The Dream Music PR Masthead · Est. 2014
The team used to write the coverage you're trying to land.
Three of our senior publicists came from the desks of Billboard, Pitchfork, and Complex. They spent decades deciding which artists got the ink. Now they spend their days making sure you do.
Founding Story · 2014
From the editor's desk to the artist's side of the phone call.
Dream Music PR began in a one-room office on Sunset Boulevard in the winter of 2014. Lena Ortiz had just wrapped seven years as a publicist at Atlantic Records, where she'd shepherded campaigns for three Grammy-nominated releases and learned, the hard way, what a good pitch actually looked like against an editor's crowded inbox. Marcus Whitfield had spent the previous decade as a senior editor at Pitchfork, with a byline on hundreds of reviews and a contact list that read like a masthead of American music journalism.
They were brought together by a frustration both had voiced separately for years: the gap between artists who deserved serious press and the agencies pitching them with copy that read like press releases. Lena had the release-calendar rhythm; Marcus had the editor relationships. Together they built a firm designed around a simple rule — every client works with a senior publicist from kickoff to wrap, and every pitch is written by someone who has, at some point, sat on the other side of the email.
Ten years on, the firm is fourteen people across publicity, sync, and digital strategy, with offices in Los Angeles and Brooklyn. We are a Recording Academy and Music Business Association member, named to Music Business Worldwide's Top 10 U.S. Music PR list in 2022 and 2023, and a 2024 PRWeek Award winner for Best Use of Music in a Brand Campaign. The roster has grown to more than 480 artists, managers, and indie labels across nineteen countries. The contact list has grown to 220-plus verified journalists, refreshed every quarter.
But the original brief hasn't changed. We are still an editorial shop that happens to do publicity, not the other way around.
The Publicists · Senior Staff
The names on the pitch emails — and what they worked on before they worked for you.
Our dedicated-publicist model means the person you meet on the strategy call is the person writing your pitches for the next fourteen months. No junior handoffs, no rotating account teams.
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Founder & Lead Publicist
Lena Ortiz
Seven years as a publicist at Atlantic Records, where she led campaigns for three Grammy-nominated releases. Built Dream Music PR in 2014 around the dedicated-publicist model she wished she'd had access to as an artist manager earlier in her career. Oversees every album-cycle and announcement campaign personally.
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Co-Founder & Editorial Director
Marcus Whitfield
Former senior editor at Pitchfork, with a decade of bylines and the kind of long-running relationships that only come from years of fair coverage. Runs the firm's pitch-review process and maintains the 220-plus verified journalist contact list personally, refreshed every quarter.
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Senior Publicist
Priya Desai
Former features editor at Complex, where she commissioned cover stories and shaped the magazine's hip-hop and R&B coverage for six years. Now leads our R&B, hip-hop, and pop release campaigns, with a particular specialty in long-lead print features at outlets like Rolling Stone, NPR Music, and FADER.
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Sync Lead
Theo Marsh
Ran the brand-partnerships desk at a major sync agency before joining Dream Music PR to build our in-house sync team. Since 2020, has placed client tracks in 64 brand campaigns, films, and TV shows, including the sync-category 2024 PRWeek Award win for Best Use of Music in a Brand Campaign.
By the Numbers · Verified Track Record
A boutique firm with a ten-year paper trail.
- 480+
- Artists, managers, and indie labels served across 19 countries since 2014.
- 1,840
- Confirmed press placements delivered in 2023 across print, digital, podcast, and broadcast.
- 4.9 / 5
- Client satisfaction score across 312 post-campaign reviews from 2018 to 2024.
- 14 months
- Average client tenure — more than double the industry-reported music PR average.
- Recording Academy Member
- Music Business Association Member
- Top 10 U.S. Music PR Agency — Music Business Worldwide, 2022 & 2023
- PRWeek Award Winner, Best Use of Music in a Brand Campaign, 2024
Editorial Philosophy
“We measure success in coverage, not clip reports. A tier-one review that lands the morning an album drops is worth more to an artist's career than a hundred drive-by mentions. The work is in knowing which journalists to call, what to put in the subject line, and when to hold a story for a week so it lands on the right Tuesday. That is craft, not volume — and it is the only kind of publicity we know how to do.”
Next Step · Strategy Call
If you're preparing a release, tour, or career-defining moment, this call is for you.
The 30-minute strategy call is with a senior publicist — not a sales rep. Bring the timeline, the single, the question. We'll tell you honestly whether we're the right fit and what the next ninety days could look like.
- Recording artists & producers preparing a release, tour, or pivot moment
- Managers and indie labels coordinating a multi-artist rollout
- Artist teams who need a PR partner with real editor relationships, not just a press list