Combining All Your Loves Together . . . with Laura Escudé

Combining All Your Loves Together . . . with Laura Escudé

by | Jan 14, 2021 | Creative Innovators Podcast

Laura Escude Photo


In this episode, Laura Escudé takes us on her journey from violinist to adventures in Los Angeles as a seat filler for TV shows from Craig’s list to market research to other one-off jobs. . . until she becomes a tech support staffer at M-Audio because of problems she had with her own keyboard.  For listeners who are inspired by linear journeys, this is not one.  Instead, Laura was launched from being laid off as the first Ableton Certified Trainer.  An email got her working for Cirque du Soleil in playback.  A phone call from all of her Ableton visibility brought her to Kanye West’s audio engineer and then years of touring.  Until it wasn’t — and she shares the story of how in 2017 she rebuilt her career about teaching and inspiration in audio engineering around “transmuting” creators – “to move from one form of energy into another.”  Enjoy her story of building a global community of artists and creating new online programs ahead of the current virtual learning world.  And enjoy her stories of what she now has built with the Transmute Accelerator and Transmute Academy.

Guest: Laura Escudé (Fka ALLUXE), Future Classical Artist Blending Music, Tech, And Consciousness

Laura Escudé is the creator of The Transmute™ Accelerator, Founder of Electronic Creatives, and an Ableton Certified Trainer since 2008. To sum up, Laura Escudé is a Future Classical artist blending music, tech, and consciousness. Synthesizing her skills as a classically trained violinist and technical prowess as an avant-garde electronic producer, Escudé infuses neo-classical & sleek futuristic style with raw emotion elicited with her musical machines.

Based in Los Angeles, Escudé is an artist, innovator, entrepreneur, and live show designer with a deep understanding of complex technology, a profound passion for music and art, and a unique talent for fusing the two. Career highlights include performing in the GRAMMY Premiere band, programming and designing shows for Kanye West from 2009-2017, opening for Miguel on his 2015 Wildheart tour, and building a thriving international business populated by top-tier professionals.

But while Escudé’s life and work are dynamic, her ultimate goal is simply to inspire.

As an artist, Escudé executes this mission through music. She’s released myriad albums, singles, and EPs under the name ALLUXE, synthesizing her skills as a classically trained violinist and her prowess as an avant-garde electronic producer. Now making music under her own name, Escudé released the Transmute EP, her most intimate work to date, capturing the sound and feel of a woman who’s examined the darkest parts of herself and come out the other end transformed. Escudé’s live performances are known for their sleek futuristic style and the raw emotion she elicits from her musical machines. She’s done official remixes for artists, including M83 and Poliça, with her violin playing featured on albums by Big Grams, Kanye West, Jay Z, and many more.

Technology is a second language for Escudé, who became the world’s first Ableton Certified Trainer in 2008. In 2012, she founded Electronic Creatives, using her skills to hire and train programmers and playback engineers for artists including Logic, Ariana Grande, The Weeknd, Big Sean, Charli XCX, and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Electronic Creatives has hosted several playback engineering training programs over the years, with the latest being MASTERTRACK Worldwide.

These creative applications of technology have made Escudé one of the world’s most in-demand live show designers. She’s brought massive productions to life for artists including Kanye West, Jay Z, Bon Iver, Missy Elliot, Herbie Hancock, and television megabrand American Idol. Escudé toured extensively with these shows, collaborating with artists to create fresh, thrilling experiences for audiences worldwide.

It was while on tour that Escudé learned the challenges of staying healthy on the road. In 2016, tour burnout landed her in the hospital. She was exhausted, stressed, and not sure how to get better. It was a low point that forced Escudé to take a break from work and focus on her health. This physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual process involved letting go of unproductive habits and thought patterns, facing her fears, and giving up aspects of her life that didn’t serve her. Escudé was soon not just better, but for the first time in her life truly thriving.

The experience inspired Escudé to help others, particularly live performers, optimize their own health and well-being. In 2017, she launched The Transmute™ Retreat, a week-long workshop incorporating yoga, meditation, nature, live performance workshops, and community performances. In 2019, she launched The Transmute™ Accelerator online course to help artists accelerate their live performances using technology, in addition to The Transmute™ Society designed for graduates of The Transmute™ Accelerator to continue their growth in artistry and business. The Transmute™ Accelerator course happens quarterly throughout the year, with launch events featuring top industry experts, such as Suzanne Ciani, The Album Leaf, and Sudan Archives.

With all Escudé has achieved in the realms of music and technology, it’s clear why she’s been called “the best in the world at this job.” Escudé continues to propel forward this three-tiered platform of Future Classical music artistry, tech, and consciousness and it just keeps getting better.

Mentioned Links

 

Transmute Academy: https://www.thetransmuteacademy.com

Seeing Solutions – A Blessing and a Curse . . . with Dae Bogan

Seeing Solutions – A Blessing and a Curse . . . with Dae Bogan

by | Jan 4, 2021 | Creative Innovators Podcast

Dae Bogan | Podcast Episode



Dae Bogan shares how he sees solutions and “warps” them into business ideas — which is both a blessing and a curse. He began with selling cakes in middle school and organizing bus tours in high school from Cleveland, OH to New York. From his early history in acting, singing, and creating and producing events, he moved into a long series of start-ups (including putting gogo dancers in store windows) before moving into various endeavors in music tech. Dae has started and sold a variety of cloud-based ventures as well as mentored founders of other startups. Dae shares how he now is bringing those diverse skills to bear as head of Third-Party Partnerships with The Music Licensing Collective. The MLC works with music publishers and artists to collect and distribute their streaming royalties.

 

Guest: Dae Bogan, Head Of Third-Party Partnerships, The Mechanical Licensing Collective (The MLC)

 

Dae Bogan serves as Head of Third-Party Partnerships for The Mechanical Licensing Collective (The MLC), where he leads The MLC’s strategy for engaging third-party entities to support initiatives in rights administration, data management, operations, and membership services.

A passionate music creators’ rights advocate who enjoys exploring the global music rights landscape through the lens of business and technology, Bogan is also an adjunct lecturer at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music. In this role, Bogan develops and teaches the music industry entrepreneurship course for which he was recognized in Billboard’s “The 15 Best Music Business Schools In 2017.”

Prior to joining The MLC and teaching at UCLA, Bogan’s passion for innovation at the intersection of music and technology led him to found three companies: music rights administration technology company TuneRegistry, unclaimed music royalties, and licenses search engine RoyaltyClaim, and in-store music video network Maven Promo. Each of these companies has since been acquired.

 Early in his career, Bogan worked directly and more creatively with recording artists, songwriters, music producers, and DJs as the owner-operator of an independent record label, a music publishing company, and a boutique artist management firm before pivoting into technology in 2012.

 Dae holds an MA in Music Industry Administration with a focus on music publishing and copyright administration from California State University, Northridge, and a BA in sociology from the University of California. He resides in Los Angeles, California where he organizes SoCal Music Industry Professionals, an informal networking community of music industry professionals who live in Southern California.

 

Mentioned Links:

 

This is our Future: Saving the Planet . . . with Bas den Braber and Jenna Seiden

This is our Future: Saving the Planet . . . with Bas den Braber and Jenna Seiden

by | Dec 10, 2020 | Creative Innovators Podcast

Bas and Jenna - Zambezi

In this episode, we hear how Bas den Braber and Jenna Seiden are following their purpose with Zambezi Partners, a benefits corporation with a mission to eradicate African wildlife poaching during our lifetime.  They both worked in large company business-to-business strategy, consulting, and brand leadership, and have found their purposes after their mid-career reality checks.  Their careers in their subsequent order built toward new opportunities . . . that led to their using tech tools to advance anti-poaching solutions.  They “grok” larger organizations and see the barriers to change — and share that experience as interpreters between tech and technology to create forward momentum and innovation with saving species of animals.  On Dec. 13, 2020, at EndangeredRangers.com, they are having a fundraiser to support fundraising around people on the ground, as well as the technologies being used to complement what they do . . . staying on track to save these animals . . . and on KNECT TV app on your Roku Player and other devices.

Guests: Bastiaan den Braber and Jenna Seiden, General Partners, Zambezi Ventures

Each has previously launched their own startups receiving venture funding, Swagtime.com and Boost VC-backed SAMO VR, respectively. They started working together in Global Director positions for the SDG-centric Dutch $30M venture fund, LUMO Labs. Bas introduced Jenna, a second-generation wildlife conservationist, to his vision to use their venture capital acumen and Silicon Valley best practice models to combat poaching, an issue he committing to solving when he first began doing safaris in Africa in 2003, subsequently becoming an FGASA Level 1 trained Field Guide. The two have formally devoted their lives to bring their technology and investor networks together with their experience in investments to have the impact they’ve believed in their whole lives.

They spend their time between Los Angeles and Zimbabwe where they have already partnered with a team on the ground in Harare and Panda Masuie overseeing investment opportunities and the deployment of the tech stack respectively. They will be on-site in Zimbabwe full-time upon securing the first 20% of the fund in addition to their own GP commit. An international, multi-disciplinary advisory board of industry sector experts, founders, asset managers, and executives is being established. 

Jenna Seiden

Jenna lives professionally at the intersection of technology and media, having worked for, with, or advised some of the biggest names in sports, entertainment, and technology. 

She helps engineers and executives with business development, project financing, and corporate strategy. She has evolved or created new business models to adapt to changing technology platforms. She excels at identifying and negotiating strategic partnerships, which have led to some of the largest digital, video game, and virtual reality deals to date. She went to UPENN and holds an MBA from the Anderson School at UCLA.

Jenna’s extended family managed the largest animal sanctuary in the Northeast and has been a fervent animal advocate since her youth. She even predicted her current duty to stop poaching when she was 12 emphatically identifying Zimbabwe, of all the places in the world, where she would someday live and save rhinos and elephants.

Bastiaan den Braber

Bastiaan spent 15-years with Capgemini Consulting, helping executives with digital strategy, innovation, redefining operating models, institutionalizing consumer-centric design, and improving commercial performance. Most recently he helped South African clients find multi-billion USD market opportunities. 

Using these tools he built SAMO VR, a venture capital-backed start-up that drives revenue in virtual and augmented reality by helping music industry companies define, finance, and deliver their emerging tech strategy. He recently served as Global Managing Director for SDG-centric Dutch fund, LUMO Labs, based in Los Angeles. In addition, he is an advisor to other start-ups, a frequent speaker, panel member, and moderator at industry events, and judges events like hackathons. He studied engineering and received his Master’s in business from Nyenrode University in The Netherlands. 

Bastiaan had the vision to use the best of the world’s venture capital acumen and models to combat African wildlife poaching when he first began doing safaris in Africa in 2003. He became an FGASA Level 1 trained Field Guide as part of his journey and formally devoted his life to bringing together the technology partners from his past in the Zambezi Project, with his present passion for venture capital to create Zambezi Ventures that can have the impact he’s believed in for nearly two decades.

Mentioned Links

Bas:

Jenna:

Wearing a Cape This Whole Time . . . with Tania Katan

Wearing a Cape This Whole Time . . . with Tania Katan

by | Nov 26, 2020 | Creative Innovators Podcast

Tania Katan

Gigi played fangirl in this episode! Tania Katan shares her wit and wisdom about how to use creativity to challenge with playfulness our rigid organizational cultures. She works with large and small companies, helping them find new alignment around their daily contradictions through “small c” creative work, facing everyday practical problems with imagination. She shares the tales of #itwasneveradress (re-seeing the ladies’ room logo into a cape) and challenging the community to arm wrestle for art at the Scottsdale Museum of Art. She speaks and challenges how we connect virtually in her keynotes and works with organizational leaders through her “Creative Trespassing” classes and new membership organization.

Guest: Tania Katan, CEO, Creative Trespassing

Tania is a transformational speaker, innovation coach, and co-creator of the globally viral women’s empowerment campaign #ItWasNeverADress. Her unique way of formulating ideas led to the groundbreaking bestselling book, “Creative Trespassing: How to Put the Spark and Joy Back into Your Work and Life” (Penguin Random House, February 2019).

For over a decade, Tania has been successfully sneaking creativity into Fortune 500 companies, leading tech companies, arts organizations, marketing conventions, and innovation summits to teach people and companies the skill of generating creative breakthroughs. Some of the organizations and major conferences impacted by her work include: CiscoLive!, Expedia, Amazon, Google, Humana, Etsy, TED, World Domination Summit, Uber, and Comedy Central Stage.

Katan’s status-quo-busting work has also appeared in The New York Times, USA Today, HuffPost, Time, BuzzFeed, CNN, Adweek, Mashable, Forbes, ReadWrite and Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls, among others.

If you long to leap from fear to freedom and just need a map… Here You Are: https://taniakatan.com

 

Interesting Mentions:

 

 

    Pirates, Magicians, and Wizards . . . with Megan Elliott

    Pirates, Magicians, and Wizards . . . with Megan Elliott

    by | Nov 17, 2020 | Creative Innovators Podcast

    Megan Elliott

    Megan Elliott shares her journey from Australia and indigenous cultural media to trade union representation in Ireland to traveling across Asia connecting leaders and cultures . . before she was found on LinkedIn to bring her superpowers to Nebraska. She tells of the shared collaborative creation of the Johnny Carson Center for Emerging Media Arts, which works to create “pirates, magicians, and wizards” who can reach their dream job or create their dream company right out of school.

    Guest: Megan Elliott, Founding Director, Johnny Carson Center For Emerging Media Arts, University Of Nebraska, Lincoln

    Megan Elliott is the founding director of the Johnny Carson Center for Emerging Media Arts at the University of Nebraska Lincoln. She was previously the manager of leadership and community connections at the University of Technology Sydney in Australia and former director and CEO of digital media think-tank X Media Lab.

    From 2015-2016, Elliott served as the manager of Leadership and Community Connections at the University of Technology Sydney in Sydney, Australia’s number-one young university, where she led an international program for students to develop leadership and entrepreneurial skills, as well as instilling a commitment to innovation, social justice, community building, and sustainability.

    Elliott has deep ties to emerging media industries across Asia, Europe, and the world. She served as co-founder and director of China Creative Industries Exchange in Beijing and Shanghai, China, from 2007-2015.

    From 2005 to 2015, Elliott was the director/chief executive officer for X Media Lab (XML), an internationally acclaimed digital media think-tank and creative workshop for the creative industries that she co-founded with Brendan Harkin. XML created a meeting place uniquely designed to assist companies and people to get their own creative ideas successfully to market. Some of XML’s partners included the Sydney Film Festival, Beijing Film Academy, Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry in India, the national broadcaster (NPO) in Amsterdam, the American Film Institute, Digital Hollywood and 5D Global in Hollywood, the British Council, and the Federal Office of Culture in Switzerland.

    Elliott and Harkin were recently chosen as two of five people to have their oral histories recorded for the National Film and Sound Archive in Australia, as two people pivotal to the development of the interactive media arts industries.

    She also served from 2002-2006 as the executive director of the Australian Writers’ Guild.

    Originally from Australia, Elliott received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Canberra in Bruce, Australia.

    She began her career in theatre with the Splinters Theatre of Spectacle and has also served as a performer/artist in residence/assistant project manager for The Performance Space, Australia’s leading performance space and gallery for the research and development of interdisciplinary arts.

     

    The Center: The Johnny Carson Center for Emerging Media Arts is an investment by the University made possible by a recent $20 million gift to the University of Nebraska Foundation from the Johnny Carson Foundation in November 2015. The Johnny Carson Center will be an internationally distinct program focusing on virtual production, film, design, technology, and commerce. It will explore the boundaries of where cinematic narrative and storytelling intersects with artificial intelligence, science, the humanities, computer science, engineering, music, fine arts, and other disciplines. Students will learn, among other things, how to create content for film and television, game design, interactive media, internet media, and augmented and virtual reality.

     

    Mentioned Links

    Megan

    Johnny Carson Center for Emerging Media Arts, Univ. of Nebraska, Lincoln

     

      An Incredible Experiment. . . with Mark “Frosty” McNeill and Ale Cohen

      An Incredible Experiment. . . with Mark “Frosty” McNeill and Ale Cohen

      by | Nov 11, 2020 | Creative Innovators Podcast

      dublab

      Ale Cohen and Mark “Frosty” McNeill share their journey through “experimenting with sound” and community in building the Internet radio collective DUBLAB over the past two decades. They share what inspired and drove them to build this institution and how it has shifted gears in our listen-from-home global era.  

      Dublab is not your average radio station. Mark calls it “experimentation with sound” that was formed as a reaction to the 1996 Telecommunications Act, which forced the closure of low-power stations. We talked about online radio as a “misuse of technology” — as a “hack” and a mutant use of tech. Initially, dublab acted as “an excuse to gather the creative community of Los Angeles.” They share stories of how contemporary much often started out of the studio and how dublab became a testing ground for new sound and to honor the music that went before.

      Guests: Mark “Frosty” McNeill, Founder, And Alejandro Cohen, Director, Dublab

      Alejandro Cohen is a musician and composer from Los Angeles, and the Director of non-profit radio station DUBLAB. Over the last two decades, Cohen has released music under numerous projects and groups including Languis and Pharaohs. He has composed music for TV shows, documentaries, and educational materials, and recorded more than two hundred solo artists and bands as a sound engineer and consultant for dublab.com, KPFK 90.7 FM, Sony/Columbia, and the Society for the Activation of Social Space Through Art and Sound (SASSAS). As Executive Director of the Internet radio station and creative collective DUBLAB, Cohen curates the station’s programming and podcast offerings, fundraises for the organization, and curates the annual ambient music event Tonalism.

      Mark “Frosty” McNeill is a DJ, radio producer, sonic curator, filmmaker, and creative community builder based in Los Angeles. He was the founder of dublab.com, a pioneering web radio station that has been exploring wide-spectrum music since 1999. McNeill hosts Celsius Drop, a weekly dublab radio show and has produced long-running programs for Red Bull Radio, Marfa Public Radio, and KPFK 90.7fm. McNeill co-curated/produced the Pacific Breeze compilations of Japanese City Pop music for Light in the Attic Records as well as Somewhere Between, a forthcoming album focused on the more experimental side of Japanese pop. His output on a multitude of international media platforms has focused on sharing transcendent sonic experiences.

      Mentioned Links

      Email: info@dublab.com

      Frosty

      Ale

      • Web: https://www.dublab.com/djs/ale

      Dublab