Warner Music Austria and ADA (Alternative Distribution Alliance) Central Europe have signed a distribution and studio agreement with Tonherd, an Austrian company described as a full-service, end-to-end music company.
Tonherd, led by Constantin Kaiser, Florian Koch, and Valentin Bröderbauer, handles songwriting, production, and release work. Its recent credits include releases by Stella Maria, Virginia Ernst, Billie Steirisch, and NOËMI.
Under the agreement, Tonherd’s roster will receive worldwide distribution and strategic backing from Warner Music and ADA. Michael Russ will be the first artist released under the distribution arrangement, with projects from ams, Fräulein Peter, and Now scheduled for later in 2026.
On the studio side, Warner Music Austria’s entire local artist roster will have direct access to Tonherd’s studio facilities, which the companies describe as state-of-the-art.
Financial terms not disclosed#
The announcement did not disclose financial terms or ownership details. Equity investments are common in major-label partnerships, but some recent agreements have been structured without ownership changes. Earlier this year, AWAL (Artists Without A Label) signed a distribution and promotion partnership with Italy’s Artist First, which said it remains a fully independent company.
Executive comment#
“With this partnership, we aim to support artists as partners from the very early stages of their development and demonstrate our commitment to local Austrian music, while simultaneously creating a new, forward-looking, and market-aligned model of cooperation between the indie and major label sectors,” the president of IFPI Austria, the Austrian national group of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, said.
“I am very much looking forward to this collaboration and to the talent that will be discovered through it in the coming years,” Franz Pleterski, Warner Music Austria’s general manager, added.
Warner Music’s wider global activity#
The Tonherd agreement is the latest in a series of global Warner Music moves this year. They include:
- Acquisitions of multiple international catalogs
- An expansion into the Bengali music market in India
- A virtual-artist agreement in China
- A minority stake in TuStreams, described as a leading independent force in Música Mexicana
