A Conversation with Matt Brennan
Pop music scholar and music industry researcher
Tuesday, November 21, 4:30-5:30pm
Ryder Hall 217
Matt Brennan (University of Edinburgh) specializes in the interdisciplinary field of popular music studies, with particular focus on the value of the live music sector. His creative practice as a musician informs his teaching and research, which also makes use of historical, sociological, business, and ethical approaches to understanding music in society. He has led numerous publicly funded research projects to address challenges confronting the music industry and to produce real-world solutions. His work has been widely covered in the press, including by BBC News, The Times, and The Guardian.
Matt Brennan will talk about his new book When Genres Collide: Down Beat, Rolling Stone and the Struggle between Jazz and Rock, about how the American music press created a divide between jazz and rock; the UK Live Music Census, a project he leads to measure live music’s cultural and economic value, identify challenges facing the industry, and inform policy to help it flourish; and his work on music and sustainability, including implications for the music products sector.