About us: 30 years of classical adventure!

In 1992, I lived in a very small village in Northumberland, England, by the name of Simonburn. I worked as a commercial lawyer, and also had many connections with the famous 13th century village church of St. Mungo, situated next to our home. As part of the exercise to raise funds for the restoration of our fine Walker organ, I agreed to produce a recording. That was Divine Art’s first release, on cassette only (now on CD, DDV 24101). It came to the attention of music critics, and led to my meeting several musicians who enlisted my help in producing CDs; they in turn introduced me to colleagues, and though I never intended to become a record producer one thing led to another until now we have an international business, which has acquired a reputation for quality and for introducing new music and fascinating rarities. The company was first based in South Shields, where I carried on my law practice, but we relocated to our new home in East Harlsey, on the edge of the beautiful Hambleton Hills in North Yorkshire, before jumping ship and moving our home and the main office to New England in 2009.

In 2003 we acquired the highly-regarded Athene label, specialising in period piano performances, and its sister label Athene-Minerva. For a time we also distributed other labels, such as Move Records of Australia but have discontinued this, except that we do currently offer the privately produced CDs of Peter Katin (RP Music) and Dan Evans (Dansing). These arrangements were made as favours to friends and we cannot take on any more “other labels”, although we are always happy to discuss releasing and distributing quality recordings on our own labels.

In April 2005 we launched the first in our new Historic Sound series, in partnership with Pristine Audio, leaders in sound restoration. Our new recordings of classical, romantic and baroque music continued, both at home at abroad, the growth of the catalogue speeding up every year!

Our next step was completed on 1 April 2007, when we proudly accepted the acclaimed Metier label into our family. Metier is renowned as among Europe’s most important labels for contemporary music, and as well as the existing 77 titles, a new series of releases began in May 2007 with over a hundred new releases so far. The label has drawn praise from many quarters for the quality of its productions and the innovation of programming, ideals which also underpin the divine art ethos. In April 2008, we added a further catalog, that of Dunelm Records; this label had always been available to special order only and all of its 200+ titles had to be deleted when Dunelm producer Jim Pattison died in 2013. Some of the best titles were transferred to our Diversions label and a few others listed for digital streaming.

The company now has six main labels, distribution in many countries (since February 2013 as part of the Naxos Global Distribution network), and an ever-increasing list of new projects, but the two founding principles remain: the company looks to produce recordings of rare and unusual music of quality, and is also artist-led. We trust our artists to know their audience and their repertoire, and act as the vehicle by which they can reach out to a larger audience.

Any product listed on this site may be ordered from us in CD or digital download direct. Recordings from Divine Art, Diversions, Metier and Athene and some Dunelm titles are also available in digital download format and streaming from all major providers including iTunes, Apple, Spotify, Qobuz, Idagio, Amazon and many more,

in 2009 we acquired Heritage Media Ltd, a producer of historic radio dramas, which was re-launched in 2010 with products both in digital and CD format; these vintage productions are finding a very enthusiastic new audience and are also being re-licensed to the BBC and broadcasters in several countries.

Our most recent development is the creation of a co-operation agreement with production house Mill Media, based in Poynton, Greater Manchester. We hope this will be the first stage of our next step forward in the growth of the company, and we welcome Mill Media Artistic Director James Cardell-Oliver to the Divine Art team as Project Manager.

So back to the USA – in 2011 we acquired a derelict special school/infirmary building which we converted into a Music and Arts Center, here in Brandon, Vermont. Our main offices have been located there along with art galleries and stores, bookstore, antique shop and phonograph and vintage radio museum. The building is now (2023) up for sale, and we will be transferring the main operations of the company back to the UK in the summer of 2023. Meanwhile the catalogue approaches 700 titles in this our 30th anniversary year.

Divine Art is a member of British Phonographic Industry (BPI), Phonographic Performance Ltd (PPL) and the International Federation of the Phonograph Industry (IFPI).