BYU record label is small, but big ideas keep it going

Brigham Young University's Tantara Records isn't necessarily a household name, even in its home state. In fact, it's probably one of Utah's best kept secrets, but not because anyone associated with the company wants it that way.

Tantara is a small record label, but as general manager Ron Simpson said, there's nothing wrong with being a small company in a world of giants. "We're small, but we're viable small. When we entered the world of (record) labels, we only had six or seven titles, and we were dismissed as being too small. After we had about 25 titles in print, we began to talk to distributors. Now we've got about 50 or 60 titles out, and we're viable small."

The company has two full-time employees and, what Simpson calls, "an army of college students" to help out. Its size puts it in the same category as some other small record companies such as Centaur and Bridge.

One of the students who works at Tantara is marketing and public-relations coordinator Andrew Maxfield. He's a newcomer, having been with the company for only six months, but he knew Tantara was the right place for him as soon as he walked in the door. "I saw a few people working very hard. It's a small office, but a great job. It's a lot of fun being here."

Tantara Records owes its existence to Newell Daley, the former head of BYU's School of Music. "He felt that it would be neat to have a label from BYU," Simpson said. That was in the early 1990s. And thanks to a couple of projects at the Provo campus, Daley's idea finally became reality. "In 1993, we made a Christmas video that PBS affiliates around the country aired and used as a pledge premium. That was our first outreach nationwide."

The compilation release, "A Thanksgiving of American Folk Hymns," was also responsible for Tantara Records' birth. "Because it was a compilation, it was cumbersome getting permission and licensing fees paid," Simpson said. "We realized it would be more expedient to organize a label on our own terms." A dozen years later, "we've managed to keep it going."

Daley is also the one who came up with the company's rather unusual name. "It's derived from the Italian post-horn call, 'tan-ta-ra,' " said Simpson.

A secret to Tantara's staying power is its diversity, said Simpson, who's been with the company since its founding. "That was always an issue with us."

Today, the label releases albums in five widely divergent musical genres — classical, jazz, contemporary, inspirational and ethnic. "We have our fingers in a lot of pies," Maxfield said.