March 19, 2007-- Distinguished faculty from the University of Virginia will host two panels featuring management teams from the Doors and the Dave Matthews Band, who will discuss the state of the music business today, how it has changed since 1967 and where it might be headed. The first panel will be held on Tuesday, March 27, from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Music Resource Center, 105  Ridge Street. The second panel will be held on Wednesday, March 28, from 2 to 4 p.m. in the Newcomb Hall South Meeting Room, U.Va. Central Grounds. The events are free and open to the public.

Topics will include:

•  Forty Years On - Changes in the music business since 1967
•  Digital Downloading - Illegal theft or just smart marketing?
•  Creating a Brand in the Arts World - Hold it tight or give it away?  Who owns art?
•  Managing an Artistic Legacy across 40 Years - Authenticity vs. the bottom line

The symposium is part of a new course initiative in Arts Administration at the University of Virginia with undergraduate courses being offered through the McIntire Department of Art by lecturer George W. Sampson. In a multi-disciplinary approach, selected courses are cross-listed between the College of Arts & Sciences and the McIntire School of Commerce. Arts Administration seeks to incorporate both the visual and the performing arts, and include both the for-profit entertainment and the non-profit arts sectors.

Active in the arts world since 1967, Sampson, who will moderate the panels and discussions, holds a Master of Fine Arts in Arts Administration from Columbia University.

Symposium participants include:
Moderator: George W. Sampson, Lecturer, U.Va.

Band Managers:
Bill Siddons – Former Doors Manager
Rich Linnell – Former Doors Concert Promoter, Manager
Jeff Jampol – Current Doors Manager, & President, Doors Music Co.
Bruce Flohr – ATO Records / Red Light Management

Business and Law Faculty:
James Rubin - Darden School of Business
Mary Jo Hatch - McIntire School of Commerce
Chris Sprigman – U.Va. School of Law
Marc Lipson - Darden School of Business
Jeff Jampol - UCLA

Bill Siddons began his career in the music business at 19, managing the Doors from 1967 to 1972 and again from 1978 to 1980. He is cited as a primary source in histories of the band and of Jim Morrison. Still active in the music business, Siddons currently manages Alice in Chains, the Lloyd Dobler Effect, Jerry Cantrell, and Elayne Boosler.  Over the years, he has managed or played significant roles in the careers of Van Morrison, John Klemmer, America, the Souther Hillman Furay band, Jesse Colin Young, The Band, Poco, David Lindley, Jackson Browne, Robert Palmer, Pat Benatar, Crosby Stills & Nash and others.

Rich Linnell managed the Doors from 1980 to 1983 but started working with them when he was 20 years old, in early 1967, carrying sound equipment for the up-and-coming band. Beginning with a 1967 concert at California State University, he presented Doors concerts throughout their career, including the last complete concert Jim Morrison ever performed, at the Dallas Music Hall on Dec. 10, 1970.  (The next night in New Orleans, Morrison didn’t last the whole show.)  From 1967 to 1974, Linnell produced more than 250 concerts and tours by Crosby, Stills & Nash, Jimmy Hendrix, Aerosmith, the Rolling Stones and many others. Subsequently, he helped manage the Jim Morrison posthumous “An American Prayer” project, produced a national tour with Arlo Guthrie, and post-apartheid South African tours with Crosby, Stills & Nash, Richie Havens and others. He is currently working with former Doors drummer John Densmore on a project with Iranian stringed instrument virtuoso Reza Derakshani.

Jeff Jampol began his career as an engineer, producer, arranger and radio DJ. He segued to management in the late 1970s when he started managing bands in the burgeoning Bay Area punk rock community. Following a long career working for Atlantic, Columbia and WEA Records in marketing and promotion, Jampol partnered with Doors manager Danny Sugerman in 2003, and then assumed the presidency of Doors Music Co. upon Sugerman’s passing in January 2005. In addition to managing The Doors, Jampol serves as a consultant to managers, publishers and labels on heritage acts, and to artists’ estates (including Janis Joplin’s) on catalog, branding, merchandise and marketing. A voting member of the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences, Inc.'s Los Angeles chapter since 1985, Jampol, also teaches several UCLA music business classes, where he has been an instructor in UCLA’s Entertainment Studies and Performing Arts Department for the past 11 years. His November 2006 article “Classic Rock Branding” appears at www.editorialemergency.com.
  
Bruce Flohr is the Charlottesville-based head of ATO Records and Red Light Management. His radio experience includes music director for KCPR college radio and on-air talent for KZOZ. At RCA Records, as head of rock promotions, he worked closely with acts such as Cowboy Junkies, Stone Roses, Love and Rockets and Michael Penn. Then, as senior vice president of A&R and Marketing, where he signed artists such as Dave Matthews Band, Foo Fighters and Lit. After 16 years with RCA, Bruce left Los Angeles to join Coran Capshaw’s Red Light Management and ATO Records in Charlottesville, where he plays a vital role in the management of more than 20 bands, including Dave Matthews Band, OAR, Robert Randolph and the Family Band, Say Anything and Army of Me. He recently signed to ATO Records such talented artists as Jem and Gomez. 

For more information or to arrange interviews with participants contact:  George W. Sampson, project director at (434) 924-7307, fax:  (434) 924-3647 or e-mail:  gws6n@virginia.edu;  Caitlin Brown ’08 at  (551) 265-9943, cate@virginia.edu; or Kathleen Howard ‘09 (540) 622-4733, kph3d@virginia.edu.