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Authenticity, Easy Licensing of Master Recordings and Publishing are Strengths of West One Music, said Cristina Bellido on #PRODUprimetime
Richard Izarra| 28 de febrero de 2021
Cristina Bellido de West One Music
Cristina Bellido, senior VP of business development at the West One Music Group, said the authenticity of its music, whether of its library collection or the tunes they compose, are distinguishing elements that make it unique in the music market for the media and for audiovisual content. “We’re authentic, what we create is totally global and multicultural. We have two seals in Latin America. One is SOMOS, under which we have all kinds of Latin American music like mariachis, Peruvian chicha, psychedelic, cumbia, bachata, all kinds. And we have another seal, SOMOS MAS, with artists like Diana Burco, the Colombian singer-songwriter nominated for a Latin Grammy. That’s what sets us apart from other studios that are maybe a little more Anglos-Saxon,” she said on #PRODUprimetime with Richard Izarra. Founded some 20 years ago, West One Music started up in the Soho district of London with the aim of composing music for audiovisual media, television, radio, independent producers, video games and music supervisors. “We also work with advertising agencies and brands,” said Cristina, who has been with the company 15 years including 10 traveling around Latin America promoting local production and composers. “We realized there wasn’t enough Latin American library music so we started building that sector. The special features of regional music are what make it so fascinating.”She noted that the process of transferring music rights to clients is fairly easy. “Since we are made up of producers, editors and record labels, we can license both master recordings and publishing. The licenses are supersimple – for example, a license for synchronization can be for a specific song, or it can be for producers, television studios with flat fees for a show, for an episode or for the series. It’s very simple and clients can have access to our entire library, or we can create original music for the show. We adapt ourselves to everything.” Among their clients Cristina mentioned Netflix, ViacomCBS, A&E, Telefonica and WarnerMedia. “Right now we’re working on a series that we can’t say anything about as yet, but we expect it to have great importance in media outside Latin America and Spain.” She also said they are encouraging female composers for reasons of diversity. Cristina, a Catalan with a degree in languages, started her career in the London office. In 2016 she moved to New York to head the expansion around the Americas of West One Music, known as the market’s largest independent music producer. Her background is in copyright royalties, and now in sales and business development. Find more information at hola@westonemusic.com y WestOneMusic.com.
