Patron of the Arts Award

Martin Bandier

Martin N. Bandier is the Chairman and CEO of EMI Music Publishing, the world’s largest and most successful music publishing company. He is also a director of the Board of EMI Group, plc. EMI controls the rights to more than one million song titles, from “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” and “New York, New York” to “I Heard It Through the Grapevine.” In 1975, Bandier co-founded The Entertainment Company, which scored best-selling songs from Dolly Parton, Barbara Streisand and Captain and Tenille. In 1984, he co-founded SBK Entertainment and in five years acquired two of the industry’s most important song collections, Combine Music, a Nashville-based music publishing company, and CBS Songs, the largest acquisition of a music publishing company at that time.

In 1989, SBK sold its music publishing interests to Thorn EMI and Bandier remained on at the newly merged company, soon becoming Chairman and CEO. Since then, Bandier has catapulted the company to new heights with the 50% purchase of Jobete Music Co., the catalog containing classic songs of Marvin Gaye, the Supremes, Stevie Wonder, the Jackson 5 and other legendary Motown hits. He was also responsible for the significant copyright purchases of Filmtrax in 1991, and Windswept Pacific in 1999, one of the largest remaining independent music publishing companies in existence at the time.

Bandier’s involvement has been critical to the development and signing of Grammy-gleaning artists like Alicia Keys, Sting, Enrique Iglesias, Pink and Rob Thomas. Likewise for this year’s EMI Music Publishing’s Grammy artists, who amassed an extraordinary 24 Grammy’s with talents such as Norah Jones, Foo Fighters and Alan Jackson.

Bandier’s civic commitments include membership on the boards of the United Jewish Appeal, City of Hope and the Songwriter’s Hall of Fame, and, he serves as a trustee of the T.J. Martell Foundation. He also serves on the board for the BMI Foundation Inc. He is director of The NMPA (National Music Publishers Association) and the Rock and Roll Hall Fame. His many industry achievements include numerous years as Publisher of the Year, by ASCAP, BMI and Billboard. Bandier is also a trustee of Syracuse University.