The big news, since the last news item, is that Mark and Pat Goddard have founded Clifton Edition Ltd.
You may have noticed that Spartan Press was dissolved by the government in March 2023. This came as a potent shock to Pat and myself. Composers and arrangers (myself included) have not been paid royalties for years. Shocking. It was 33 years ago that we founded the company. When we sold it to Dave and Claire Candy in 2018 it was a thriving enterprise. So sad.
But… there is good news: thanks to paragraph 6 of the contract that we all signed with Spartan Press Music Publishers Limited, in the even of the company going bust, we automatically get our copyrights back. I had this confirmed by the specialist copyright experts in the legal department of Faber Music Ltd.
So… after talking to the ABRSM, Trinity, various other publishes, music dealers and numerous former Spartan composers, Pat and I have decided to start again from scratch. Our new company is called ‘Clifton Edition Ltd.’ and we have signed a distribution deal with Stainer and Bell Ltd. starting next month.
We have already embarked on an ambitious re-publishing schedule and are energetically are upgrading the quality of the editions: re-typesetting the music to the highest modern standards and printing all the books in ‘Concert Size’ (9”x12”) with full laminated colour covers.
Visit CliftonEdition.com for the very latest!