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Union Combines ArtistWorks with Industry Leaders TrueFire, JamPlay, and FaderPro

Coalition To Deliver Affordable, Innovative, Anytime Access to Unparalleled Music Learning Systems and Best-In-Class Artists

July 12, 2021: ArtistWorks announced today that it has been acquired by Growth Catalyst Partners’ portfolio company TrueFire Studios, a consortium of major online music instruction companies. The acquisition brings together leading names and pioneers in online music education — including ArtistWorks, TrueFire, JamPlay, and FaderPro — who together span dozens of genres and instruments while delivering access to Grammy Award-winning artists, top session players, and world-renowned educators. The deal was completed with financial support from mid-market private equity firm Growth Catalyst Partners.

Founded in 2008, ArtistWorks partners with master musicians and enables them to create and preserve their teaching legacy online. Each hand-selected ArtistWorks teacher brings years of performing, recording, and teaching expertise to the table, offering the rare combination of virtuosity and educational excellence.

The instructional format is empowered by the company’s industry-unique Video Exchange® Learning Platform, which allows subscribing students to submit practice videos and receive personal video assessments from their teacher. Well over 90,000 (student-to-teacher) Video Exchanges, along with 2,000 hours of music lesson videos are made available to ArtistWorks members, providing a novel online music instruction environment where every interaction between student and teacher becomes a learning opportunity for all.

ArtistWorks has taught hundreds of thousands of students in over 80 countries. This impressive and growing roster of teaching artists and lessons now joins the TrueFire Studios’ syndicate of companies that provides 50,000 lessons from nearly 400 music educators covering all styles, techniques, and levels of learning reaching students in over 180 countries. Course material and Video Exchange Learning® is available anytime, anywhere across desktop, mobile, and streaming devices.

“We welcome this new alliance that ensures fulfillment of the long-held ArtistWorks mission to ‘teach the world music’. Working alongside the other top-quality consortium companies who strongly complement each other will allow exciting new collaborations and exceptional learning opportunities for lifelong players.” says Patricia Butler, CEO and Cofounder of ArtistWorks.

Scott Peters, Managing Partner of Growth Catalyst Partners commented, “We set out to bring together the world’s leading online music instruction companies to provide significantly more resources to dramatically expand their capabilities and reach. By adding ArtistWorks to the family, we are able to offer access to additional world class artists and a wide variety of exceptional courses ranging from guitar, bass and banjo to voice and piano. This combination of offerings provides a more robust, diverse and scalable platform for artists, students and leading brands which collectively comprise the largest community of practicing musicians and educators in the world. We are thrilled to have ArtistWorks on the team.”

ArtistWorks will continue to operate as a stand-alone, separate division, brand and learning experience with the full support and continued equity capital from Growth Catalyst Partners, investors in TrueFire Studios holding company.

For more information on ArtistWorks please visit https://artistworks.com/about-us/. For more information about TrueFire Studios please visit https://truefirestudios.com/

About ArtistWorks

In 2008, former AOL executive technologist David Butler set out to learn jazz guitar. With no acceptable teachers in his area, he built a revolutionary online system to enable anyone to get direct feedback from a master teacher anywhere in the world. Founded by David and former financial executive Patricia Butler, ArtistWorks is the leader in a new generation of online learning platforms. ArtistWorks’ multi-patented Video Exchange® Learning platform enables world-renowned musicians to “teach the world music” by presenting their teaching legacy in the form of extensive video lessons and direct feedback to subscribing students – creating an innovative, two-way online learning experience called “Video Exchange”.

About TrueFire Studios

TrueFire Studios is an alliance of the world’s leading online music education companies. We are passionate about democratizing music education by providing affordable, anytime, anywhere access to best-in-class artists and the most comprehensive music lesson library on the planet, across all major instrument categories. We provide exceptional revenue-share opportunities for educators while preserving artist-led music education for future generations. For more information, visit www.truefirestudios.com, www.truefire.com, www.jamplay.com, www.FaderPro.com.