2022 Music Industry Summit

Watch "Creating the Soundtrack for the Scene" Session

Alicia Blake is a Tour Manager, FOH Engineer and Monitor Engineer based in Seattle, WA. She’s been working in the music industry since 2001, beginning as a live sound engineer at a small club as well as an assistant recording engineer at a local recording studio.

She moved into producing and booking shows in Seattle, then started touring in 2008. Alicia has worked with acts such as: Sylvan Esso, Courtney Barnett, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Perfume Genius, Death Cab for Cutie, St Vincent and The Shins.

Chris Douridas

Chris Douridas is among the premier musical tastemakers in the world. He began his career as music director and host of Morning Becomes Eclectic, at the flagship Los Angeles NPR station, KCRW-FM, one of the most respected and progressive radio stations in the world. Additionally, Douridas has served as an A&R executive at Dreamworks Records, curated and hosted the inaugural season of the PBS series, Sessions at West 54th, and created the America Online music performance series, Sessions at AOL. Douridas was also tapped by Steve Jobs and Eddie Cue at Apple to create the iTunes Originals performance series, and the first incarnation of Apple's playlist series iTunes Essentials.

In film and TV circles, Douridas is best known as the Grammy-nominated music supervisor for both American Beauty, and the Shrek series, as well as Heat, As Good as It Gets, Austin Powers, Captain Fantastic, In a World, Flaked, House of Lies, The Addams Family, and the upcoming animated feature, Blazing Samurai, based on the Mel Brooks' classic Blazing Saddles.

Douridas continues to champion the best new artists from around the world on his weekly radio show, and at his long-running live music concert series School Night, a breaking new artist showcase happening weekly in Hollywood, and monthly in Toronto. During the pandemic, Douridas co-founded and launched a new worldwide streaming series, School Night at Home on Twitch, currently generating 20k weekly viewers worldwide.

Randi Edelson

Watch Music & the Metaverse Session

Randi Edelson joined Blockparty's Client Success team in 2021, working specifically with the company's music clients. She holds a bachelor's degree in Psychology from the University of Delaware, and brings well over a decade of experience in client management and artist representation in the live sector of the music industry.

Prior to Blockparty, Randi spent six years at Paradigm Talent Agency where she most recently was an agent in the College department, and negotiated deals across Colleges, Universities, and Greek life for the agency's roster of over 2,000 musical artists. She was also responsible for booking national and international tours for artists such as Jason Mraz, JoJo, Alessia Cara, Bay Ledges and more.

She started her career in the booking department at Madison Square Garden Entertainment, where she facilitated booking concerts and events across their portfolio of venues that includes Madison Square Garden, The Theater at The Garden, The Beacon Theatre, The Chicago Theater, and Radio City Music Hall. A passionate music fan, Randi credits going on tour selling merch for her friends' bands in college, as some of her earliest exposure to the music business.

Eric Elliott

Eric Elliott is the CEO of Greenruhm, a music metaverse social network where every post is a digital item fans can buy, sell, and share with their communities. Eric is a webby-nominated software developer who helped build BandPage (now YouTube Artist Pages), led a video social network used by NBC, CBS, WSJ, etc., and helped build Adobe Creative Cloud (now $10b ARR).

Vladislav Ginzburg

Vladislav Ginzburg is the Chief Executive Officer at Blockparty. Ginzburg leads Blockparty and the mission to build a blockchain-agnostic platform for NFT commerce at the intersection of art music and culture. Blockparty launched their MVP In August 2020, including first digital artworks by 3lau/Slime Sunday, Adventure Club, Dave Krugman and others. Since, the company has grown to feature groundbreaking projects with leading artists, musicians around the world.

Earlier, Ginzburg was Chief Business Development officer at Blockparty Tickets where he introduced blockchain as an NFT powered ticketing system to music festivals and professional sports teams, including a partnership with the Sacramento Kings of the NBA. Before entering the Blockchain and entertainment spaces, Ginzburg managed a fine art fund where he transacted more than $150 million in blue chip artworks.

Ginzburg studied at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio as well as The New School in New York and Novgorod State University, in Novgorod Russia.

Maria Gironas

Watch Rapchat Music and Tech Entrepreneur Spotlight Session

Maria Gironas is a creator and artist development professional with over 10 years of experience in the industry, doing everything from being a signed artist to cultivating campaigns in press/marketing for brands like Fender, Noah Gundersen, Emo Night Brooklyn and more. Previous roles include Strategic Partner Manager on the Artist Development team at YouTube, where she worked closely with artists like Lauv and Julia Michaels, and at Q&A/Human Re Sources, where she served as the Director of Digital Platform Strategy, focusing on building artist narratives through platforms like YouTube, TikTok, and more. Now, at Reddit, she is a Senior Media Partnership Manager for Talent, building the talent program to create community and belonging for everyone in the world. Outside of that, she serves on the Diversity & Inclusion Committee at Women In Music, and has a 4 year old chihuahua named Rosie.

Erik Harmon

Erik is the community leader at Rapchat. Erik is the bridge between Rapchat and its vibrant community of creatives. You can find Erik hosting livestreams or consistently finding ways to help our users achieve their goals. He also cooks up beats himself under the name ClassE Beats. When he's not in the lab, you can find him hanging out with his lovely family in Atlanta.

Dick Huey

Watch "Artist Strategies in the Streaming Age" Interview with DavE Melhado

Dick Huey moved to New York City in 1997 to work for independent label powerhouse the Beggars Group (XL Recordings, 4AD, Matador Records, Rough Trade). He created and led the group’s digital media department as Global Head of Digital in the early days of digital music.

Huey launched his NYC-based digital strategy company Toolshed in 2002. Toolshed offered digital marketing, digital music service licensing, and download hosting for artists and labels, and delivered groundbreaking digital campaigns for Arcade Fire, Sufjan Stevens, Indigo Girls, Ani DiFranco, and Aimee Mann amongst hundreds of others. Labels and distributors including Matador Records, Beggars Group, The Orchard, Touch and Go, PIAS, Righteous Babe, and Merge Records were also clients.

In 2010 Toolshed expanded into music rights acquisition and business development for consumer brands, media, tech, sports, and entertainment companies. Spotify was an early client, and Huey led its US independent label licensing efforts prior to and during Spotify’s US launch in 2011. Red Bull Music Radio, SoundExchange, 8tracks, Digital Rights Agency, Red Mountain Ski Resort, and Tunecore were all clients or advisory relationships.

Huey is a business development consultant to the Czech-based artificial intelligence music search platform AIMS API, and Head of Partnerships for the Sydney-based official music credits and metadata supply company Jaxsta. He is a 15-year digital business consultant to the US independent record label Merge Records, a music licensing consultant to stealth cloud radio startup HijackRadio.

Huey is also a senior teaching assistant at NYU Professor Scott Galloway’s new educational startup Section4, bringing executive education stacks in a variety of brand, product, and financial disciplines.

He held a 9-year board seat at SoundExchange representing Matador Records, and advisory and new media committee roles at A2IM and AIM. He is a past Executive Director and board chairman of the Future of Music Coalition, based in Washington DC.

Huey is a USSA-certified downhill ski racing coach, a road cyclist and mountain biker based in the Columbia River Gorge of Washington state. He began his career as first a musician, and then a music manager, and signed and managed artists at the Beggars Group and Glitterhouse Records.

William E. Ketchum III

WATCH "ARTIST KEYNOTE WITH SABA"

William E. Ketchum III is a journalist dedicated to covering the intersection of music, culture, and society. His work has appeared in outlets including VIBE, GQ and Ebony. He has also provided commentary for shows on NPR and BBC, and he collaborates directly with record companies and artists to tell their stories. He is currently the Senior Editor of Culture at Mic.

Jordan Kolenc

Watch "Creating the Soundtrack for the Scene" Session

Jordan Kolenc is a veteran of almost twenty years in the live sound industry specializing in touring and broadcast events. Kolenc is an Ohio’s University alumnus and got his start early on as a front-of-house mixer and stage manager at Athens’ very own Union Street Bar + Grill in 2002. Since graduating, he has toured the world primarily as a Monitor Mix Engineer for Taylor Swift and worked as a project manager for Cleveland, OH based 8th Day Sound Systems. He currently resides outside the Philadelphia metro area and holds a position as Account Executive and Senior Staff Engineer for Clair Global.

Rachael LaCava

Rachael is a Music Supervisor based in NYC and currently works at SixtyFour Music. She's been working in the music industry since 2015, after graduating from Ohio University. She first started her career at Audio Network as a Creative Assistant, quickly working her way up to Music Researcher and then Music Licensing Manager. Through these roles she was able to learn about music licensing and work on high profile campaigns with advertising agencies and brands. It was through fostering relationships and networking, that she landed her current role. Some of her work includes espnW, TikTok, Dunkin' Donuts, Ubisoft, Nissan, and Subway.

Yuri Lysoivanov

Yuri Lysoivanov is a product expert at Shure and a Chicago based audio engineer specializing in recording singer/songwriters and small classical ensembles. His love of sound and acoustics and friendly personality make him a valued asset to a variety of projects across the country. His recent recordings include Joshua Bell, the American Composer’s Orchestra, Kurt Elling and two classical albums released on Navona records.

Nick Maiale

Nick Maiale is the Founder & CEO of jump.global – a company that works with music businesses on B2B strategy & industry relations; entertainment execs on managing their careers and professional development; as well as music conferences on curating panels, programming, and partnerships. His career spans 10+ years with the Music Business Association where he still works as the business development lead for the organization and its annual global conference – Music Biz. Nick received his M.A. in Live Entertainment Management from the University of Miami and B.A. in Public Relations from Temple University in Philadelphia, where he's from. He's currently based in Nashville, TN.

Matt Medved

Watch "Artist Strategies in the Streaming Age" Interview

Matt Medved is the co-founder and CEO of nft now, the premier web3 digital media platform for NFT coverage and curation.

Prior to nft now, Medved founded Billboard Dance and scaled the vertical into the leading dance/electronic music publication in North America. He subsequently ran SPIN magazine as Editor-in-Chief, where he directed the iconic music and culture title's 2019 rebrand, and served as the SVP of Content at lifestyle publisher Modern Luxury.

As a DJ/producer, Medved has released music on Interscope, RCA, Astralwerks, and Downtown Records, and performed at top global festivals like Tomorrowland, EDC, Electric Zoo, and Sunburn.

Dave Melhado

Dave Melhado is an experienced music executive, with extensive experience in developing emerging artists and helping them create emotional connections with their audience. David’s broad background in A&R, Marketing, Digital Strategy and Insights has culminated in exceptional work across Music, Sports, and Technology.

David started his career in Atlanta as an Artist Manager working with Grammy Nominated songwriters and producers’, Verse Simmonds & Sham “Sak Pase” Joseph. David’s management roster credits included Jay Z, Kanye West, Chris Brown, Dr. Dre and Rihanna.

After 6 Years, David left talent management and helped launch Atlanta-based distribution startup, StreamCut where he signed and developed multi-platinum recording artist Gunna. After 2 years, David joined Roc Nation as Director of Marketing to lead marketing efforts for the labels roster including Buju Banton, Rapsody and Casanova.

As Head of Artist Marketing at UnitedMasters, David is responsible for leading artist marketing initiatives as well as product & brand marketing efforts for the UnitedMasters mobile app and their fast growing artist community. In his time with UnitedMasters, David has worked closely with NLE Choppa, Tobe Nwigwe, Alina Baraz and Col3trane.

Chris Messina

Watch "Producing Bon Iver" Interview Session

Chris Messina is a Grammy nominated producer, engineer, mixer, and songwriter. He is best known for his work as Bon Iver’s producer and engineer on the albums i,i and 22, A Million. Messina has engineered and produced for a number of artists including James Blake, S. Carey, Gordi, and Bruce Hornsby. Additionally, he has extensive experience as a live music engineer, having worked with many major artists including everyone from Madonna and Lady Gaga to Eminem and Arcade Fire. He currently serves as a creative director for Bon Iver’s live show in addition to his continued work with them in the studio.

Blair Miller

Watch Rapchat Music and Tech Entrepreneur Spotlight Session

Blair Miller is a rising music business executive who is the Founder & CEO of Chaos Creators – an entertainment marketing agency focused on disrupting traditional artist development and fan engagement in the digital space. Before launching Chaos Creators, Miller was the Creative Director of Jonas Group Media, an entertainment marketing agency she founded with Kevin Jonas, Sr. Here, Miller oversaw the marketing strategy for artists and creators such as Frankie Jonas, Lanie Gardner, PUBLIC, Melanie Pfirrman, LIVVIA, and Lucy Cloud. She also launched social campaigns with influencers such as Charli D’Amelio, Bella Poarch, Avani, Lil Huddy, and Madi Monroe.

Highlights of Miller’s career include guiding Frankie Jonas’ explosive TikTok growth and limited edition merch drop, capitalizing on PUBLIC’s viral song “Make You Mine,” campaign ideation and execution for Melanie Pfirrman’s single “Suda” featuring Pitbull, and sustaining Lanie Gardner’s viral “Dreams” by Fleetwood Mac cover video and surprise remix release of “Dreams” with David Guetta. In just two years at Jonas Group Media, Miller's clients amassed over 405 million Spotify streams, 2.3 million user generated TikTok videos, 226 million YouTube views, and 19 million social media followers.

Miller earned her degree in Music Business from Belmont University. During her time at Belmont, she honed her marketing skills through stints with Scooter Braun Projects, Atlantic Records, Universal Music Group, Warner Music Nashville, The Recording Academy, Country Music Association (CMA), and Crowd Surf. After graduating, Miller began her career as a Digital Marketing Manager at Thinkswell where she supported the social media efforts of clients such as Brad Paisley, Chris Young, Vince Gill, Randy Houser, Chase Bryant, and Country Radio Seminar (CRS).

Seth Miller

Seth Miller is the founder and CEO of Rapchat. He lives in Columbus, Ohio with his fiancé Morgan and his two pups, Arlo and Ralph. When he's not in the lab working on Rapchat, you can find him out and about exploring, playing golf, going on runs with Arlo, or hanging out with friends and family. His passions in life revolve around learning new things and helping people chase their dreams. He sometimes writes at sethmiller.io or stayballin.substack.com.

Ihlana N. Mumford

Watch Artist Interview with Noelle Scaggs

Ihlana Niayla Mumford is an audio/recording engineer, vocal producer, live sound technician and cinematographer who is based out of Cincinnati, Ohio. She graduated from Ohio University in 2015 and has since been navigating the audio and entertainment industry in her own unique way. After graduation she began her career as an Audio Visual Technician at the Cincinnati Zoo. She then transitioned fully into the music industry by becoming a recording engineer and vocal producer at Timeless Recording Studio in Cincinnati, OH. She has since diversified her career by becoming involved in live production. She has built and worked shows, festivals and other large events all over the United States such as Dave Chappelle’s Summer Camp, Blink Festival, Blue Ridge Rock Fest, 2021 Solheim Cup Ceremony featuring Gwen Stefani and many more. Ihlana is currently on tour with Disney on Ice working as an Audio Engineer and technician.

Tim Peacock

Watch "The Legacy and Importance of the Newport Folk Festival" Interview

Tim Peacock is the Artist Director of Stuart’s Opera House, a 440 seat non-profit performing arts and arts education center in Nelsonville, Ohio. As the A.D., he oversees all programming for the 141 year old theater. Peacock also founded and continues to produce the annual Nelsonville Music Festival and co-founded Melted Music Festival in Columbus, Ohio, both productions of Stuart's Opera House. Additionally, Peacock quite often dreams about retirement, would almost always prefer to be outdoors, and is a long-time record collector and hustler.

Oana Ruxandra

Watch "The Legacy and Importance of the Newport Folk Festival" Interview

Oana Ruxandra serves as Chief Digital Officer & EVP of Business Development for Warner Music Group (WMG). Overseeing the company’s global digital partnerships and negotiations, Ruxandra and her team are charged with exploring new forms of commercial innovation and creating new digital revenue opportunities, while maximizing relationships with key existing partners. At the same time, Ruxandra and her team attract non-traditional partners in spaces such as gaming, Web3, and fitness, and more, as well as identify unconventional M&A opportunities for the company.

Ruxandra previously spent four years at WMG, where she advanced to VP of Digital Strategy and Business Development. In 2016, she moved to Universal Music Group for a two-year stint as SVP of Digital Strategy and Partnerships. She began her career in the financial industry, working at Constellation Capital Management and BlackRock.

An industry leader, Ruxandra has been honored by Billboard numerous times on their Power Players, Women in Music, Digital Power Players, and 40 Under 40 lists. In 2021, she was recognized in Variety’s Power of Women issue as a New York-based executive making an impact. Ruxandra was also recently appointed to next-generation fashion retailer REVOLVE’s board of directors. She holds a B.A. degree in Economics and Political Science from Columbia University and an M.B.A. from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Jay Sweet

Watch CAAMP Artist Keynote Session

Jay Sweet is the Executive Producer of The Newport Folk Festival, The Newport Jazz Festival and Newport Festivals Foundation, a 501(c)(3) which expands the impact of its Festivals through music education initiatives throughout the United States. Jay has had a monumental impact on the live music industry through his curation and development of these festivals. During his tenure, the Newport Folk Festival has won five Pollstar awards for Music Festival Of The Year; and America's original music festivals have regained their stature as premier happenings for musicians and music lovers alike.

Will Tenney

Will Tenney, a recent Forbes 30 Under 30 2022 honoree, is a music industry executive, entrepreneur, record producer, and multi-instrumentalist. He is Founder of SunPop – an NYC-based record label and management consulting company. At SunPop, he’s independently sold more than 200,000 records with artists like Sara Bareilles, Jake Miller, Lizzy McAlpine, Landon Cube, Shwayze, and more. In 2015, he received a Gold record for co-writing Amelie’s “That’s My Song” for Warner Music Spain. Most recently, he was the Head of Streaming Strategy & Promotion at Crush Music where he oversaw campaigns for Lorde, Miley Cyrus, Sia, Panic! At the Disco, Lennon Stella, and Green Day, among other artists. In this role, Tenney managed relationships with DSPs, studied algorithms, and created streaming opportunities for his roster. Prior to this, he worked as an analyst at Goldman Sachs. Other highlights of his career include receiving an RIAA Platinum record for MAX’s #1 Hot AC hit, “Lights Down Low” (Sony/Red); a Gold record for Weezer’s cover of “Africa” by ToTo (Warner/Atlantic); a Gold record for Lykke Li’s “Sex Money, Feelings Die” (Sony/RCA); and a Multi-Platinum record for Panic! At the Disco’s “High Hopes” (Warner/Fueled By Ramen). As an artist himself, Tenney’s toured North America with artists like Lauv, Cash Cash, and Parachute and currently plays in a band – Exit, recently named a RockSound Magazine Breakout Artist. He’s an active member of the Society of Leaders In Development (SOLID) and was named a 2021 HITS Magazine “Noisemaker”. Tenney holds a degree in Music Industry & Business Administration from Northeastern University.

Ted Van Hyning