MEET THE TEAM
Margaret Saadi Kramer,
president
Margaret Saadi Kramer has spent 25 years learning every aspect of the music business, around the world, from the inside out. Her experience as a trusted manager of composers and rock and roll bands, a label owner, an independent publisher, a merchandiser, and music supervisor has provided the creative muscle to comprehensively navigate the complex challenges of supervision, consultation, and clearance.
From 1999 to 2019, Margaret was the marketing mastermind (among other specialized advertising repertoire) behind the wildly successful Brand X Music Catalogue. It was under her aegis that the approach to producing and promoting cue catalogs evolved, not only with fully-orchestrated production music, but also with the creative use of musical sound design. Her relationships over the years with labels, producers, and publishers based on quality and credibility, has withstood the test of time in an ever-shifting industry.
First and foremost, Margaret is known as a warrior on behalf of award-winning composers, Rock and Roll Hall of Famers, Grammy-nominated songwriters, and emerging artists, all the while acting as an honest broker with both the major and independent studios, countless networks, commercial music houses, sub-publishers, and post-production houses around the globe.
Margaret is also an accomplished music supervisor who has contributed to several full-length documentaries, feature films, and long-running series in various production capacities.
With legendary singers/songwriters Wayne Kramer and Billy Bragg, Margaret co-founded the non-profit organization Jail Guitar Doors USA, a Los Angeles based 501(c)3 non-profit organization with a mission to help rehabilitate prison inmates. The musician-operated charity provides musical instruments and workshops practicing new and non-confrontational methods of expression and focuses on justice reform. JGD-USA has scaled to over 150 prisons throughout the United States since its inception 10 years ago.
Margaret lives in Studio City with her husband, young son, and a massive collection of paper airplanes.
William Olivas,
Music Manager
William Olivas’ story begins with his parents’ immersion in the world of construction in San José, California, where he received an early education on how things and people can come together to create more than the sum of their parts. There was never a better example of that than writing, and at age 15, William wrote and published his first novel to help pay for college. Books had gotten him into entertainment, but that was just the beginning.
William graduated from Syracuse University with enough credits to qualify for not only a Bachelor of Sciences Film and Television Business degree, but also with an Honorary Graduate degree in Audio Engineering. At the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications in 2014, William created the Syracuse University Film Festival, where he left them a truly modernized film circuit using the $100,000 he was given by the University to upgrade, install, and run it.
Immediately recruited to NBC News San Francisco, where he spent less than a year, William moved to Los Angeles and became one of the most coveted private music tutors in Beverly Hills, all the while working in day-to-day for Antic Inc. and its client catalog of production music libraries of trailer, promo, video game, and film score.
Here at Teragram’s inception, William is our most positive Underboss, lead motivator, consummate gentleman, and #1 expeditor.
Donna Jo Thorndale,
Chargé d’Affaires
Donna Jo “DJ” Thorndale was born and bred in the Bluegrass State. She taught theatre in California state prisons for 12 years with Tim Robbins' Actors’ Gang organization and is a founding member of WRFL-FM 88.1 in Lexington, Kentucky where she spent five years as an on-air deejay.
Lucky for us, Donna Jo is a supremely organized Virgo who works tirelessly to maintain our company records and to provide every kind of management support imaginable, all the while remaining positive and productive. No task too small; no challenge too steep!
It’s becoming more difficult to keep the secret, though, that she is also a wildly talented actress, screenwriter, and magicmaker who lives in Los Angeles with Juliet Capulet, the best pit bull ever.
Denise Georgius Russell,
BOOKKEEPER
Denise Russell is a rabid music fan from way back to her time surfing all day and running around the beaches of Miami, Florida to a soundtrack of Aerosmith and Fleetwood Mac. So her route into the world of music business accounting is a most natural one that maps through a range of experiences varying from medical and holistic health to commercial construction to advertising.
Once Denise understood the pricing and structure at her first job, she nearly quadrupled the company’s revenue from $3.5 million to $12.9 million in five years. That’s a major accomplishment. “Increased productivity means my expertise lets me run a schedule, and not the schedule running me. Train your staff, educate them, define expectations, and then, first and foremost, trust.”
Denise studied accounting, but her degree comes from the school of hard knocks. Tireless single mother of five, and grandmother of five more, simply put -- you do not mess with Miss D.
ClarE Roberts,
Repertoire Registration
Clare Roberts lives in an organized world so it’s natural that she glided into the Teragram team assisting in all things publishing registration and logistics. Make no mistake -- literally -- the maintenance of thousands of pieces of a catalog’s repertoire is no small feat.
After working in the competitive climate of artists and fine galleries in the Midwest, and attending to its detailed archiving and research, managing the registration of a production music catalog’s repertoire was a comfortable offshoot for her to apply such precise habits.
Clare’s experience in constructing cultural trend reports, especially as it relates to merchandise and online sales, gives her a special outsider’s eye toward brand management for creatives and micro-influencers. She comes armed with an alternate perspective on our compositions, and the marketing of them, and that helps Teragram meet our clients’ scoring needs.
J.J. Ross,
Music Data Assistant
Jordan “JJ” Ross is a native Angeleno who co-founded the UCLA Klezmer Ensemble, but, of course, his story doesn’t start there. He’s been obsessed with beats around the world pretty much his entire life, with no signs of it waning.
JJ started drumming at the age of five. For the following 18 years, he trained with "L.A. Drum Guru" Walter Garces and it was that instruction which tapped his early fascination with drumming and, frankly, all percussion and world music. By age 10, he was performing professionally at The World Stage, and by 11, he was the youngest active member of the Patio Players World Percussion Ensemble of Motherland Music in Inglewood.
A graduate of UCLA's Herb Alpert School of Music with a Bachelors of Arts degree in Ethnomusicology, and a minor in Music Industry, JJ studied with legends Bobby Rodriguez and Kenny Burrell. Additionally, he worked closely with drummer/producer Mike Shapiro of Sergio Mendes and studied Classical North Indian Hindustani Music, West African drumming, and Middle Eastern Percussion.
When JJ isn’t working behind-the-scenes skillfully readying thousands of production audio files for Teragram, he is an accompanist, arranger, and resident percussionist of Jewish liturgical music in LA-area synagogues. He’s also a studio musician, a touring drummer, and music educator.
Bret Paddock,
Music Data Assistant
If you checked Bret Paddock’s DNA, it would display as a double helix of musical notation. This music journey began at age five with classical piano study, then he taught himself guitar, bass guitar, and drums.
Growing up playing in rock bands, Bret studied the upright bass intently at the Colburn Pre-College under the instruction of the L.A. Opera’s “Ace of Bass” and Principal, David Young. Bret was so devoted to it that he carried on under the instruction of the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Chris Hanulik at the UCLA Herb Albert School Music. He graduated from the department of Musicology and Music Industry studies with a Bachelor of Arts.
Bret thrives as a professional pianist and multi-instrumentalist, an accompanist, a songwriter, and a music educator, collaborating with various independent and multi-platinum selling artists in LA’s pop music circuit. And here at Teragram, he is a vital part of the acquisition and album release team, assisting in the preparation and release of our catalog of works from start to finish.
Brianna Rancour-Ibarra,
Music Data Assistant
Brianna Rancour-Ibarra is a singer-songwriter, vocalist, composer and educator born and raised in Los Angeles. She is known as a jazz-influenced soul artist who began creating music on the piano at the age of six, and spent her formative years singing Motown hits and Beatles tunes at her grandparents’ house in East LA. Fast forward to her receipt of a Bachelor’s Degree in Commercial Music with emphasis in Composing and Arranging from Azusa Pacific University, where she exercised a deep love for the process of producing records and collaborating.
Brianna has sung in diverse settings, such as Disney Concert Hall, Ahmanson Theater, House of Blues, Hotel Cafe, and The Mint. In 2018, she self-released “Red Skies,” her first EP of original music, and has supported indie artists on tour as both a multi-instrumentalist and as an opener.
She specializes in teaching pop, jazz, and musical theater voice and in helping students have a foundation of good vocal practices while helping them find their unique creative voice. Along with an unflagging attention to detail, Brianna’s education comes in handy in the sometimes tedious process of delivering music data to the masses!
Scott Goodstein,
Digital Master
Scott Goodstein is best known for his work as a highly influential catalyst of some of the world’s most unique campaigns. He has built far-reaching communications programs that have quite literally changed the world we live in.
Prior to founding Catalyst Campaigns, Scott was the External Online Director for Obama for America. In other words, he created the 2008 presidential campaign’s groundbreaking social networking, mobile, and lifestyle marketing strategies; widely considered the biggest, most effective online organizing campaign in modern history, and a watershed moment for the use of digital technology in politics.
Scott created infrastructure and new technology for grassroots movements and specialized in innovating call, mobile, and online communications. Blending art, music, and culture with a pioneering knowledge of the power of mobile messaging, Scott co-founded Punkvoter, Rock Against Bush, Artists for Obama, Artists for Bernie, DailyAction, Lady Parts Justice, and CreativeMajority.
His open-mindedness toward uniquely challenging projects has involved him in campaigns throughout the world. Not bad for a punk rocker from Cleveland’s east side!
