Looking forward to Cheltenham Festival in May. Aside from playing a set with the Quintet plus vocalist Heather Masse, I’ll be part of a panel with Dave Stapleton and others called “Setting Up Your Own Record Label”. I’m sure I will learn a lot, and it will be a great opportunity to talk about Greenleaf Music. I had that opportunity as part of panels at two major conferences in New York in the past months.

The thing about both events that stood out to me the most was that everyone I met, young musicians, presenters, panelists, was fired up — excited to be there, excited to take part in the conversation and in the larger world of music. And for the right reasons — it seemed to me that the enthusiasm was around creating music and facilitating music. So while yes there was schmoozing, it always felt genuine and urgently personal.

At the APAP World Music Pre-Conference, I took part in a set of case studies focused on world music and technology. Led by Dmitri Vietze and Ryan Dawes of Rock Paper Scissors, there were fascinating responses from Natalia Linares of Conrazón, composer and string player Ljova, and Mark Roberts of Evergreene Music and Stars & Letters.

Technology in all sorts of music is an exploding sector. I wonder if things always felt this way. It was the highest “new-app-per-paragraph” quotient discussion I’ve ever heard. And it truly gave the lie to the idea that the music industry is dying. The music industry is morphing.

At CMA I was invited by Mid Atlantic Arts to speak about the Jazz.NEXT program Using Technology to Build a Healthy, Sustainable Jazz Environment. This is the one Greenleaf Music took part in thanks to them and The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. It’s the project that allowed us to put a lot of what you see here into place. It’s also allowed for the creation of an open source WordPress template that we’ve made available to other artists. Linda Oh also came by to talk about how she’s using it at her site.

If you are reading this, let me thank you again for following us and being part of this DIY story. We’re still growing, but real listeners are the people who populate it and make it expand.

Lots more music coming this year both live and memorex. Inspired by everyone I met at these gabfests. Thanks.