Mais oui! RIM students go international

by Gina E. Fann

With technology changing faster than this week’s top-10 downloads, MTSU recording-industry students traveled to France in late January to expand their knowledge and their networking opportunities at MIDEM 2010, the world’s largest music-industry trade fair.

Accompanied by professor Ramona DeSalvo, the 10 travelers—nine undergrads and one graduate student—went to Cannes for the five-day international event, which began Jan. 23 and drew more than 8,000 music-industry attendees from more than 80 countries.

"Everybody who’s anybody in music was there to discuss trends in music, political and legal issues," explained DeSalvo, an entertainment law and copyright-litigation attorney who teaches courses in copyright law and contracts and legal issues, along with a seminar class, "How To Get A Job In the Entertainment Industry," in MTSU’s College of Mass Communication.

"We’re taking these students because we want the university to be in the forefront of those trends. We don’t want to be teaching old business models. Plus, letting MTSU have a presence at MIDEM will … get attention for the department and give our students exposure to the global music business."

This was the first time MTSU was represented at the 43rd annual event (MIDEM is the acronym for Marché International du Disque et de l’Edition Musicale), and it was one of only a handful of universities worldwide to attend.

"Our students received grants for research projects from the International Education and Exchange Committee, which are helping them to attend, and they’ll present their research during Scholars Week (March 22-26)," DeSalvo said. The students also will present a panel discussion to share information from MIDEM later this spring.

In addition to lectures, seminars and plenty of opportunities to network with industry bigwigs, the students attended huge nightly concerts and intimate music showcases, talked tours and merchandising and even watched a classmate’s opportunity to gain international attention for her music.

Attending were master of fine arts candidate Eboni Green, junior production and technology major John Carroll, junior music business major Kyle McCormick and senior music business majors Tiffany Adams, Brinn Black, Ashley Brunes, Gabriel Dodd, Dustin Poole, Dera Shelton and Claudia Whitehorn.

Black, whose focus is commercial songwriting and who is also a recording artist with Foothill Entertainment, presented a showcase performance at MIDEM as the only country artist invited this year.

The MIDEM event also included MidemNet, a conference encompassed within the broader event that presented panels and conferences on monetizing the digital music marketplace. It provided another opportunity to market and brand MTSU as the preeminent recording-industry program in the world and could lead to international recruiting opportunities, officials said.

"We wanted to make connections now to prepare for next year, when we want to have a booth for the MTSU recording-industry program," said DeSalvo. "It’s all part of preparing for the university’s internationalization initiative."


From the Feb. 8, 2010 edition of The Record, Vol. 18/ No. 15.