Label news: Chandos is sold

One of the last independent classical labels, the sturdy Essex marque Chandos, has followed Hyperion and BIS into the hands of strangers.

Chandos was sold today to the Naxos founder Klaus Heymann.

Over 44 years, Chandos has amassed a catalogue of 3,000 recordings, serving as a launchpad for such epochal artists as Mariss Jansons, Neeme Jarvi, Edward Gardner and the late Richard Hickox.

Here is what Chandos owner Ralph Couzens (pictured), son of the founder Brian Couzens,, is telling his industry colleagues:

I wanted to be the first to tell you some important news at Chandos.

As I’m sure you have noticed that the music industry is changing not only with the listening habits of consumers i.e. income from digital not making up the difference in the demise of CD sales, but also with cultural funding cuts happening all over the place.

You will also have noticed that two very important independent classical labels were sold in the last year or so, Hyperion to Universal and BIS to Apple. It’s getting harder for record labels too.

Chandos being the only large Indie left has made me think about my own future. I’m getting on in years and have to think about my eventual retirement. Unfortunately, I don’t have the next generation of Couzens interested in continuing the running of the business so I have been looking elsewhere for someone that believes in us.

However, I do not want to see Chandos disappear into a large corporate institution losing its identity for ever. The most important thing for me was the continuation of the brand and all it stood for, supporting our artists with freedom of programming in the highest quality product.

So, it’s with enormous relief and pleasure that I have found a home for Chandos with someone that shares the same values as me. I can announce that as of today we are now owned by Klaus Heymann, the founder of the Naxos group.

He is so passionate about classical music and recorded media that he personally invested his own money in the purchase, i.e. it was not purchased by the Naxos group.

He wants the brand to continue with the same attention to quality and detail that made Chandos what it is today and in so doing has insisted that I stay on as Managing Director continuing the work that my father started 44 years ago. I have of course accepted and will stay for as long as I am able to, keeping all artists and my creative team that you know and work with.