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Telarc International Corporation
USINFO | 2013-05-29 09:52
Telarc International Corporation is an independent record label, based in Cleveland, Ohio, United States, and founded in 1977 by two classically trained musicians and former teachers, Jack Renner and Robert Woods. Originally a classical music-only label, the label has had a long association with Ohio's two most famous orchestras: the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and the Cleveland Orchestra, as well as the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. Telarc has since released music from other styles of music including jazz, blues and country music. In 1996, Telarc merged with another independent label, Heads Up, now a Telarc subsidiary.
In late 2005 both Telarc and Heads Up were bought by Concord Records. Today both labels operate as semi-autonomous units on the Concord Music Group.
The Telarc Sound
Telarc is noted for the high quality of its recordings, encapsulated in the slogan "The Telarc Sound". Its engineers are highly regarded within the recording business, and have led Telarc to 40 Grammy Awards. In 2004 it received the "Label Of The Year" Award from Gramophone Magazine. Telarc was one of the first labels to begin recording music with a 20-bit analog-to-digital converter (ADC) in the late 1980s and started using 24-bit formats since 1996. Currently, the majority of Telarc's releases are (generally hybrid) SACDs based on DSD recordings.
2009 staff reduction
In February 2009, due to corporate restructuring at Concord Music Group, Telarc announced it would cut twenty-six jobs and that it would also stop producing its own recordings. These job cuts included the highly-regarded, multi-award winning production team. Telarc's founder and former president Robert Woods resigned in March 2009 and was replaced by Heads Up president Dave Love. Love was subsequently let go the following month. Four key members of the Telarc production team – Grammy-award winning engineers Michael Bishop and Robert Friedrich, Grammy-award winning producer Thomas Moore, and chief technician Bill McKinney – formed the independent production company, Five/Four Productions, Ltd.
"Keeping The Blues Alive" Label Award
In 2013, The Blues Foundation honored Telarc International, a division of Concord Music Group, with its 2013 Keeping the Blues Alive (KBA) Award during a recognition luncheon Friday, February 1, 2013, in Memphis, Tennessee. Each year, the Blues Foundation presents the KBA Awards to individuals and organizations that have made significant contributions to blues music. The KBA ceremony was held in conjunction with the 29th International Blues Challenge (IBC). The KBAs are awarded on the basis of merit by a select panel of blues professionals to those working to actively promote and document the music.
