Music Licensing for Concert Bands
Here are the facts you need to know about the ASCAP music license for concert bands:
• ASCAP is a membership organization of more than 715,000 songwriters, composers and music publishers. Our members include both timeless composers such as Henry Mancini, Vincent Persichetti and Marvin Hamlisch to the many talented composers of today, including Donald Grantham, Jennifer Higdon, Chen Yi and Alvin Singleton.
• Our license agreement makes complying with the law easy. U.S. copyright law requires you to obtain permission from copyright owners of musical compositions to perform their compositions to the public. Instead of reaching out to hundreds of thousands of music creators yourself, a single ASCAP license agreement gives you permission to play any music contained in ASCAP's vast repertory of many millions of musical compositions.
• The ASCAP Concert Band license agreement can be found here, along with the license rate schedule. This license covers everything you need to perform the ASCAP repertory worry-free for your audiences.
• As an alternative, concert bands may also qualify for the ASCAP blanket license offered through the Association of Concert Bands (ACB) at a reduced rate. To qualify for this license, you must be an organizational member of the ACB. You can find out more about joining the ACB on their website.
• Music licensing is the right thing to do. Your license fee helps support ASCAP songwriters and composers. 88¢ of every $1 from your license fee gets distributed to ASCAP members as royalties, allowing them to earn a living from their craft and continue creating music to inspire your performances.
For more details on ASCAP licenses for concert bands, please see the FAQ below.