Penny Gattis Joins Round Hill Music, Kari Smith Starts Management Company

/by
Pictured (L-R): Penny Gattis, Kari Smith

Pictured (L-R): Penny Gattis, Kari Smith

Round Hill Music has added Penny Gattis to the position of Senior Director of A&R in the company’s Nashville office. Gattis is the former Director of Writer/Publisher Relations in BMI’s Nashville office.

While at BMI, Gattis developed new opportunities for BMI songwriters and publishers. She launched Sync THIS!, an exclusive, two-day networking and musical discovery gathering designed to connect Nashville talent and tastemakers with top music supervisors in 2013. Also, she helped create and coordinate BMI’s substantial calendar of local and national songwriter-focused showcases, seminars, and other events including Lollapalooza, Hangout, ACL, Key West Songwriter Festival, Fontanel Winter Songwriter Retreat, Maui Songwriter Festival, East Side Sounds and many more.

Before joining BMI, Gattis served as Creative Director at Tom-Leis Music and Love Monkey Music. A Wisconsin native, Gattis graduated from Nashville’s Belmont University with honors with a Bachelor of Business Administration in Music Business degree.

Gattis can be reached at [email protected].

Additionally, Kari Smith has exited Round Hill Music to launch management company Hear Candy Music. Smith continues to work with Round Hill Music on behalf of Marti Frederiksen’s joint venture, Riding Songs. Hear Candy’s roster includes Frederiksen, Lindsey Lee, and band Loving Mary, as well as Riding Songs.

Smith can be reached at [email protected].

Leadership Music Accepting Applications For Class Of 2017

/by

Leadership-Music-Logo570Leadership Music is now accepting applications from established music industry leaders for the Class of 2017 and will accept them online through March 31.

The eight-month, Nashville-based program begins in October and is designed to expose participants to every phase of the music industry, build channels of communication between established leaders, and explore the challenges facing the music industry. Participants first attend an orientation and alumni welcome reception in September and the Opening Retreat in October, followed by six all-day sessions once a month, ending in May with graduation at Closing Retreat. One-time tuition for the program is $1,000.

According to Debbie Schwartz Linn, executive director of the 27-year-old organization with more than 1,100 alumni, “For the Class of 2017 only, we are trying a concept new to Leadership Music. After 27 years of Friday-only program days and in response to the changing landscape of the business, we will have three program days on Tuesday and three on Friday. The board will re-evaluate the process at the end of the program year.”

Application forms, program dates, policies and FAQ’s are available at leadershipmusic.org/apply/

According to Linn, “When we enter into the selection process, our uppermost goal is to select a passionate, balanced and diversified class of professionals, who are, individually and collectively, the best and brightest leaders in their field and represent all segments of the music industry. Each year, the selection committee has the difficult task of determining the class slate from far more qualified applicants than we have slots. Last year we had a record number of applicants and expect the same this year, the 28th class. That’s a good problem to have, but it is often frustrating for those who have applied multiple times. We strongly encourage applicants to keep applying if not selected. It’s truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience and well worth the effort.”