Byta Presents: #HowWeListen Live: In Conversation with Daniel Seligman, Creative Director – POP Montreal & Founder – Danagement Artist Management.
Arts Curation: Championing Independent Music for Over 2 Decades
Tuesday 25th July, 10am PT / 1pm ET / 6pm BST (Live on Zoom)
Our next guest is Daniel Seligman, Creative Director & Co-founder of POP Montreal Music Festival & Founder of Danagement Artist Management.
Daniel Seligman has been active in the Montreal and international music scene since 2000. He has managed Stars, The Unicorns, Socalled and Yves Jarvis through the company he co-owns called Danagement. In 2002 Seligman co-founded the multidisciplinary festival POP Montreal and remains the festival’s creative director. In 20 years POP Montreal has produced thousands of shows and events throughout Montreal and around the world. On a festival landscape that’s persistently male and Euro-centric, POP succeeds in offering attendees respite. This year the festival takes place September 27th to October 1st.
An annual not-for-profit cultural event, POP Montreal champions independence in the arts by presenting emerging and celebrated talents. The 5-day festival showcases more than 400 performances to audiences of over 60,000. Founded in 2002, POP Montreal helped break countless emerging artists to the world while providing a dizzying and diverse array of headliners like RZA, Fever Ray, Bonobo, The Orb, Sheryl Crow, Suzanne Vega, Godflesh, David Byrne, St Vincent, Butthole Surfers, John Cale, Beck, Franz Ferdinand, Regina Spektor, Queens of the Stone Age etc.
Danagement Artist Management oversees music management, business management, tour production and grant writing for a wide variety of artists including; Basia Bulat, Braids, Jean-Michel Blais, Le Ren, Owen Pallett, Sarah Neufeld, Socalled, God Speed You Black Emperor, Wolf Parade, The Besnard Lakes and more.
HowWeListen Live: In Conversation is a monthly online event that will be presented in two parts:
- A workshop: Tips & insights for tomorrow’s artists & music industry leaders with Byta founder Marc Brown.
- An in-depth conversation with Daniel Seligman about music discovery, the evolution of festival curation, independent music and artist management.
About the Event
This series is designed to deliver the knowledge to enable tomorrow’s artists and industry leaders to better manoeuvre their way through the music ecosystem. Providing fun and insightful Q&A along the way!
HowWeListen Live: In Conversation is hosted by Byta’s founder, Marc Brown, whose deep music business background and digital audio knowledge have helped him deliver unique insights to audiences from Tallinn to Toronto. Marc is a former label owner, A&R, manager and radio plugger.
Key takeaways:
- Music discovery via live showcases; what’s the future?
- How does Pop Montreal curate its festival? How can artists be considered?
- How important is playing live to a music career?
- What are the steps to playing a festival?
- How has streaming affected live music?
- What new challenges do artist managers face today?
- What are the steps required to move a music career forward?
- Tips and tricks on setting up a tour?
- How do artists turn a great idea into a long-term career?
- What’s the natural path to becoming an artist manager?
Event Format
HowWeListen Live (part 1):
The workshop will introduce industry insights that Marc has picked up from his work in A&R departments, running his own radio promotion company, plus years of experience managing artists and significant large-scale projects. Some of the topics he will touch on include artists’ teams, timelines and connecting the web of the music industry. Plus, most importantly, tips on what you can do yourself to better increase the chances of your success.
HowWeListen In Conversation (part 2):
Each event features an in-depth one-to-one conversation. This time around Marc will be chatting with Dan Seligman, Creative Director of Pop Montreal; and Founder of Danagment Artist Management.
About Byta
Byta (“Bee-tah”: the Swedish word for exchange) is unrivalled in taking advantage of the unique properties found in audio files. By simplifying the reading and writing of file metadata, conversion of file formats and delivery of fast yet secure streaming, the platform enables everyone to send and receive digital audio in a clean, simple and secure way. Byta has also launched #HowWeListen, a not-for-profit organisation that complements the company’s ultimate goal: providing artists and their teams with the tools and knowledge needed to move their careers forward.
More about Daniel Seligman:
Daniel Seligman was born in Toronto, Ontario in 1976. In 1989 Seligman represented Canada in the Little League World Series in Williamsport Pennsylvania. He has lived in Montreal for 20 years. He graduated from McGill University in the department of Religious Studies in 2000. Seligman started his music career as a general schlepper for his brother’s band Stars shortly after graduating. This led him to booking, promoting and managing Stars for 3 years as their career took off. In 2002, while managing Stars, Seligman started a music festival called POP Montreal with some friends and it is now a runaway success. After working with Stars for 3 years, he discovered the Unicorns and instantly fell in love, managing the Montreal weirdo pop sensations until their implosion in 2005. He has managed the eccentric Jewish hip hop artist Socalled since 2006 through his management company Danagement. Other Danagement clients include The Besnard Lakes, Yamantaka Sonic//Titan, Timber Timbre, Un Blonde, Suuns and Thee Silver Mt Zion. Seligman has continued his role as creative director for POP Montreal booking artists as diverse as Patti Smith, Bun B, Loudon Wainwright III, Joanna Newsom, The Mighty Sparrow, Fever Ray, The Butthole Surfers, Metric, Mary Margaret O’Hara and Roxanne Shante. He also remains firmly committed to working with emerging artists in Montreal and beyond. At the tail end of 2012 along with his Danagement colleagues Hilary Leftick and Shaun Bronstein, Seligman joined forces with industry veteran Lenny Levine to found Club Roll Music. Club Roll released albums from Montreal artists Jef Barbara and AroarA in 2013 and released the new record by Katie Moore in 2015. Seligman won a Quebec Notable award for his contribution to Arts and Culture in 2012.
About Marc Brown
Marc is the founder of Byta / byta.com. Run as a distributed team across three continents, Byta enables sending and receiving of digital audio in a clean, simple and secure way. Built for everyone working with music today.
His extensive music business background and considerable digital audio knowledge have helped him deliver unique insights to audiences from Tallinn to Toronto.
Marc got his start at murderecords, Canada’s premier artist-owned label, during the mid-90s. After working in A&R at the legendary London indie, Creation Records, and then at Alan McGee’s Poptones, Marc started his own boutique UK radio promotion company off the back of his success with The Hives. For over ten years, Marc worked with an impressive list of indie rock luminaries, including Wilco, Bloc Party, Conor Oberst/Bright Eyes, Spoon, and Refused as well as legends such as Tom Waits, Yoko Ono, Booker T and Mavis Staples.
Marc currently lives and works in Stockholm, Sweden.