Speaking of the Arts

Welcome to another episode of Speaking of the Arts. We have a great episode for you today. Today, we are featuring Lydia Liebman of Lydia Liebman Promotions. Lydia is a publicist specializing in the jazz genre and works with a large roster of amazing artists. If you go to www.lydialiebman.com you can see who she's working with and some of the amazing success stories she's had for her clients. In t...

Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of speaking of the arts. I’m your host Mike Epstein and I’m excited to tell you about today’s episode. We’re featuring Joel Pierson. Joel is the founder, bandleader, and arranger for The Queen's Cartoonists, an ensemble that performs music from cartoons. Joel had this great idea to combine his passion for animated film, and live music to create a real...

Hello everyone and welcome to Speaking of the Arts. I am Mike Epstein and today's episode features Sebastian Rios of New Jazz Underground. New Jazz Underground is an American trio featuring Abdias Armenteros (Saxophonist/Composer), Sebastian Rios (Bassist/Composer), and TJ Reddick (Drummer). They have been described as “an innovative and ultra creative collective striving to establish themselves a...

Welcome to Speaking of the Arts. I am your host, Mike Epstein and I am excited to share today's episode with you. We are featuring the amazing singer, Stella Cole. Stella is getting ready to release her debut album on August 30 and I had the opportunity to speak with her earlier this year where she shared more about the recording process and creating the music. We also talked about Stella’s earlie...

Welcome back to Speaking of the Arts! Today's guest is Chris Mees, founder and director of the B Natural booking agency. I've known Chris for several years now and was really looking forward to our chat. Chris is a driven, smart, successful entrepreneur who has built a respectable agency from the ground up. We were able to cover a wide range of topics in our conversation including the importance o...

Episode 80: Cyrille Aimee by Mike Epstein

Hello Everyone! And thank you for tuning in on this new episode of Speaking of the Arts. My name is Mackenzie and I am the Operations Manager at Epstein Fox Performances and I will be your host for today’s podcast. I am so excited to bring you guys a really special guest, critically acclaimed composer, bandleader, and most importantly Tenor Saxophonist, James Brandon Lewis. We are going to invite...

Hello everyone and welcome to Speaking of the Arts! My name is Marie Le Claire. I’m the east coast agent at Epstein Fox Performances and your host for today! Today, I’m excited to bring you a conversation with famed singer and one of the newest artists on the EFP roster, Magos Herrera! We discuss Magos joining the roster, her journey as a Mexican artist starting over in the US, some of her various...

Hello and welcome to Speaking of the Arts https://www.speakingofthearts.com/ . Today we feature Epstein Fox Performances https://www.efperformances.com/ , the new booking agency I have co-founded with my partner, Michael Fox. (For more information on Michael, you can listen to Speaking of the Arts Episode 68 https://www.speakingofthearts.com/episodes/68 where I featured Michael and what was then h...

Hello everyone and welcome to Speaking of the Arts. Our guest today is Katherine McVicker. In 2014, Katherine founded the boutique agency, Music Works International https://www.musicworksinternational.com/ , after three decades as an agent developing the touring careers of dozens of artists such as Brad Mehldau, Michael Brecker, Wayne Shorter, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, and many others. In 2000, she...

Hello everyone and welcome back to Speaking of the Arts. Today we are speaking with members of the vocal group Kings Return https://www.kingsreturnmusic.com/ . We just signed these guys to our booking agency https://www.epsteinco.com and I am so excited for everyone to check them out. Recently, Kings Return posted a video on YouTube of their version of Ave Maria https://youtu.be/dRzI8y-EJJ0 , sung...

Hi! I’m your host this week, Marie Le Claire. I’m so excited about our guest this week, Nate Query, long time bass player for the Grammy nominated, Portland, OR based rock band, The Decemberists http://www.decemberists.com The Decemberists have toured all over the world, performing for an extremely dedicated fanbase for over 20 years and have an impressive body of work that continues to evolve wit...

Hello and everyone and welcome to Speaking of the Arts! We are changing up our content today to deliver what I hope will be a very informative and practical episode: Financial advice for artists. My guest today is Charlie Epstein. Charlie has always been a part of two different worlds - financial advising and the theatre. As a professional actor, Charlie has performed in roles from Shakespeare to...

Speaking of the Arts is pleased to feature Gordon Hanks and JazzSLC. Gordon co-founded the concert series in Salt Lake City over 27 years ago and I wanted to have him on the show to talk about his own unique background and what he has learned from producing the series for so long. Gordon is extremely passionate about the music and that clearly comes through in our interview. A little more on his o...

Welcome to Speaking of the Arts! Today’s episode features an innovative company in the music industry called Open Studio. Open Studio was founded by the great pianist Peter Martin. The company has created a unique way of teaching music lessons online. They feature some of the industry's greatest performers by creating an immersive learning experience using innovative software called Living Notatio...

Hello everyone and welcome to Speaking of the Arts. Today's episode is part 2 of my conversation with Ulysses Owens Jr. If you did not listen to part 1, I would suggest you start there before listening to part 2. In today's episode we cover what I would consider essential information for both artists and presenters including: How Ulysses avoids burnout How to break out of the artist sidemen mental...

Hello everyone and welcome to Speaking of the Arts. I am Mike Epstein, your host. Today’s episode is a real treat. We are featuring the drummer, educator, entrepreneur, author, non-profit organizer, band leader, producer, etc. etc., the list really goes on and on, Ulysses Owen’s Jr. I’ve always been a fan of Ulysses’s drumming but until I did my research for this interview I had no idea how multif...

Hello everyone and welcome to Speaking of the Arts. My guest today is Michael Fox. Michael and I go way back and I’ve wanted to have him on the show for a long time. Fox is the Founder and Owner of the booking agency Fox Performances, LLC. Fox previously worked as the Midwest Agent at International Music Network. (Side note, you can check out Episode 12 of Speaking of the Arts in which we featured...

My live experience includes performing at Woodstock ‘94, supporting The Rolling Stones, REM, Bon Jovi, Van Halen, Oasis and Bryan Adams at Wembley with my first band Del Amitri throughout 1994-97, followed by touring and playing with Marianne Faithfull, Sinead O’Connor, Sheryl Crow, Robbie Williams, James Morrison, Will Young, Squeeze, Lewis Taylor, Hamish Stuart, The Waterboys, Jeff Lorber, Trevo...

Alison Stolpa is the Content Manager for https://www. CareersInMusic.com and its sister site https://www. CareersInFilm.com. Founded back in 2010, CareersinMusic.com set off on a mission to curate and deliver truly valuable music career information, sourced by trusted experts. Their aim is to provide deeper insights, reveal more piercing data, and genuinely help users gain an edge on the competiti...

It's been several months since we did an episode and a lot has changed in the time between! Thanks to the Shuttered Venue Operator Grant, the SBA has released just over 4 billion dollars to venues and agencies around the country. The total funding for the program is approximately 16 billion, so there will be a lot more released in the coming weeks. We are already seeing the impact of this with mor...

Hello everyone and welcome back to Speaking of the Arts. What a year this has been. At a time when live music is needed more than ever, we’ve had to put it on hold and watch musicians perform almost exclusively on our screens. There is some good news though as we wrap up 2020. Through the tireless efforts of NIVA (the national independent venue association)www.nivassoc.org and NITO (the national i...

Today we are featuring the one and only Donny McCaslin https://www.donnymccaslin.com/music . Donny made national headlines a few years ago when he worked with David Bowie on what would ultimately be Bowie’s final album, Blackstar. Since then, Donny has released the critically acclaimed album BLOW and, prior to the COVID shutdown, he regularly toured the United States, Europe, and Asia as the leade...

Since the beginning of social distancing, live streaming has been the one major performance opportunity available to artists. We can easily spend all day everyday now tuning in to watch artists of all types. As a result, our industry has simultaneously become flooded with live streaming and confronted with many new challenges. For example, how do you compete for people's attention with so many str...

We have a couple of exciting announcements to make today. First, I want everyone to know we just launched a brand new website for the podcast! www.speakingofthearts.com has a new updated look and feel and contains every episode we’ve done since we launched back in 2015. The newer episodes feature both audio and video versions with our guests. I want to thank my team member Marie Le Claire for all...