Speaking of the Arts

Hi everyone and welcome to speaking of the arts. Today’s episode will be different from our usual format of interviewing a key promoter, presenter, agent, artist or manager. I’m going to be talking about something we’ve created internally here called Artist Scorecards. If you go to our website at http://www.epsteinco.com, you will see a tab at the top appropriately labeled Artist Scorecards, where you can download one and follow along. This is a tool we came up with to help artists think about their thinking, as it relates to 7 core aspects of their career and I thought it would be a good idea to describe how the tool works. So, if you are looking at the card you will see we’ve listed each one of these aspects as a mindset including Touring, Recording, Technology, Fan Management, Management, Business, and Marketing. This is not to say that these are the only mindsets which an artist needs to think about, but rather, what are arguably some of the most important. This tool is designed to give you, the artist, a baseline measurement of where you are currently at with each one. Here is how to use it. First, enter in the current date in the cell at the top right, followed by your target date. Your target date should be exactly 90 days, or one quarter, from the current date. The reason being, is that 90 days is a very measurable amount of time from which to work with and you can actually take very simple actions within that amount of time to help move you to a higher score. The great thing about this, is that you are able to see your progress over time fairly quickly. Eventually your first target score will becomes your current score once you create a new card for the next 90 days and so on. Simple enough, right?

Welcome to the 40th Episode of Speaking of the Arts! Today we are featuring Tim Wilson. Tim is the Executive Director of the Western Arts Alliance, or WAA as it is commonly known. Tim has led the arts service organization and performing arts market based in Portland, OR for more than 20 years. I had the opportunity to meet Tim at this years WAA conference and he kindly agreed to be on the show. We talk about all sorts of things including the pros and cons of the exhibition hall model, new ideas for how to improve the overall conference experience, and where Tim sees the future of the conference headed. I learned a lot speaking with Tim and I hope you find this as insightful as I did. Thank you guys for your continued support and please enjoy my conversation with Tim.

Today’s episode is actually a live recording from the recent Arts Midwest conference in Indianapolis. I led a session on podcasting and the arts and I was joined by two experienced podcasters including Colleen Cook and Trevor St. Aubin. We cover all sorts of great topics such as why should an arts organization do a podcast in the first place, what are the technical aspects involved with producing a podcast, how to think about podcast content, and marketing your podcast. Colleen and Trevor, if you guys are listening, thank you so much for your participation in the event, I learned a lot from speaking with you both and I hope we can all connect again soon. So, without further ado, here is my recent session from the 2018 Arts Midwest conference. I hope you enjoy.

I could not be more excited to share this episode with you. I had the opportunity to speak with Jamie Marguiles today who is the label director at GroundUP Music. GroundUP is known for releasing incredible music from groups like Snarky Puppy, Bokante, Banda Magda, and so many more. I wanted to hear from Jamie all about how she and her team approach social media. If you haven’t checked out GroundUP music on Instagram or Facebook you are missing out. They do a fantastic job rolling out killer content each day and have developed a very loyal fan base. In our conversation, we cover all sorts of useful things like how to manage a content schedule, best practices for Facebook and Instagram and why Instagram is the best platform for musicians now. We talk about ways to effectively promote tour dates through each platform and much more. Here are just a few of the themes we cover: *How to manage social media content and plan content schedules in advance *Best practices for Facebook and Instagram *Killer tips for how to promote tour dates *How to utilize Instagram Stories *Why Instagram is the best platform for musicians to be on now *The importance of authenticity *Why Twitter is generally less important for new musicians now *Do artists still need a website? *Email lists for bands on tour and what not to do Get your pen and paper ready because you are going to come away with great tips and tricks. So, without further ado, please enjoy my conversation with Jamie Marguiles.

"What are presenters saying?" This is the question displayed on the cover of our new artist data books for the 2019-2020 season. We are taking a look under the hood here at our agency and will be talking about new artists projects for the 2019-2020 fine arts booking season. You will learn about which artists are doing what, when they are available, and much more. Here to talk with me is Matt Morrell, our East Coast booking agent. Matt also books our artists in Asia and South America. One of our goals this year was to produce an artist brochure that presenters will hopefully find very useful and not simply discard at the conference hotels. So what is different about it this year? For starters, we are calling these our artist data books. We’ve included artist gross ticket sales information, configurations, availability, and select touring history so people can see who else is booking these artists. There are also no press quotes and instead we’ve included testimonial from presenters who have previously booked the artist. Listen as we discuss our new artists projects for the 2019-2020 presenting season!

Is the current performing arts system broken? How is the digital revolution affecting the way we approach our industry? What are traditional performing arts centers doing to try and reach younger audiences? Why do performing arts centers continue to spend significant resources on printed brochures? Are the annual booking conferences even necessary? These questions, and more, on today’s episode of Speaking of the Arts. Hi everyone this is Mike Epstein and joining me today are two veterans of the industry – Jeremy Ganter, Associate Executive Director and Director of Programming at the Robert and Margrit Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts at UC Davis and the esteemed and highly experienced IMN booking agent the one, the only, Alycia Mack. This episode questions many of the traditional ways in which business is done in the world of performing arts. Listen as Jeremy and Alycia weigh in on what can be done to make for a better system.

Hello everyone this is Mike Epstein and welcome to speaking of the arts. My guest today is Aisha Ahmad-Post. Aisha was recently named director of the Ent Center for the Arts at the University of Colorado – Colorado Springs. This is going to be a great episode as Aisha has a totally unique perspective on running a performing arts center. In fact, she has had to build her program literally from the ground up! This episode is full of useful information and we cover a lot. Prior to her new role in Colorado, Aisha served as the public programs producer at the New York Public Library. Before that, she worked for the Aspen Music Festival and School and also at Columbia Artists Management. There she worked with artists including classical pianist Lang Lang and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. A classically trained pianist and double bassist, Aisha taught music theory as an associate instructor at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, where she earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music. In fact, I first met Aisha when we were both students at Indiana. Look at us now!

Hello everyone and welcome to Speaking of the Arts. We’ve taken some time off but we are eager to start rolling out new episodes for you. As such, I couldn’t be happier to have the opportunity to speak with today’s guest. Full disclosure…today’s guest happens to also be one of our esteemed artists with whom we have the privilege of booking: the one and only Kat Edmonson! Here’s why you need to know about Kat. In a relatively short amount of time, Kat’s career has seen her recording and/or performing and sharing the stage with the likes of Lyle Lovett, Chris Isaak, Smokey Robinson, George Benson, and Willie Nelson just to name a few. Kat’s 2015 performance on “CBS This Morning: Saturday” garnered the program’s highest rated viewership since 2006. As a leader, Kat has released three critically acclaimed recordings including Way Down Low and The Big Picture. The Boston Globe described Way Down Low as “one of the greatest vocal albums I’ve ever heard.” The Big Picture debuted at number 1 on the Billboard Heatseekers chart. On April 27 of this year (2018), Kat will release her 4th album as a leader titled Old Fashioned Gal. Links: Kat Edmonson website and tour dates Kat on Facebook Kat on Instagram

Speaking of the Arts is pleased to welcome Wulf Muller to the show. Wulf is a highly seasoned veteran of the recording industry. In 1999, Wulf became Vice President of International Marketing Classics & Jazz for Universal Music. Here he was responsible for International marketing efforts for all Classics and Jazz priorities worldwide, as well as all local signings on the Emarcy Jazz and Emarcy Classics labels. In 2003 the role of A&R for the Emarcy Label was added to his responsibilities and it was during this period that Wulf signed acts like Madeleine Peyroux, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Michael Brecker, and John Scofield. In 2010, Wulf started a new company called All-In-Music Service – a consulting company for the music industry. Universal Music Group International soon became his first client. At the same time, All-In-Music Service acts as the European tour co-ordinator for artists like Branford Marsalis, James Carter, Jane Monheit and Karrin Allyson. In 2012, All-In-Music Service signed an exclusive jazz A&R agreement with Sony Classical International to revive and build the historic OKeh jazz label. In this episode we talk about the history of the label, how technology is affecting the recording industry, Wulf's experience working with legendary artists such as Sonny Rollins and much more.

Panos Panay is the founder and managing director of the Berklee Institute for Creative Entrepreneurship (BerkleeICE). Prior to this, Panos created Sonicbids, the leading platform for bands to book gigs and market themselves online, building a subscriber network of 550,000 bands and 35,000 promoters from more than 100 countries. He led the company as CEO for 13 years, from its inception until after its successful acquisition in a deal backed by Guggenheim Partners. Panos is also the co-founder of the Open Music Initiative, which has brought together more than 140 leading music, media, technology industry organizations, and academic institutions to create a blockchain-based open protocol for uniform identification of musical rights owners and creators. (We will get into what all of that means during the episode). At Berklee, his work and approach to entrepreneurial and innovation pedagogy builds heavily on the concepts of music thinking, and in particular jazz, as a catalyst for creative breakthroughs in business, life, and art; and he has spearheaded multi-disciplinary collaborations between Berklee and MIT; the design firm IDEO; and Brown University. Panos writes frequently about startups and entrepreneurship for blogs and publications such as Forbes, WSJ Accelerators, and Fast Company; and guest lectures and speaks at many universities and events around the world. Some of his many awards include: Fast Company's "Fast 50" honor; Inc Magazine's "Inc 500”; Mass Hi-Tech All Stars; Berklee College’s Distinguished Alumnus Award; Boston Business Journal’s “40 under 40” and BostInno's 50 on Fire. Sonicbids and Panos were also profiled in a chapter in the Financial Times-published book Outsmart by best-selling author Jim Champy. Panos is a native of Cyprus, and holds a Music Business/Management degree from Berklee College of Music.