Exploring Music E36 Diversity part 1 of 2 with Alison Wenham and Stuart Dredge

Alison and Stuart discuss Diversity, in the music, in the industry, in the past, in the future, in the world. For some it is a painful reality change, for others it is the obvious way forward. Alison Wenham has worked in the music industry for over 40 years and is one of the most experienced and well-known international practitioners in the business. Founding AIM, Association of Independent Music in 1999, she has been Chairman and CEO since inception. Alison developed AIM’s strength and visibility in representing the British music industry SMEs at a political level, working closely with government departments to shape and advise on legislation relevant to the industry. Prior to founding AIM, Alison was MD at BMG Conifer International (UK), having sold Conifer Records (which under her direction had grown to be the UK’s largest independent record and distribution company in the specialist music field) to BMG in 1994. In 2006 Alison was elected as founding Chairman of WIN, the Worldwide Independent Network comprising over 25 independent trade associations representing thousands of independent music companies globally. She is a founding Board Member of IMPALA, the European organisation representing the interests of small record companies and publishers in Europe, a fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts, was a founding Board Director of Merlin, the independent global rights licensing agency, and also UKMusic, the body representing the UK Music Industry; she attends PPL and VPL Board meetings and sits on a variety of government and industry committees. In 2006, Alison was inducted into the MMF Roll of Honour , and in March 2009 she was presented with a Special Achievement award by Music Week, for 10 years of AIM. She has featured in Billboard’s Top Women in Music every year since publication. In 2010, Alison was honoured with an OBE. In 2011 she was awarded the prestigious Order of Arts and Letters by the French Government for services to culture Stuart Dredge is a journalist with 20 years' experience covering technology, games, the music industry and children's media. He writes the Music Ally's daily news bulletin and contributes to the company's fortnightly report as well as joining in on the Music Ally TV Show on Youtube. Plus, Stuart writes weekly for The Week Junior, a bi-monthly mobile games column for the Guardian; and features for the Observer and Medium. Twice a year, he does blogging and socials for Reed Midem at its MIPTV and MIPCOM television-industry conferences. Stuart also has a new site focused on children's tech called ContempoPlay. Past freelance clients include the Sunday Times, CNET, Medium's CuePoint, Stylus and T3. The EMP theme music players are Joe Schirl on bass guitar and Peter Mayerhofer on hand pan. The music played through the conversation was composed, engineered and mixed by Lionel Lodge. This episode conversation was recorded at The Joint in the Kings Cross area of London, England. Click here for more information on their services. If you wish to support us in producing this podcast series, please click the donate button. Any and all help will be put towards production of future episodes. Links: AIM https://www.aim.org.uk/ WIN https://winformusic.org/ IMPALA https://www.impalamusic.org/ UKMUSIC https://www.ukmusic.org/ Music Ally https://musically.com/ Music Ally TV https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2vKWr1FVsEzWlmcSNlFLaw ContempoPlay https://medium.com/contempoplay