Workshop: Entertainment law – Practical tips for Composers and Musicians

Composer and Professor of Law, Toni Lester, leads an informal discussion and Q & A for musicians and composers on entertainment law issues such as copyrights, contracts, branding, and other relevant issues.
Toni Lester is a writer, teacher, composer, activist and social entrepreneur. She composes jazz, contemporary art music, world music and electronic sound design. She has written for the theater, film, dance, concerts, and liturgical settings, published numerous articles and produced features for NPR and Pacifica Radio on music, culture and society. Lester has a J.D. from Georgetown University and a Masters in Music (with honors) from the New England Conservatory of Music, where she studied with Robert Labaree, W. T. McKinley and the late MacArthur Genius honoree, George Russell. Other creative mentors include the poet, Sonia Sanchez, and the late pianists Mary Lou Williams and Jacob Donald Walker. She has received grants, awards or commissions from such organizations as the Mellon Foundation, the Margaret Jory Foundation, the Common Counsel of California, the D.C. Humanities Council, Clark University, Emerson College and the Wurlitzer Foundation. Lester is also a full professor at Babson College, where she teaches entertainment law and the founder of new venture, The Gardarev Center, which supports socially engaged creative artists and thinkers.