COMPANY PROFILE by Stephen Sutton

In 1992, I lived in a very small village in Northumberland, England, by the name of Simonburn. I worked as a commercial lawyer, and also had many connections with the famous village church of St. Mungo, being both the Reader (lay minister) and the assistant organist. As part of the exercise to raise funds for the restoration of our fine Walker organ, I agreed to produce a recording. That was Divine Art's first release, on cassette only (now on CD24101). It came to the attention of music critics, and led to my meeting several musicians who enlisted my help in producing CDs; they in turn introduced me to colleagues, and though I never intended to become a record producer one thing led to another until now we have an international business, which has acquired a reputation for quality and for introducing new music and fascinating rarities. The company was first based in South Shields, where I carried on my law practice, but I now work from home in North Yorkshire, with a small warehouse in Stockton a few miles away.

In 2003 we acquired the highly-regarded Athene label, specialising in period piano performances, and its sister label Athene-Minerva.  For a time we also distributed other labels but have discontinued this, except that we do offer the fine catalogue of Move Records (Australia), the English Campion and Cameo titles, and the privately produced CDs of Jill Crossland (Calico Classics), Peter Katin (RP Music) and Dan Evans (Dansing).   These arrangements were made as favours to friends and we cannot take on any more "other labels", although we are always happy to discuss releasing and distributing quality recordings on our own labels.

In April 2005 we launched the first in our new Historic Sound series, in partnership with Pristine Audio, leaders in sound restoration. More releases in this series will follow drawing on the collection of the Northern Vintage Recordings Archive which I manage. Our new recordings of classical, romantic and baroque music continue, both at home at abroad, and we are also working with the British Music Information Centre in respect of recordings of contemporary British music.

Our next step was completed on 1 April 2007, when we proudly accepted the acclaimed Metier label into our family.  Metier is renowned as among Europe's most important labels for contemporary music, and as well as the existing 77 titles, a new series of releases began in May 2007.  The label has drawn praise from many quarters for the quality of its productions and the innovation of programming, ideals which also underpin the divine art ethos.

The company now has seven labels, distribution in several countries, and an ever-increasing list of new projects, but the two founding principles remain: the company looks to produce recordings of rare and unusual music of quality, and is also artist-led. We trust our artists to know their audience and their repertoire, and act as the vehicle by which they can reach out to a larger audience.

Our CDs are currently distributed to retail stores and mail order companies in the UK, Australia, USA, Canada, Hong Kong/China, France, Germany, Switzerland, Denmark, Iceland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Malta and to selected outlets in other countries. Also, any product listed on this site may be ordered from us direct. Our digital music store is now managed by Chandos at the classicalshop site

Divine Art is a member of British Phonographic Industry (BPI), Phonographic Performance Ltd (PPL) and the International Federation of the Phonograph Industry (IFPI).

mail:

Divine Art Record Company
8, The Beeches,
East Harlsey
Northallerton, DL6 2DJ
UK