Selekted Music is invented, developed and nurtured by Gerd Karstens and Niels Pijpers; two guys who share a mutual deep passion for anything that has to do with music, sharing more than thirty years of music industry experience between them. With their long lasting professional background, they combine the professionalism of a major record company with the swiftness of an independent records compa
ny within one brand new joint venture. This synergy between a major culture - purely concentrating on the local market - and independent “international” thinking resulted in a huge data base with contacts spanning worldwide. Gerd Karstens (26-12-65) spent the bigger part of his music career working for major record companies. After working for Indisc where he took care of the world renown label DJ International, he started working for Universal Music as a product manager in 1997 responsible for all in house compilation and album projects. He was spotted and snapped away by EMI Music headhunters and in 2002, Gerd joined EMI Music to become a senior product manager where he took care of EMI’s compilations, special products, premiums, the Dutch handling for EMI UK’s Positiva imprint and David Guetta repertoire. Since July 2007, Gerd started his own company Capitan Marketing; a company which operates as an independent marketing bureau for the entertainment industry creating, developing, handling and promoting special products, premiums and concepts for third party companies and for individual artists. Niels Pijpers (28-08-1970) spent more time being involved with music than anything else, so it was a given that he ended up doing something (or ánything) in the music industry sooner or later… He started working as the assistant manager in one of the Mid-Town Records stores in 1993; a perfect way to be involved with music on a daily basis and a great opportunity to meet just the right people. After five years co-running the store, Niels was offered the position as assistant A&R Manager at Mid-Town Records late 1998. He took the offer and within a year, he was the A&R Manager to become the Head of A&R one year after that. During his years at Mid-Town Records, Niels not only took care of A&R and label matters but was also responsible for product, promotion, marketing, legal, press, internet and events. A huge load of work, but it gave him the opportunity to suck up just about all aspects of the music industry. Being both a salesman and a customer, and both an A&R and a producer, he got familiar with all different angles in the music business.
