Lance Freed, the former Rondor Music International President, has been named President of the newly formed Blackbird Music Publishing Group.

Blackbird Music Publishing Group is a joint venture between event producer Blackbird Presents, merchant bank The Raine Group and Blackbird CEO Keith Wortman. Its first acquisition is the administration rights to the catalog of Burt Bacharach.

The company will have offices in New York, Los Angeles and Nashville.

“Music publishing is a natural next step for us given that our work across film, television, concerts and festivals enables us to offer incredible opportunities to songwriters,” Wortman said. “There was only one name on the list for us to lead this effort and it was Lance Freed. Lance is the most thoughtful and creative music publishing executive in our industry, and I am thrilled that he has joined the Blackbird Presents family.”

Freed was crucial in building Rondor into a major independent music publisher prior to its sale to Universal Music Publishing Group.

“My entire career has been predicated on providing total, complete, personal focus on songwriters and their songs,” said Freed, a Songwriters Hall of Fame inductee. “Now I get to continue that journey and also provide a range of remarkable strategic and financial opportunities to songwriters given the similar philosophy and assets of my new partners. And I look forward to learning, at long last, just how many blackbirds can be baked into a pie."

Photo credit: Gary Gershoff