Run by Sohrab Saadat Ladjevardi (President) and Billy Harper (BoD). This forum will feature topics on a variety of musician and music business related subjects of interest to our members and non members.

ALL musicians of ALL genres are invited to attend, including music educators, DJ’s, Hip Hop artists, music advocates, Union people, #UnityInTheMusicCommunity.

Agenda

1. Guest speaker musician,band leader and educator Val Kinzler.

She will speak about her “humble” beginnings, the struggle to earn a living as a teaching artist, performer, songwriter while raising her son and will address the importance of securing a support network that allows creative artists to evolve and maintain their skills.
Speaking about the ins and outs as a producer, conceptualist, booker and host of events. And sharing her experience as a mediator in the midst of high stress, conflictual situations dealing with fellow artists and band mates and serendipitous meetings of the mind with some well known greats she’s been fortunate to meet and collaborate with.
She also has a band that still plays live and records and worked as a prevention specialist/counselor for at risk youth teaching songwriting as a positive alternative at the NYC Department Of Education.
Furthermore, she also wants to talk about her upcoming NYC Women Who Rock Festival in March which is in collaboration with New Century ENTERTAINMENT’s Founder Michael McHugh who was the speaker at our last forum.

2. Adam Reifsteck will report about his forthcoming MFM SPEAKS OUT podcast

3. Roger Blanc will speak about the California AB 5 Law and its (negative) impact on freelancing musicians (called independen contractors by Labor Law),

4. Ken Hatfield will speak about and discuss the importance of meta data like the ISRC code.