred’s Basic Piano Library, Premier Piano Course, Music for Little Mozarts, Sound Innovations, and Suzuki, to artists like Bruce Springsteen, Bruno Mars, Carrie Underwood, Cole Porter, George and Ira Gershwin, Green Day, Katy Perry, Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones, and The Who, to brands like Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, The Wizard of Oz, Rolling Stone magazine, and Billboard.

Alfred Music’s customers and industry partners should expect business to continue as usual with no immediate changes. The main office will remain in Van Nuys, California and additional offices will stay in their current New York, Miami, UK, Singapore, and Germany locations.

“We are very excited by the opportunity to work more closely with Alfred Music on many levels.” said Fred Flowerday, Vice President of Product Strategy for MakeMusic. “Expanding the breadth and depth of content available in SmartMusic is exactly what our customers are requesting. Additionally, by combining our strengths, expertise, and experience, we are developing an ecosystem that paves the way forward for all publishing partners, composers, teachers and musicians.”

MakeMusic owns some of the most advanced and patented technology solutions to support the composing, arranging, teaching, learning, and playing of music. Regular updates and innovations to Finale make it the industry standard for music notation software and the trusted creation tool for composers and arrangers around the world. With more than one million students and 20,000 teachers, SmartMusic is at the forefront of interactive learning technologies for the classroom. And, with their recent acquisition of Weezic, an Augmented Sheet Music innovator, SmartMusic will now be available wherever musicians are – on the web, Chromebooks, iPads, Mac and PC.

To stay current with further developments, visit the Alfred Music Ledger Lines blog, the SmartMusic blog or follow Alfred on Twitter and MakeMusic on Twitter.