Music—Music Business, B.A.

Wayne Cohen is a hit songwriter, record producer, and educator whose songs include Top 10 hits and and #1 albums, which have sold more than 6 million, and have generated millions of Spotify streams, released by all three of the major label groups. Wayne has created and taught courses and masterclasses at university-level institutions including New York University, Berklee College of Music, Queens College, as well as at Tileyard Education, and the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (LIPA) founded by Paul McCartney.

Beth Holub is an active Marketing, PR, Strategy, and Arts Administration professional in the NYC area specializing in classical music and publishing. She has a BA in Viola and Art History from the University of Arizona and an MBA in Marketing and Management from Fordham University, Gabelli School of Business. Past administrative positions include General Manager for Boston-based Symphony Nova, Senior Publicity Manager at Unison Media, and Director of Marketing and Promotions Director at Carl Fischer Music/Theodore Presser Company. Beth is currently a partner at Black Tea Music, a management agency representing classical composers, runs her own graphic design/PR/ marketing consultancy agency, is an adjunct professor at New Jersey City University teaching music business, and gives lectures and seminars on the business of music. Beth was honored in 2015 by Direct Marketing News as a 40 under 40 professional to watch.

Beth is an active freelance violist performing with orchestras, opera companies, and recording artists. She has worked with Cat Power and the Memphis Rhythm Band, recorded with Los Angeles/London record producer Ed Buller of the Psychedelic Furs, and records for established groups in Arizona, Massachusetts, and New York at studios such as WaveLab, Waterworks, Q-Division, and Avatar. As a member of the band Eksi Ekso, she played official shows at SXSW in Austin, TX in 2009 and 2011. She has performed with the Bangor Symphony (ME), Guerilla Opera (MA), Juventas New Music Ensemble (MA), Boston Opera Collaborative (MA), MetroWest Opera (MA), the String Orchestra of Brooklyn (NY), Greenwich Village Orchestra (NY), the Contemporary Music Ensemble at CUNY, Garden State Philharmonic (NJ), and The Chelsea Symphony (NY), as well as with other various orchestras, opera companies, and chamber music ensembles. Her festival credits include Brevard Music Center (NC), Boston University Tanglewood Institute, Ameropa Chamber Music Festival in Prague, Czech Republic, and the Pierre Monteux School (ME). 

Gary Laurie’s legal practice focuses on trademarks and copyrights, intellectual property licensing, and general business and contract law, primarily in the entertainment industries including film, music, television, print publishing, websites and mobile apps, visual arts including representation of both artists and art galleries, graphic design, restaurants and other edible entertainment.

Gary is a past Chair of the Entertainment Arts and Sports Law Section of the New Jersey State Bar Association, and also a member of the American Bar Association and the New York State Bar Association.

A frequent lecturer on intellectual property and other entertainment law related topics, Gary also teaches courses in contract, business and entertainment law at Montclair State University, as well as Music Business Law at New Jersey City University. In his spare time, he also plays guitar in two bands: Adam & the Plants and The Mutts.

Gary has been recognized by being nominated to the 2015-2020 Super Lawyers Rising Star lists. Gary also provides pro bono legal services through the Pro Bono Partnership and was one of the recipients of  the 2019 Pro Bono Partnership Volunteer of the Year Award.

He received his Bachelor's Degree from Montclair State University and his Juris Doctor from Seton Hall University.

Boston native Cliff Notez is an award-winning, multi–digital media artist, musician, entrepreneur, and filmmaker. His art is a continuous exploration of the black mind.

He graduated from Wheaton College with a dual degree in music (voice concentration) and psychology in 2013. He then graduated from Northeastern University in 2016 with a master's degree in digital media. While attending graduate school in 2015, he simultaneously took a position at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston as the teen new media programs associate. As an educator and administrator for digital media programs and events, he began his own digital media company, HipStory.

Rooted in hip-hop, his art tackles the political and the personal, exploring the intimate consequences of a society where black bodies are easily ignored, forgotten, or disregarded. His second full-length album, Why the Wild Things Are, was released September 11, 2019. His films have been official selections for 20+ film festivals globally, winning five of them. In 2017, he was the grand prize winner of the March on Washington Festival and honored alongside Ta-Nehisi Coates. In 2018, he took home the Best New Artist award at the Boston Music Awards, while racking up over 11 nominations between 2019 and 2020, including Artist of the Year and Live Artist of the Year. In 2019, he became the first musician to be named Musician of the Year for Boston Magazine's Best of Boston.

William Riley is a world-renowned voice trainer, a singer, a stage director, a minister of music and has been a consultant or served on faculties of the Voice Foundation Symposia, The American Academy of Otolaryngology (24Years), The Actors Studio, The New School University, Westminster Choir College; He has been consultant in Voice to Grabscheid Voice Center (Mt. Sinai Hospital New York), Lenox Hill Hospital, The Royal Medical Hospital in Amman Jordan, The White House, and The Metropolitan Opera.

Professor Riley first studied horn and then turned to voice at Southern Methodist University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The winner of numerous prizes and competitions, including the NATSAA Award, Berton Coffin Award, NFMC Young Artist Award, Merle-Montgomery New York City Opera Award, and Rosanna M. Enlow Vocal Competition, he was also a regional finalist in the Metropolitan Opera Auditions and was awarded a 1988 career development grant by the Brahmsgesellschaft (Baden-Baden, West Germany). He has performed throughout the USA and internationally, and has recorded for Arabesque, Koch-Schwann Austria and Musical Heritage Society Records. “Mellow baritone, effortlessly produced” (The Times, Trenton). “A hall-filling super-legato” (Daily Chautauquan). “A ringing baritone voice” (Morning Advocate, Baton Rouge). “Top-notch” (The Times, Shreveport Louisiana).

Teaching at the University level for over twenty-five years, he has been invited to teach on the subjects of voice, vocal health and opera at over a dozen institutions in the U.S. and abroad, including Yale University, and the Universities of Iowa, New Hampshire, Maine, Groningen (Holland), Turku (Finland), and Tulsa, Oklahoma. He has been an invited speaker at the Second World Voice Congress Brazil, the World Voice Congress 3 in Turkey, the joint meeting of the Acoustical Society of America/Japanese Acoustical Society, and the Congress of the South African Society of Otorhinolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery. In 2002 he was a featured Master Class teacher at the Austrian Voice Institute during the Salzburg Festival. For the past several years, he has served with the United Nations initiative “Music as a Global Resource” and is Artistic Director for the NGO “Destination Peace.” In 2013, Professor Riley was featured speaker on The Kennedy Center “American Voices”, curated by Renee Fleming. He has been co-instructor of the course “The Actor and Singer as Patient of the Laryngologist” at the American Academy of Otolaryngology for 28 years. It is the longest-running instruction course at the Academy. In 2017 and again in 2018 Riley delivered the Vocal Pedagogy Tutorial for the opening of the Voice Foundation Symposia.

Riley’s voice apps for smartphones and tablets are available from eXQuisite Software.

Riley is a Voting Member of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (The Grammy Awards). In 2019, his studio family received 19 Grammy nominations in numerous genres, from classical to jazz to folk. In 2018 six of his clients won the coveted Grammy Award. He is also a member of The International Horn Society.

Over 100 of Riley’s clients have won contracts at the Metropolitan Opera. His considerable list of clients include Alan Bergman, President Bill Clinton, Paula Cole, Cy Coleman, Bradley Cooper, Celine Dion, Eliane Elias, Lara Fabian, Connie Francis, Hiromi Go, David Hasselhoff, Faith Hill, Whitney Houston, Angelique Kidjo, Liza Minnelli, Jessica Simpson, Thalia, Teresa Stratas, Ben Vereen, Usher, Deborah Voigt, Leehom Wang, Stevie Wonder, and numerous other professional voice users in all areas of voice use.

Whether you are an artist or an entertainment company, a music attorney is an essential part of your team. In today’s music industry, many artists are choosing to forego traditional record deals in favor of forming their own companies and self releasing their music. A music attorney can be a useful guide through that process, as well as through the process of pursuing a traditional record or publishing deal.

​Cassandra Spangler, Esq. is a music attorney licensed in the State of New York and has been proudly representing artists, producers, songwriters, record labels, production companies, publishing companies, artist managers, industry executives, influencers, and more since 2010. She provides counsel and representation to individuals and entities in all facets of the music industry with legal aspects of their musical careers, including contracting, copyright and trademark registration, licensing, and business formation.

​Cassandra is a magna cum laude graduate of Seton Hall University School of Law with a concentration in Intellectual Property/Entertainment Law, a graduate of the Southwestern Law School International Entertainment Law/Comparative Media Law program, and has a graduate degree in Music Business from New York University.

Cassandra has also been an independent artist herself for more than 25 years.