Students Get First-Hand Look at Music Business in Nashville

As part of a unique summer session class in music management, The Nashville Music Biz, 20 students headed to Nashville in May for the 2016 Music Business Association conference, where they conducted more than two dozen interviews with top industry executives at the Nashville Convention Center for the Music Biz 101 & More radio show and podcast heard on the University’s radio station, WPSC.

The students, accompanied by professors David Philp ’90 and Stephen Marcone, spent months in advance preparing for the trip. Each student was required to connect with one or two conference attendees to interview for the radio show. “The students had to do their homework,” says Marcone. “They had to learn cold calling, pitching the idea, networking, email etiquette, organizational skills, how to conduct research about their guests, and to develop questions for the interview.” Upon their return to campus, students edited the interviews, which were uploaded to the podcast website and aired on the radio station throughout the summer.

In addition to conducting the interviews and participating in the convention, the group met artists as varied as the Monkees, Cheap Trick, and Little Big Town, networked with industry executives and students from other schools, and visited the studios of Warner Music Nashville and Curb Records, where they were hosted by John Butler ’90, vice president for promotion. “This was a tremendous opportunity for our students to get a first-hand look at the music industry in one of today’s top cities in the business,” says Marcone.

The trip was partially funded by donations from Vay Wealth Management and White Hat Management/Van Duyne, Bruno, Inc., which is headed by senior principal Aaron Van Duyne ‘75, MM ‘08, and a grant from MEIEA (Music & Entertainment Industry Educators Association).