JUNE 18 I HAL LEONARD I ACQUISITION
Hal Leonard Purchases Shawnee

On June 18, Hal Leonard acquired Shawnee Press, a Nashville, Tenn.-based publisher of choral and instrumental music. Since 1989, Shawnee had been operating as an independent subsidiary of Music Sales, the U.S. publishing arm of The Music Sales Group. News of the acquisition came from Hal Leonard Chairman and CEO Keith Mardak and The Music Sales Group Chairman and Managing Director Robert Wise.

“The Shawnee name is synonymous with quality,” Mardak said. “The addition of these publications and their formidable stable of writers will serve as a perfect complement to our current choral operations.”

Shawnee Press dates back to the late 1930s, when bandleader and choral master Fred Waring and his friends from their singing group, The Pennsylvanians, formed music publisher Words and Music in New York. In 1947, Waring relocated the company near his home in Shawnee-on-Delaware, Pa., and renamed it Shawnee Press. His widow sold the company to The Music Sales Group in 1989. In 2005, Music Sales relocated Shawnee Press to Nashville’s Music Row.

Shawnee is known for its quality and variety of sacred and secular music for schools and churches. Its divisions include Concert Works Unlimited, GlorySound, Harold Flammer Music, Margun Music, Mark Foster Music and Wide World Music.

halleonard.com; shawneepress.com; musicsales.com