The celebrated Decca label has been relaunched as Decca Classics as part of renewed focus on ‘core’ classical music. Max Hole, the COO of Universal’s international music business, has charged his new team with maintaining the label’s long commitment to classical music, and with strengthening its artist roster.

Decca Classics – headed by managing director Paul Moseley, who has a long history with the company – will be based in Kensington Village as part of the Decca Record Group, overseen by the company’s president Dickon Stainer. To assist in this new vision, a promotion and marketing team has been established to focus entirely on the classical projects.

Decca Classics will be marketed internationally by a new team headed by the director of international marketing for Universal Classics, Lut Behiels, a much-admired executive formally with Deutsche Grammophon. The team will manage the international marketing and promotion of both the Decca Classics and DG rosters.

Alongside this structural change, a number of new artists have signed to the label, including the cellist Alisa Weilerstein and the soprano Aleksandra Kurzak. Daniel Barenboim has also recently signed an agreement with Decca Classics as both pianist and conductor.

This latest re-structure means that Decca Classics is once again a label entirely based in the UK – where it was created in 1929 by Edward Lewis as the Decca Record Company. In its long history it has been home to many of the greatest artists in classical music including Herbert von Karajan, Ernest Ansermet, Sir Georg Solti, Dame Joan Sutherland, Renata Tebaldi, Sir Clifford Curzon, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Luciano Pavarotti, Riccardo Chailly, Cecilia Bartoli, Renée Fleming and, more recently, Juan Diego Flórez, Jonas Kaufmann and Andreas Scholl.

Paul Moseley commented of the announcement: ‘With these changes Decca Classics secures its future as a global leader in classical music while also making the vital reconnection with its heritage as a British label. We are signing new artists and will provide a better service to our existing stars. The Decca label has a place in the heart of every classical music lover and I am thrilled to be leading this part of the business into its tenth decade.’