Quartararo Tapped to Head Warner Bros. Records

Phil Quartararo, former head of EMI Music’s Virgin Records America, has been named president of Warner Bros. Records Inc., the flagship company of Time Warner Inc.’s music division. Quartararo, who will report to Russ Thyret, chairman of Warner Bros. Records Inc., was hired to help resuscitate--and possibly restructure--the company, which has had difficulty breaking new acts for several years, sources said.

Quartararo will assist Thyret in overseeing operations at the Warner Bros. Records and Reprise labels, with executives at those firms reporting to both of them.

It is unclear what impact Quartararo’s arrival will have on Warner’s partnership with Madonna’s hot Maverick Records label, home to such hit acts as Prodigy and Alanis Morissette.

Sources say Madonna and Maverick co-chair Freddy DeMann are quarreling and there is speculation that he might leave the label. On Tuesday, DeMann scoffed at the rumors, saying he and Madonna get along “famously” and that he had no plans to exit Maverick, whose joint venture deal with Warner runs until July 1999.