Music publisher Music Sales has named Mark Callaghan as the new head of its Australian company, with effect from July 1.
Callaghan, a respected music publishing exec and musician, will take duties as managing director of Sydney-based Music Sales, slotting into the role currently filled by the company’s veteran leader Norm Lurie.
Currently, Callaghan serves as GM at the Australasian Music Publishers Association and he is a board member of both AMCOS and the Music Council of Australia.
“We’re in a time of great challenges for all sectors of the music business but also in a period of great opportunity,” Callaghan tells Billboard.biz. “My hope is that, through creativity, hard work and experience, Music Sales will be at the forefront of converting those opportunities into realities that benefit our writers, composers and artists.”
Comments Barrie Edwards, president of Music Sales Corporation, in a statement, “The Music Sales Group is very pleased to welcome Mark to the family. His expertise and creativity will serve him well as he guides the company forward.”
As previously reported, Lurie will retire at the end of 2011. Until that time, he will continue working with Music Sales in an unspecified position.
Callaghan carved out a successful recording career as frontman with Australian alternative rock band GANGgajang, which is remembered for a string of hits in the ’80s, punctuated by the 1985 classic “Sounds of Then”. His earlier, new wave outfit the Riptides were critics’ darlings down under. GANGgajang maintains a live presence, and the Riptides reunited in April for a concert to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the University of Queensland in Brisbane.
