Please enjoy the archives from The UCLA Center for Music Innovation (CMI), which was open from 2014 to 2019 at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music.

The Center explored how technology is changing how we create, consume, and collaborate around music — locally and globally. CMI faced outward and inward, creating programs and conversations between musicians, tech companies, labels, distributors, startups, and other music community members, as well as connecting these conversations with our own students and faculty.

Our projects around tech and music included:

• The Future of Music in Los Angeles. a 2019 series of events and research with partners including the City of Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Dept., part of our Research Focus.  Events included a Symposium with LA DCA in February at the Bootleg, a full-day conference on Amplifying Music in LA in May at UCLA, and an evening symposium in September 2019 with the City of Santa Monica and the Santa Monica Pubic Library.
• Innovating Music, our half-hour podcast series found across all major podcasting services for 4 years.
• Industry conference sessions on current music technology trends
• The Lab, our next-generation action research and marketing lab with UCLA Alpert undergraduate researchers, with projects to date on festivals and permitting, the changing nature of live venues, LGBTQ challenges as event promoters, and a metastudy on music city research and policies.
• Our eNewsletter, which hightlights our events, research, conferences, and partners.

CMI was supported in ideas and connections by our Industry Advisory Council, which helped keep us at the cutting edge and connected with industry thought leaders. The Center also was supported by our Faculty Advisory Committee, including our three UCLA Alpert departments plus innovators from Theater Film and Television, UCLA Anderson, and Design Media Arts.

Technology is continuing to expand and transform music and our human systems around it.  The Innovating Music podcast, launched in 2017, launched to look at Innovation in Music from all sorts of angles and beliefs.  It grew to looking at possible Futures in Music, both locally and globally. Some episodes were funny, some were deep in tech talk, and others were inspirational. Our Executive Director, Dr. Gigi Johnson, talked with start-ups, long-time industry leaders, new technology creators, artists, and others. Each episode shared how new technologies are transforming how we create, collaborate, and create communities around music in a connected age — in our home towns and in communities across the globe, plus in systems that connect these futures together.

Episodes included digital fireside chats with innovative guests on topics ranging from virtual reality, blockchain, and streaming to finding love, intractable problems, trust and relationships, and unanswered questions in innovation.