Founded in 1940, Music Press was based in New York City's Steinway Building in Midtown Manhattan.
[2][1] The publisher was a conservative representation of the field, and included a New York University composer and a Boston-based music critic among its leadership.
Dana was an outsider to New York's music scene and worked to befriend the city's composers.
[1] The firm was the first to publish Virgil Thomson and Gertrude Stein's operas Four Saints in Three Acts and The Mother of Us All.
[1] Even with donations from patrons, the firm's financials grew dire by 1948 and the press resorted to passing publishing costs to a composer.