Hartwig Masuch, the former CEO of BMG, has been appointed Chairman of Sweden-born music-making platform Hyph, effective April 2026.
The platform is led by CEO Andreas Carlsson, a songwriter who has worked with artists including Backstreet Boys (I Want It That Way), N’Sync (Bye, Bye, Bye) and Celine Dion (That’s The Way It Is).
Hyph, according to its website, lets creators remix vocals or record their own, and then build their tracks “layer by layer” using a fully licensed library of sounds “crafted by world-class talent”.
In a press release announcing Masuch’s appointment on Tuesday (January 27), Hyph said it is “focused on creating new interactive value-added services designed to maintain music industry growth as the subscription streaming market matures”.
Core to Hyph’s offer, the company added, is a library of “millions of wholly-owned human-created musical parts,” which it describes as the “building blocks of popular music”.
The first iteration of the Hyph suite of products is an app currently on trial in the Nordics, the UK, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Latin America, which allows fans to create their own songs from Hyph’s “building blocks”.
Hyph said that further products are under development, including a marketplace allowing artists to sell vocal lines, hooks, and other musical parts directly to consumers, and API’s which “allow labels to engage fans and activate catalogs”.
Masuch has joined Hyph in an advisory capacity with immediate effect and will transition to Chairman in April 2026.
“Hyph, with its commitment to human-generated music, and its understanding of the new creator economy is ideally poised to play its part in music’s next revolution.”
Hartwig Masuch
Masuch said: “Streaming transformed music for the better, unleashing a wave of transparency which has empowered artists and restored the industry to profitability.
“But as subscription streaming begins to peak in major markets, music is increasingly thinking about what’s next.
“Hyph, with its commitment to human-generated music, and its understanding of the new creator economy is ideally poised to play its part in music’s next revolution. I am delighted to join Andreas and the team in turning this vision into reality.”
“Hartwig Masuch is one of the most accomplished global music executives of the past two decades.”
Andreas Carlsson
Andreas Carlsson added: “Hartwig Masuch is one of the most accomplished global music executives of the past two decades. We are delighted that he is joining us in our mission to create the first genuine leap forward for music since the advent of subscription streaming.
“Since I became CEO of this company 18 months ago, my mission, drawing on all my experiences as a songwriter and my deep understanding of rights, has been to create an ecosystem that allows musicians to prosper while using technology to give non‑musicians the ability to play with music in a way they have never had before.
“The addition of Hartwig to our team brings that vision one step closer.”
Masuch has worked in the music industry for more than 30 years. He exited his role as CEO of BMG in July 2023, having spent 32 years at BMG parent Bertelsmann, and more than 14 years at BMG itself.
He joined Warner Music Publishing (Germany) in 1985 as General Manager, Repertoire and was later promoted to General Manager & Vice President of Creative Affairs.
In 1991, he had left Warner Music Publishing to join what was then the music publisher BMG Music Publishing and thus Bertelsmann, assuming responsibility for the company’s operations in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
When the publishing company was acquired by Universal Music Group in 2007, Masuch first worked as a consultant on the restructuring of Bertelsmann’s music business.
That saw BMG let go of a hugely influential (and valuable catalog), and start again from scratch across both recorded music and music publishing.
During his tenure, Tuesday’s press release noted, the modern-day BMG “made over 200 significant acquisitions and successfully positioned itself as a challenger brand to the established major record companies”.Music Business Worldwide
