Meet the MusicWorks Panelists - Understanding A&R: Demo Listening Derby

Meet Florent Clavel from Third Side Music, Outside Music's Evan Newman, and Heather Gardner from Vapor Music Group, who will be on hand this Saturday, September 14 for our Understanding A&R: Demo Listening Derby event.

Florent Clavel, Creative and Sync Licensing, Third Side Music
Born in the French Alps in the mid-80's, Florent Clavel had the best English teachers ever: movies, TV series, video games and more importantly, rock bands. His dedication for Music Licensing probably comes from the fact that he never succeeded in being a good skateboarder, but he still enjoys sports films and their soundtracks. In 2010, and he has began working for Third Side Music and has since pitched music worldwide for TV, films, ads, video games, and web videos, including a TV ad at this year's Superbowl for GoPro cameras.

Evan Newman, Director of Label and Management, Outside Music
Starting off with V2 Records Canada over ten years ago, Evan played an integral roll in the success of The White Stripes, Moby, Josh Ritter, Mercury Rev, Grandaddy and many more. While at V2, Evan began managing both Jill Barber and Matthew Barber. In 2006, he started the Baudelaire Label, which was named Best Toronto Record Label by NOW Magazine. In 2008, Baudelaire merged with Outside Music and since then, the label and management divisions have expanded significantly to include many of Canada's top independent artists. Outside Music is one of Canada's leading independent music companies offering distribution, label and management. The Outside Music Label current roster consists of Aidan Knight, The Besnard Lakes, Black Mountain, Folly & The Hunter, Jill Barber, Justin Rutledge, Leif Vollebekk, Little Scream, Matthew Barber, Rose Cousins, The Sadies, and Sloan. The management division roster includes Aidan Knight , Folly & The Hunter, Jill Barber, Justin Rutledge, and Matthew Barber. Outside Music Distribution is home to such labels as Jagjaguwar, Secretly Canadian, Sub Pop, Fat Possum, Constellation, Domino, Thrill Jockey, Mint and many more.

Heather Gardner, Head of Music Supervision, Vapor Music Group
Heather's life-long obsession with music and its love affair with advertising, television, film, video games & new media led her to Vapor Music in January of 2009, and she has been going full steam ahead ever since.  Over the past four years, Heather has worked on such projects as Seed (Television Series, City), Rookie Blue (Television Series, ABC/Global), Less Than Kind (Television Series, HBO Canada), Todd and the Book of Pure Evil (Television Series, SPACE/FearNet), Shaun White Skateboarding (AAA Video Game, Ubisoft), The Whistleblower (Feature Film, First Generation Films), The Bang Bang Club (Feature Film, Foundry Films/Entertainment One) and Textuality (Feature Film, Strident Films), among many others.  In addition to long-format work, Heather is heavily involved in the world of advertising and has worked on campaigns for Samsung, Nissan, Visa, ING Direct, Walmart and MasterCard, just to name a few.

About the Workshop
This panel will offer insight into the inner workings of an A&R music meeting or listening session. Participants will listen to new music alongside the experts, learn what they listen for when hearing new demos, and be part of the discussion about what makes a strong first impression and why. This is a chance for artists to meet and discuss their work with fellow songwriters, while getting personal feedback from a distinguished panel from both a craft and business point of view.

Music of all genres and songwriters of all levels are welcome. It is not necessary to bring a song to attend and hear what the panelists have to say. A section of songs will be played for the entire group, followed by comments from the panel.

PLEASE NOTE: If you wish to have your music played for the panel, please ATTACH and send both an mp3 with a bit rate no higher than 128 kbps and lyrics in word format to roland@manitobamusic.com.

TO REGISTER OR FOR MORE INFORMATION, please contact:

Roland Deschambault, Training Coordinator
Manitoba Music
P: 204.975.5188
E: roland@manitobamusic.com