BOARD MEMBERS

Jay Weigel is a Grammy®-winning composer/producer, a distinguished conductor, arranger, orchestrator, and contractor for music in all media and live events. While working in Los Angeles, New Orleans, and Nashville, Weigel’s scores and soundtracks are featured in major studio films, documentaries, and independent productions. Weigel’s had notable collaborations as orchestrator, conductor, and contractor for George S. Clinton, Christopher Young, David Wingo, John Swihart, Christopher Lennertz, and Terence Blanchard. Recently, Jay arranged the works of Big Freedia and the Lost Bayou Ramblers for concerts with the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, and the recording garnered a 2024 Grammy Award. Weigel’s musical direction and arrangement of Paul Williams’ music was performed by singers Nella Rojas, Sam DeRosa and Joshua Radin at the Guild of Music Supervisors’ 2023 Icon Award presentation. Other career highlights include works with Pharrell Williams, PJ Morton, REM, Andra Day, Tank and the Bangas, Jon Cleary, Chris Thomas King, Juvenile, Keala Settle, and Judith Owen. Weigel is the chair of The Society of Composers and Lyricists’ Nashville Chapter.

Jay’s works are featured in projects produced by Warner Brothers, Paramount Pictures, Universal, Netflix, Tyler Perry Studios, HBO such as The Campaign, Green Lantern, Grudge Match, Get Hard, Midnight Special, Interview with a Vampire, Tall Girl, The Hammer, The Eagle and the Albatross, A Fall From Grace, Caged No More, Camp Cool Kids, The Oval, For Colored Girls, Too Close To Home, The Last Laugh, Paradise Lost, The Highwaymen, and NCIS New Orleans. 

In addition to his notable film and television work, Weigel’s contemporary opera, Ash Wednesday, premiered to critical acclaim to New Orleans audiences at the opening event of the Faulkner Festival. Weigel’s post-modern opera, Dawn in the Floating City, and Jay’s fourth opera, 7 Days in Paradise, were presented at the New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts. The Ogden Museum of Southern Arts commissioned his opera, The River May Cry, featuring a successful integration of European classical music with blues, gospel, jazz, and African music. An oratorio derived from that opera was recorded and released soon afterward.

Orchestras have commissioned his concert work, including the National Symphony Orchestra, the Kennedy Center, New Orleans Symphony, Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, St. Louis Cathedral, University of Southern Mississippi Symphony, New Orleans Jazz Orchestra, and the Acadiana Symphony. The St. Louis Cathedral commissioned Weigel’s Mass of Pope John Paul II. This work, scored for orchestra and choir, was the first to be commissioned in honor of then Pope, John Paul II. Following its premiere, the work was recorded and released on the MCG Jazz Label. University of Southern Mississippi commissioned and performed his work Renaissance for orchestra and choir. His Third Violin Concerto was premiered with the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, as well as commissioned Weigel’s A New Orleans Concerto, for Orchestra. The work celebrates the orchestra’s classical musicians and its 300th year. The Louisiana Philharmonic and Carlos Miguel Prieto commissioned and premiered his work, Water’s Gravity, celebrating the unique musical culture of New Orleans. Both of these works are available on all streaming platforms.

Jay’s exemplary leadership roles include Lecturer of Composition and Orchestration at Xavier University in New Orleans, Executive Director of the Contemporary Arts Center, CAC, in New Orleans, and Music Director of the CAC for eleven years. Under Jay’s leadership, CAC emerged on the National arts scene with significant force in the production and presentation of contemporary works in all disciplines. Weigel secured a pivotal donation of property from the Besthoff family, which solidified the future of the CAC. Weigel co-organized the Louisiana Composers Guild and served as the co-chairman of the Louisiana Music Commission. Most recently, Weigel served on the Bring New Orleans Back Subcommittee on Culture, Lt. Governor Mitch Landrieu’s Louisiana Rebirth Advisory Board, and is a Board member of the Louisiana Cultural Foundation. Weigel is an Adjunct Professor at both Loyola University in New Orleans and Belmont University in Nashville.

Angela Rose White (White) is an attorney and music consultant in Los Angeles, California. White has extensive experience in the music industry both as an attorney and in the music publishing and royalty area, working with songwriters, publishers, and artists (performers).

White served as the C.O.O. of David Rose Publishing Co. (DRP) for over twenty (20) years, until its sale in May 2018 to Primary Wave Music.   

DRP was an independent music publishing company, established in 1957, by her late father, composer and conductor David Rose (Rose). The catalog contains over 800 titles, including music for movies, TV shows, and popular instrumentals and vocals. Most notable are the numerous TV themes and cues for such shows as The Fred Astaire Show, The Red Skelton Show, Bonanza (Theme written by Livingston and Evans, arranged by David Rose), Little House on the Prairie, Highway to Heaven, Father Murphy, and High Chaparral. Notable songs include “The Stripper,”  “Holiday for Strings,”  “One Love,” a co-write recorded by Frank Sinatra, and “Our Waltz.”  

Since Rose conducted worldwide and maintained a score rental library of his compositions and arrangements, White was active in the score rental library worldwide, and since the sale has been active in donating his scores and creating Scholarships in his name.

In March 2019, White formed Pearl Note Music Services LLC., providing consulting, organization, education, and research services for songwriters, artists, publishers, and performers and their heirs and beneficiaries.  Today, White’s focus is on assisting new writers, heirs, and legacy songwriters and performers in the identification and collection of their music-related income streams.

Corey Field is a leading entertainment and intellectual property law attorney based in Los Angeles.  He was born in Los Angeles and, in his youth, was a professionally trained classical music composer with a BA in Music from UCSB, and a PhD in Music Composition from The University of York (England), where he pursued a professional composing career and had multiple awards, commissions, premieres, and BBC broadcasts.

Corey returned to the USA and headed for New York, where he began a long career in the international classical music publishing business at the U.S. office of the European publishers Schott (Carmina Burana, etc.) and Universal Edition (Vienna, publishers of Mahler, Bartok, Weill, Berg, Schoenberg, Webern, etc.). Corey rose to VP and worked all aspects of the international publishing business, including budgeting, royalties, sales, rentals, grand rights, syncs, etc., working with virtually all of the orchestras, opera companies, ballet companies, film and television, and record companies worldwide. That began Corey’s interest in copyright law as the foundation of the international music business.

This intense interest in copyright led Corey to start attending law school at night while working as an executive in the music publishing industry. His original goal was just to be the publisher for the rest of his life, but the publisher who won all the copyright arguments with other publishers (Corey served at that time on the Board of the Music Publishers’ Association of the United States). But it turned out that Corey had an aptitude for the law, and he started the third phase of his life, having been offered an opportunity by a large national law firm, working as a copyright and entertainment lawyer based on the East Coast. Corey eventually returned to his hometown, Los Angeles, and established his own practice at Corey Field Law Group, P.C. Corey’s law boutique has a very broad entertainment and IP practice. Among his clients in film, television, music, and publishing are The Sundance Film Festival; The Wise Music Group; Postmodern Jukebox; MGM Resorts International; The Philadelphia Orchestra; and many producers, publishers, independent labels, composers, songwriters, and performing organizations and estates. Corey’s copyright practice includes registration, recordation, terminations, and appeals. His practice also handles complex cross-media projects such as “live to picture” orchestral concerts, for which Corey has successfully negotiated rights agreements with many major studios and publishers. One of Corey’s practice niches includes the premier practice of leading arts performing groups, including orchestras, opera companies, and ballet companies, as well as more “New York” centric projects such as live theatre, Broadway musicals, Las Vegas productions, and book publishing.

Among Corey’s copyright law bona fides is the fact that he served as the President of The Copyright Society of the U.S.A. from 2010 to 2012. CSUSA is based in New York and is the premier international organization supporting copyright law education and expertise. Corey is also a distinguished author of many scholarly articles about copyright law, which have been published in leading journals such as The Journal of the Copyright Society of the U.S.A.; The Delaware Journal of Corporate Law; UCLA Entertainment Law Review; Entertainment and Sports Lawyer; Copyright World; Entertainment, Publishing and the Arts Handbook, and The Journal of Intellectual Property Law. His writings include in-depth analysis of copyright and entertainment law topics, including the quirky one-woman play “Copyright: My Story,” which was performed at the United States Federal Court Building in Atlanta, Georgia, to a distinguished audience of attorneys and judges.

Corey’s writings include the standard Entertainment Law textbook used in law schools nationwide and by many practicing attorneys: “Entertainment Law: Fundamentals and Practice,” published by Cognella and available online through Cognella or leading booksellers. Corey is a former Adjunct Professor at USC Gould School of Law, teaching entertainment law and music law, and formerly taught a course at UCLA Extension titled Copyright in the Entertainment Industry. He has spoken to many groups and organizations nationwide on the topic of copyright law, and chairs the annual “Entertainment Law Year in Review” for the LA County Bar Association Section on Entertainment Law and Intellectual Property. Corey was one of the original recipients of the Grand Prize in the Grammy Foundation’s Entertainment Law Initiative Legal Writing competition and served as a Board Member for the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences Philadelphia Chapter. He serves as a Trustee for The BMI Foundation, The Kurt Weill Foundation, and KUSC Radio. Corey is a member of the California, New York, and Pennsylvania Bars.

Corey recently resumed composing orchestral and vocal works and invites his friends to check out the multiple recordings of his music now streaming on Spotify, Apple, etc., on the First Leaf Music label, including his orchestral trilogy titled “Three Places in Los Angeles.”

Award-winning composer Charles Bernstein conducted his first original orchestral compositions at the age of sixteen. His long career in film scoring can be heard in many popular film and television shows, including Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Bastards and Kill Bill, Vol. 1, and scores for genre classics, A Nightmare on Elm Street (the original), The Entity, Stephen King's Cujo, the Dracula spoof Love At First Bite, along with a wide variety of comedies, Emmy®-winning dramas, action films and Oscar®-winning documentaries, numbering over 130 original film scores. 

After studying composition at the Juilliard School in New York with Vittorio Giannini and Vincent Persichetti, Bernstein attended the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), where he received an Outstanding Graduate of the College Award, a Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship, and a Chancellor's Doctoral Teaching Fellowship while studying with renowned American composer Roy Harris.

Bernstein is currently a six-term Governor of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, where he has also served as the Academy’s Vice President. He currently sits on the ASCAP Foundation Board and the ASCAP Board of Review, and is a founding and Advisory Board member and current Vice President of the Society of Composers & Lyricists. 

As an author, Charles Bernstein has received the coveted Deems Taylor Award for his writings on music, and has published over 100 Essays on film music, many of which can be found in his two books, "Film Music and Everything Else” and “Movie Music: An Insider’s View,” and will soon be available in a volume of 105 Collected Essays.

William “Bill” Conti is an American composer and conductor. He is best known for his film scores, including Rocky (1976), Rocky II (1979), Rocky III (1982), Rocky V (1990), Rocky Balboa (2006), The Karate Kid (1984), The Karate Kid Part II (1986), The Karate Kid Part III (1989), The Next Karate Kid (1994), For Your Eyes Only (1981), Dynasty (and its sequel The Colbys) and The Right Stuff (1983), which earned him an Academy Award® for Best Original Score. He also received nominations in the Best Original Song category for "Gonna Fly Now" from Rocky and for the title song of For Your Eyes Only. He was the musical director at the Academy Awards a record nineteen times.

Conti is known for his collaborations with director John G. Avildsen, having scored fourteen films for Avildsen, beginning with Rocky (1976) and ending with Inferno (1999). Their collaboration included such pictures as the first three films in The Karate Kid franchise (1984–1989), Slow Dancing in the Big City (1978), The Formula (1980), and Neighbors (1981).

Conti, an Italian American, was born in Providence, Rhode Island, the son of Lucetta and William Conti. He graduated from North Miami High School in 1959. He is a past winner of the Silver Knight Award presented by the Miami Herald. He is a graduate of Louisiana State University School of Music, where he met his wife, Shelby Cox, and earned a master's degree with honors from the Juilliard School of Music.

As early as 1971, Bill was orchestrating pop recordings by Italian artists, such as the album Sì... incoerenza ("Yes to Incoherence") by Italian singer Patty Pravo. He was also a ghostwriter of the scores for Spaghetti Westerns. Conti's big break into celebrity came in 1976, when United Artists hired him to compose the music for a small film called Rocky. The film became a phenomenon and won three Oscars® at the 49th Academy Awards, including Best Picture. The same ceremony was also the first time Conti served as musical director for the telecast, a role he reprised 19 times, more than any other person. His training montage tune, "Gonna Fly Now", topped the Billboard singles chart in 1977, and earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song. Conti also composed music for the sequels Rocky II (1979), Rocky III (1982), Rocky V (1990), and Rocky Balboa (2006).

Conti also worked on some other films and, eventually, on television series. In 1981, he wrote the music for the James Bond film For Your Eyes Only, when John Barry was unwilling to return to the United Kingdom for tax reasons, and provided the score for playwright Jason Miller's film version of his Pulitzer Prize®-winning play That Championship Season the following year.

In 1983, Conti composed the score for HBO's first film, The Terry Fox Story. He then did Bad Boys, Living Proof: The Hank Williams Jr. Story, and Mass Appeal. In 1984, he won an Academy Award for composing the score to 1983's The Right Stuff, after which he wrote the music for the TV series North and South in 1985. He also scored the Masters of the Universe live-action film. Another score was the 1987 film Happy New Year.

In 1991, Conti composed for Necessary Roughness, a college football film. In 1993, he wrote the music for The Adventures of Huck Finn, starring Elijah Wood and directed by Stephen Sommers. In 1999, he composed the score for The Thomas Crown Affair remake, starring Pierce Brosnan and Rene Russo. That year, he scored Inferno, starring Jean-Claude Van Damme.

Conti composed the themes to television's Dynasty, The Colbys, Falcon Crest, and Cagney & Lacey. He wrote the theme song to the original version of American Gladiators, worked with CBS on its 1980s film jingle, composed one of the early themes of Inside Edition, and wrote the Primetime Live theme for ABC News. He composed the score to the studio-altered American version of Luc Besson's The Big Blue. Two of Conti's previously composed works were reused for the show Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. These were the love theme "Come with Me Now," from the soundtrack for Five Days from Home (used for the show's main theme), and "Runaway," from For Your Eyes Only (used for in-show content).

Conti has been nominated for three Academy Awards, winning one in the Best Original Score category for The Right Stuff. He also received nominations in the Best Original Song category for "Gonna Fly Now" from Rocky and for the title song of For Your Eyes Only. He had three Golden Globe nominations: two for Best Original Score for Rocky and An Unmarried Woman, and one for Best Original Song for the title song of For Your Eyes Only. Conti also received thirteen Emmy® nominations, all but one for his role as musical director at the Academy Awards (the exception, his first nomination, was for his music for the 1985 series North and South). He won three Emmy Awards for Outstanding Musical Direction for the 64th, 70th, and 75th Academy Award ceremonies. On April 22, 2008, at the LSU Union Theatre at Louisiana State University, Conti was inducted into the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame.

Gregg Field is an eight-time Grammy® and Emmy® Award recipient, including the Latin Grammy Award for “Producer of the Year,” and is recognized as one of the most versatile and in-demand producers, musicians, and educators in the music industry. In 2024 alone, he produced two global chart-topping releases — BTS V and Bing Crosby’s White Christmas and The Henry Mancini 100th Sessions — along with the PBS Great Performances special Henry Mancini 100th at the Hollywood Bowl. Field’s career began at just 21, touring as a drummer with music legends Ray Charles, Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald, and Frank Sinatra. Sinatra himself praised him as “the best drummer I have ever worked with,” while Barry Manilow called him “the best musician I have ever worked with.” Transitioning into producing, Field has earned Grammy recognition across ten categories, including an Emmy® Award for “Outstanding Music Direction” for the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize honoring Tony Bennett. In 2025, he received a Telly Award for the PBS/Mancini Centennial special. A sought-after live music producer and music director, Field has collaborated with premier institutions and events, including the Apollo Theater, the Hollywood Bowl with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Festival Napa Valley, and multiple PBS White House specials during the Obama administration. Beyond performance, he is an accomplished author and contributor to Vanity Fair magazine. Field’s commitment to music education and leadership is equally noteworthy. In 2019, he delivered the commencement address at the University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music, where he now serves as Chairman of the Board of Councilors. He also sits on the board of the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music and has served as both Governor and Trustee of the Recording Academy (Grammys). A native of the San Francisco Bay Area, Field resides in Los Angeles with his wife, singer Monica Mancini.

Alex Flores is a globally recognized music executive and artist development leader with over two decades of experience working at the intersection of music, film, television, and media. She has built a career championing artists, nurturing creative talent, and forging global partnerships that have shaped the trajectory of both iconic and emerging voices in music.

Most recently, as Executive Vice President, Music at Hello Sunshine/Candle Studios, Flores launched the company’s music division, overseeing supervision, music production, and creative strategy across scripted and unscripted projects. She collaborated with top studios and platforms—including Universal, Netflix, Amazon, and Apple—driving music-driven storytelling for projects such as Fanmade, Surf Girls, For the W, F1 Academy, Buick, and Estée Lauder.

Previously, as Senior Vice President, Creative Worldwide at BMI, Flores was instrumental in building the organization’s relationships with world-class composers and artists. She worked closely with some of the most influential names in film and television scoring—among them Nicholas Britell, Atticus Ross, Alan Menken, and Danny Elfman, as well as global recording artists such as Doja Cat, Megan Thee Stallion, J. Balvin, Karol G, Rosalía, and Luke Combs. Her leadership expanded BMI’s international reach while strengthening its reputation as a home for creators across genres.

Earlier in her career, Flores held leadership positions at BMG, Walt Disney Studios, and Universal Pictures, where she oversaw music strategy, synchronization, and global artist marketing. She contributed to landmark projects and franchises, including Pirates of the Caribbean, Tron: Legacy, Fast & Furious, and Brokeback Mountain, securing placements for legendary artists such as Nirvana, The Rolling Stones, Tame Impala, and Aerosmith.

Passionate about mentorship and diversity, Flores serves on the board of Women in Music and is an advocate for emerging talent and inclusive growth across the industry. Fluent in English and Spanish, she holds an MFA in Film & Television Production from Loyola Marymount University and a BA in Communications/Public Relations from Universidad Iberoamericana Noroeste.

With deep-rooted ties across the global music community, Alex Flores continues to champion creators, elevate composers and artists, and shape the future of music and storytelling worldwide.

Emmy® award-winner Ashley Irwin has written music for over 1,000 hours of film and television, and more than 3,000 commercials. He relocated from his native Australia to the U.S.A. in 1990 after a successful career in theatre, records, advertising, and television.

He began his endless quest to understand the complexities of music licensing and associated contracts as the in-house producer and A&R manager for an independent record label in Sydney, started his first publishing company in 1989, and currently maintains publishing entities at ASCAP, BMI, and APRA.

In 1998 he was awarded Best Feature Film Score by the Australian Guild of Screen Composers for his score to the restored silent classic The White Hell of Piz Palü and the following year commissioned by the British Film Archives to write a new score to Alfred Hitchcock’s silent classic The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog, in honor of the great director’s 100th anniversary. Both these films continue to be performed in film-live concerts throughout the world.

In 2006, Ashley received a G.A.N.G. award for EA’s The Godfather video game, based on the Academy Award-winning film.

Well known for his collaborations with Oscar® winners Clint Eastwood and Bill Conti, Ashley has arranged and composed music for 22 Academy Awards shows, several Emmys® and Grammys®, as well as a slew of other TV variety shows. He was Musical Director for the inaugural Screen Actors Guild Awards and for the American Giving Awards, both for NBC.

In 2015, Ashley recreated the songs of Peter Allen for the mini-series Peter Allen: Not the Boy Next Door and was nominated for both AACTA and APRA AMCOS awards.

He is an official APRA-AMCOS Ambassador, is co-chair of Music Creators North America, and has been president of the Society of Composers & Lyricists for the past 12 years.

The Hollywood Reporter writes: "Mark McKenzie’s commanding orchestral prowess puts him among the foremost symphonists in Hollywood." His original compositions have been featured in thirty-six films, including Francis Ford Coppola's My Family / Mi Familia and the James Garner/Abigail Breslin classic family film The Ultimate Gift. Twenty of his soundtracks are available on the Sony Classical, Varese Sarabande, Intrada, Universal Back Lot Music, and Word Record labels. His compositions have been featured repeatedly on the Academy Awards® In Memorium segment, and his score to Blizzard opened the 75th Oscars®. Stitch's Great Adventure is heard each day at Disney World. The Greatest Miracle was performed before the  Pope, featured in Variety’s Eye on the Oscar, was doubly nominated for the IFMCA “Best Score of the Year," and was the winner of the HMMA’s “Best Indie Score of the Year.” Movie Music UK writes: “Mark McKenzie writes some of the most beautiful, lyrical and emotionally resonant music ever written for film and I do mean ever written for film.” His recent score to Max and Me, recorded at Abby Road Studios with concert violinist Joshua Bell, The London Voices, a large symphony orchestra, the Libera Boys choir, and numerous soloists, has repeatedly been called "Score of the Year."  In addition to the huge orchestral scores, Mark uses electronics in all of his scores and has enjoyed composing three action-adventure films for Universal Studios' Dragonheart franchise solely in his extensive electronic music studio.

After McKenzie completed his doctorate in Composition, studying with Pierre Boulez, Witold Lutoslawski, and Morton Lauridsen, he taught theory, counterpoint, and orchestration at the University of Southern California. He began his Hollywood career by orchestrating over 100 feature films. As Variety said, “Mark McKenzie has been the 'go to' guy behind the scenes for top film composers...John Barry, Bruce Broughton, Randy Edelman, Danny Elfman, Jerry Goldsmith, Mark Isham, Paul McCartney, John Powell, Marc Shaiman, Alan Silvestri, John Williams, and others. Mentored by Jerry Goldsmith, Mark both orchestrated Goldsmith’s final 6 films and helped him compose on The Last Castle and Looney Tunes. McKenzie's orchestrations are available on 91 soundtracks such as the Academy Award winning multi platinum Dances With Wolves, the Academy Award-nominated Men in Black and Good Will Hunting, blockbusters such as Spiderman, Spiderman 2, Mission Impossible, Sleepless in Seattle, Sister Act, Star Trek 6,7,& 10, Ice Age: The Meltdown, A Few Good Men, and the underscore to the Danny Elfman/Tim Burton classic multi-platinum The Nightmare Before Christmas.

Mark McKenzie is a member of The Motion Picture Academy Music Branch, The American Society of Music Arrangers and Composers, the BMI performing rights organization, and is very happy to serve on the board of the Society of Composers and Lyricists.

David Sanders is currently a tenured Professor in the School of Communication and Media at Montclair State University. Before joining the MSU faculty, Dr. Sanders was Director of the Music, Business, & Technology Program at New York University and Dean of the Audio Arts Division at the Center for the Media Arts in New York City. He has also served on the faculties of the City University of New York and The New School University.

Dr. Sanders brings a great depth of audio experience to his teaching. A musician and composer, he has written electro-acoustic scores for film, television, commercials, modern dance, and multimedia. As an engineer/producer, he has worked on an eclectic mix of projects ranging from classical to R&B. As a product specialist/artist endorsee for Korg keyboards, he has been involved in research and development as well as marketing for the company's line of synthesizers and MIDI products. In addition to his duties as producer of Inside MSU, a weekly campus television news program, audio supervisor for Carpe Diem, the MSU Broadcasting Department's award winning weekly cable show, and faculty advisor to WMSC, the MSU campus radio station, Dr. Sanders currently teaches courses in television production, audio production, multi-track recording, sound design, computer music, MIDI, and music technology at Montclair State University, Mercy College, and New York University.

Dr. Sanders has been the Director of the National Music Council since 1994. The National Music Council was founded in 1940 to provide a forum for the discussion of the nation's music affairs, to act as a clearinghouse for the joint opinion and decision of its members, and to work as a force to strengthen the importance of music in our lives, culture, and education systems. Operating under a charter from Congress granted in 1956, the Council has a membership of some fifty national music organizations, encompassing every form of professional and commercial music activity.

Extremely active in the music and entertainment industries, David Sanders attends several national and international conferences each year, including Arts Advocacy Day, the Audio Engineering Society, and MIDEM. He produces the National Music Council's annual Leadership in Music symposium and American Eagle Awards in New York City and Nashville, and is the United States representative to the International Music Council of UNESCO.

John Snyder is an American record producer, label executive, educator, and arts advocate known for his contributions to jazz, blues, and American roots music. Active since the 1970s, he has produced more than 300 recordings for major recording labels and has worked with artists including Etta James, Ornette Coleman, Dave Brubeck, Mavis Staples, and James Cotton. His projects have received over 30 Grammy® Award nominations and five wins. Snyder is also noted for supporting artist-led production models, supervising influential reissue campaigns, and developing music industry education programs at the university level.

Snyder was born in Charlotte, North Carolina, in 1948. He began studying piano and cornet as a child and attended the North Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts in 1964. He earned a Bachelor of Music Education degree from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in 1970, where he was active in college governance and contributed to developing a jazz studies curriculum in the School of Music. He received a Juris Doctor from the University of North Carolina School of Law in 1973, joining the NY Bar in 1974.

Before working in production, Snyder performed professionally as a trumpet player, touring internationally with an ensemble sponsored by the United States Navy and appearing with performers such as Sonny & Cher and Isaac Hayes. In 1973, he joined CTI Records under founder Creed Taylor, initially as Director of Legal and Business Affairs. His responsibilities expanded to include production coordination, manufacturing oversight, and artist relations. During his time at CTI, Snyder worked on over 40 projects with artists such as George Benson, Freddie Hubbard, Grover Washington Jr., Hubert Laws, Jim Hall, and Chet Baker.

In 1975, Jerry Moss and Herb Alpert of A&M Records hired Snyder to launch their new jazz imprint, Horizon Records. Between 1975 and 1977, he produced or supervised more than two dozen albums for Horizon by Thad Jones & Mel Lewis, Dave Brubeck, Don Cherry, Jim Hall, and Ornette Coleman, four of which were Grammy-nominated. Live in Munich by the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra won the 1979 Grammy Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance, Big Band.

In 1977, with the support of Herb Alpert, Snyder founded the independent label Artists House, dedicated to giving musicians “creative control” and ownership of their “master tapes.” The label, named after Ornette Coleman’s rehearsal space in New York in the 1960s, released albums by artists including Coleman, Chet Baker, Jim Hall, Paul Desmond, Art Pepper, James Ulmer, Andrew Hill, and Gil Evans. Artists House was noted for its high-quality audio pressings and extensive packaging. The label closed its doors in 1983, and the masters were returned to the artists for redistribution on various other labels.

In 1985, Snyder was appointed Director of Jazz Production at Atlantic Records by Ahmet Ertegun. He produced or supervised the production of albums by Mel Lewis, Mike Stern, Hiram Bullock, David Newman, and Chris Hunter, and produced a 14-LP box set of the history of Jazz on Atlantic under the supervision of Ahmet and Nesuhi Ertegun.

Snyder was deeply involved in the CD reissue boom of the 1980s and 1990s. Beginning in 1987, he served as Digital Producer for more than 300 albums, compilations, and anthologies for several recording labels. For Columbia/Legacy, he produced reissues of recordings by artists including Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, and Aretha Franklin; for RCA/BMG, he produced more than 70 CD reissues by artists such as Glenn Miller, Elvis Presley, and Lou Reed; and for GRP/Impulse, he worked on releases by Sonny Rollins, Louis Armstrong, and Billie Holiday, among others.

Throughout the late 1980s and 1990s, Snyder produced hundreds of new albums, including a series of recordings for A&M/Jazz by artists such as Don Cherry, Sun Ra, Cecil Taylor, Dizzy Gillespie, and Gerry Mulligan; several dozen recordings for Musicmasters (four Grammy nominations) with artists including Peggy Lee, Louie Bellson, Milt Jackson, and Freddie Hubbard; 17 albums for RCA/BMG with artists including Hilton Ruiz, Danilo Perez, James Moody, and Steve Lacy; and 11 recordings for Antilles featuring Frank Morgan, Johnny Griffin, and Kenny Drew, Jr.

From 1991 to 2001, Snyder was a principal jazz and blues producer for Telarc International, producing or co-producing over 70 albums, including seven Grammy nominees and two cross-genre tribute albums—You’re Gonna Miss Me When I’m Dead and Gone (Muddy Waters) and Hellhound on My Trail (Robert Johnson)—featuring guest artists such as Gregg Allman, Susan Tedeschi, Buddy Guy, and Levon Helm.

He produced six albums by Etta James for Private Music between 1993 and 2001, three of which were Grammy-nominated. Her first recording with Snyder, Mystery Lady, won her first Grammy for Jazz Vocal in 1994.

During the 1990s and into the 2000s, Snyder also produced over 50 albums for Gitanes/Polygram, Evidence Records, and House of Blues Records, including blues tributes to the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, and Led Zeppelin with guest artists including Buddy Guy, Taj Mahal, Jr. Wells, Isaac Hayes, and Derek Trucks. With co-producer Benny Diggs, he produced an all-star tribute to the Dixie Hummingbirds featuring Stevie Wonder, Paul Simon, Wynonna Judd, and Mavis Staples.

In 1998, Snyder and Diggs co-produced the music for Revelations, a staple in the repertoire of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater under Artistic Director Judith Jamison. In 2000, Snyder produced one of the first DVD audio recordings, Bobby Short’s Piano album, financed by Ely Callaway, founder of Callaway Golf.

In the early 2000s, Artists House, originally founded in 1977, became a nonprofit educational foundation. With financial backing from Herb Alpert, Snyder built the Artists House website and YouTube channel to help musicians and music entrepreneurs create successful careers. Taking an interest in the educational uses of DVD technology, he began filming recording sessions for an “in the studio” series with artists such as Scrapomatic, Oteil Burbridge, Jason Crosby, and Bob Brookmeyer.

In conjunction with the Juilliard School and with support from film producer Paul Maslansky, Snyder produced an instructional DVD for trumpet in 2004 with Warren Vaché (in five languages). Supported by grants from the Norman & Rosita Foundation and the Herb Alpert Foundation, he produced a DVD jazz master class series in 2007 in partnership with New York University, featuring artists including Cecil Taylor, Hank Jones, Barry Harris, Clark Terry, Benny Golson, and the Heath Brothers.

Deviating from his production work in 2004, Snyder produced a series of 12 audiobooks (54 CDs) for the John Templeton Foundation Press and assisted in the recording of Ron Carter’s oral biography, Finding the Right Notes.

In 2013, Snyder launched a free online course, Band as Business, Musician as Entrepreneur, through the education platform Udemy. The course includes more than five hours of video content and related materials and has enrolled over 12,000 students.

Snyder began teaching in 2001 as an adjunct at Fairfield University and in 2002 at his alma mater, UNC-Greensboro, in the areas of music business and professional development. From 2004 to 2019, he held the Conrad N. Hilton Eminent Scholar Chair in Music Industry Studies at Loyola University New Orleans. He expanded the program’s enrollment, introduced new degree tracks, and emphasized practical training and entrepreneurship, starting a dozen student-run companies.

After Hurricane Katrina in 2007, Snyder secured recovery grants from the Louisiana Board of Regents and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to support the local creative community and established the Center for Music and Arts Entrepreneurship, which produced hundreds of hours of music and related content.

He recruited the Louis Armstrong Summer Camp to relocate to the College of Music in 2006 and brought the Thelonious Monk Institute (with Terence Blanchard as Artistic Director) to Loyola for a four-year residency in 2007, creating multiple opportunities for Loyola students and for music education in New Orleans public schools. In 2015, he created the Resident Artist Program, securing funding and recruiting violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg as the inaugural resident artist, and produced a documentary of her first year in residence.

Following his retirement from Loyola in 2019, Snyder served as President of Tweed Recording School of Audio Production in Athens, Georgia, where he assisted in developing curricula in audio production, live sound reinforcement, teacher training, and the business of music.

Snyder served on the Louisiana and New Mexico Music Commissions and was a member of the steering committee for the founding of the New Orleans Jazz Museum. He also served on the board of Louisiana First Lady Donna Edwards’ educational foundation, Music, Arts & Movement (MAM), in 2016–2017. In 2023, he secured a $5 million matching grant from the Herb Alpert Foundation to support renovations to the Jazz Museum’s performance space and recording studio and to develop the Herb Alpert Education Center.

In 2012, Snyder co-founded Athletes and the Arts, a wellness coalition with the American College of Sports Medicine, the Performing Arts Medicine Association, and various music teacher associations, performance organizations, and university sports medical centers to address the physical and mental health issues of performing artists.

Snyder served as a member of the NARAS Board of Governors, NY Chapter, from 2000 to 2002. He received the Lifetime Achievement Award in Music Education from OffBeat Magazine in January 2019.

He was personally Grammy-nominated as Producer in the Best Traditional Blues Album category in 2001 for Hellhound on My Trail, a tribute to Robert Johnson. His production work has earned more than 30 Grammy nominations and five wins across multiple genres, including Traditional Pop, Gospel, Jazz, and Blues.

Over a career spanning more than five decades, John Snyder has been recognized for combining high-fidelity production values with an artist-centric business philosophy. His emphasis on giving musicians control over repertoire, royalties, and packaging—first realized at Artists House in the late 1970s—anticipated many practices later adopted by artist-run labels and modern digital distribution.

Snyder’s catalog crosses jazz, blues, gospel, roots, and experimental music, bringing together established legends and emerging artists. Scholars cite his recordings for balancing commercial viability with historical significance, particularly his work with Ornette Coleman, Chet Baker, Dave Brubeck, and many post-bop innovators.

In the 1980s and 1990s, Snyder was among the first wave of digital producers who converted analog master tapes to digital files, leading directly to the explosive growth of the compact disc and digital music making, and eventually to file sharing and streaming in the 2000s.

As an educator, Snyder is regarded as one of the architects of modern collegiate music-industry curricula. At Loyola University New Orleans, he expanded a one-track concentration into a six-degree department, integrating entrepreneurship, digital media, and performing-arts health before such topics became widespread.

Industry publications such as All About Jazz and OffBeat frequently cite Snyder’s career as a case study in balancing commercial success with cultural preservation. His work continues to be referenced in educational curricula for its breadth, adaptability, and long-term cultural impact.

Taura Stinson is a Birmingham-born, Oakland-raised, and LA-based Oscar, Golden Globe, and Emmy®-nominated songwriter and composer. Her credits include Thelma the Unicorn, Rio 2, Carmen, Cruella, Beyond the Lights, and Blitz, with songs co-written alongside Nicholas Britell, Raphael Saadiq, and Brittany Howard, among others. She notably penned music for Men in Black, Mudbound, Don’t Look Up, and STEP, and has worked on various TV series, including Harlem, Reasonable Doubt, The L Word: Generation Q, and Moon Girl & Devil Dinosaur, for which she wrote the theme song.

Her work spans artists from Mary J. Blige and Paloma Faith to Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler and Destiny’s Child. Early in her career, Taura wrote the Grammy®-nominated song “Show Me the Way” for Earth, Wind & Fire, as well as the chart topping-cult classic “Gangsta Lean” for DRS and “I’m Leavin,” the #1 Billboard Dance Hit for Lisa Stansfield. Taura also lent backing vocals and arrangements to the hit song “Bang-Bang” by Jessie J, Nicki Minaj, and Ariana Grande, as well as various recording artists, including Ryan Bingham, Tori Kelly, Elton John, Patti LaBelle, and Stevie Wonder.

Beyond music, she has served as an A&R, mentor, and currently holds leadership roles as chair of the Black Caucus Affinity Group at AMPAS and as a board member of the Alliance for Women Film Composers. She is also the founder of Believe Become Books and the author of 100 Things Every Black Girl Should Know.

With two original music-driven series in development, Taura is translating her gift for soulful, impactful storytelling into television and film — cementing her place as a visionary across mediums.