The Music Playground Promotes Christian Celaya to Chief Creative Officer
The Music Playground is pleased to announce the promotion of Christian Celaya to the role of chief creative officer. A veteran of The Music Playground’s family of creative companies, Christian assumes his new role following a two-year stint as creative director of The Diner, TMP’s sister production music library.
“Christian has catalysed huge innovation and growth on both the creative and business development fronts since he first joined our companies,” says Sydney Ferleger, president and executive producer of The Music Playground and The Diner. “He is diligent, passionate, and a team player. On top of that he has an incredible ear and has introduced an impressive network of top shelf collaborators to our ecosystem. I’m thrilled that we are promoting him and excited to watch our companies soar to new heights with his leadership.”
Christian brings over two decades of music industry experience and a vast creative network of relationships to his new post; he spent ten years as a signed and touring artist before entering the sync world as a composer, producer, and music supervisor for the advertising, film, and television industries. He has landed high-profile placements for major brands like Nike, Chevrolet, Netflix, and Hershey’s, and for television shows including Shameless, Silicon Valley, Riverdale, and Lucifer. He has produced and collaborated with top-tier artists such as Deantoni Parks (Flying Lotus, John Cale), Omar Rodriguez Lopez (At The Drive In, Mars Volta), and Le Butcherettes.
During his tenure as creative director at The Diner, Christian negotiated numerous strategic publishing partnerships, most notably helping to close an exclusive North America representation agreement with European sync powerhouse Felt Music. This partnership added thousands of pitchable tracks to The Diner’s catalogue and built relationships with Felt’s vast European collective of composers and producers. He simultaneously drew upon his extensive network of music industry veterans to bring well-established artists on board for production music partnerships, including Cru the Dynamic, Ryan Key of Yellowcard, Benny Trokan of Spoon, and Travis Stever of Coheed & Cambria. On top of that he inaugurated The Diner’s Meet the Collaborator series, a behind-the-curtains documentary project exploring the composition and production processes of Diner artist partners.
In his expanded role at The Music Playground, Christian plans to continue to use his network to deepen and diversify The Music Playground’s creative collaborator roster, and to explore new ways of matching dynamic artist talent with creative-forward sync clients to synergise uniquely elevated work.
“My career path as a composer and producer in the sync industry started at The Diner back in 2008. To reflect on where that path has led me, culminating with me being named CCO of The Music Playground and The Diner all these years later, is an incredible honor and one that I don't take for granted. I've witnessed firsthand the hard work, passion and innovative thinking that our entire team has invested over the last few years, resulting in consistent growth for our companies and the relevancy, authenticity and quality of our music and music services. I am eager to harness that momentum by continuing to stay strategic in our creative initiatives and partnerships, in order to raise the bar for what original music, production music and music supervision looks and sounds like,” says Christian.
“It’s an exciting time for us at The Music Playground,” says Sydney. “More than ever, we’re leaning into project innovation, creative collaboration, and crafting work with both an artistic and strategic point-of-view for our clients. As someone who has embodied that spirit and pushed the envelope at every stage of his journey with us, Christian is perfectly suited to lead the company into its next creative era.”
