CITYSHOWCASE.CO.UK

Seán Devine

ArtForm: Workshop Panellist

www.ascap.com

Seán Devine is Vice President, Membership, UK/Europe of The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP)

Seán first started out the music industry as a band manager. In his quest to find the most cutting edge unsigned acts, he ran the local band competition. This established him as a useful contact for London based A&R folks. It was this relationship that first led Seán to London where he was offered a Talent Scout job with Famous Music Publishing. After two and a half years with Famous, Seán was approached by legendary songwriter Roger Greenaway to be Membership Representative for the US performing right organisation ASCAP.

The next three years were spent setting up the ASCAP Presents…….. showcases in order to showcase talent to the UK A&R fraternity. Some of the bands that passed through the showcase were Placebo, Jocasta, The Gyres, Subcircus to name a few.
Ironically, it was at ASCAP`s yearly awards ceremony that he was approached by Maria Forte to help set up Richard Branson`s new publishing venture, V2 Music Publishing. Working as A&R Manager, Seán worked with the likes of Glitterbox, Fuzz Townshend, Boy George, Scott 4, Fluke, Ben Christophers, One Minute Silence and Annie Christian.

After three years of helping to sculpt the V2 Music catalogue Seán met up with ex boss Roger Greenaway and returned to ASCAP as Senior Director of Membership. In October 2004 Seán was promoted to Vice President of Membership (UK/Europe) where his role is to increase ASCAP’s repertory. He regularly speaks at colleges and schools around the UK about performing rights and publishing aswell as presenting the ASCAP International panel at the “I Create Music” conference in Los Angeles every year.

Writers and publishers have a choice of which performing right organisation represents them for the US and the London offices aim to make sure that every writer chooses ASCAP , the only true US member owned performing right organisation. 

About ASCAP
Established in 1914, ASCAP is the first and leading U.S. Performing Rights Organization (PRO) representing the world's largest repertory totaling over 8.5 million copyrighted musical works of every style and genre from more than 400,000 songwriter, composer and music publisher members. ASCAP has representation arrangements with similar foreign organizations so that the ASCAP repertory is represented in nearly every country around the world where copyright law exists. ASCAP protects the rights of its members and foreign affiliates by licensing the public performances of their copyrighted works and distributing royalties based upon surveyed performances. ASCAP is the only American PRO owned and governed by its writer and publisher members. www.ascap.com

Biog as updated for City Showcase in 2012