EXECUTIVES IN SESSION

"Teamwork Is A Song"

Few working groups on Earth can match the potent combination of focused productivity and relaxed camaraderie of a professional Nashville recording session. They’re actually world famous for it -- a unique environment where art, science and commerce fuse in mystical union.

Not every session produces a hit, but they virtually always produce a finished recording – a coherent, professional execution of the vision of an artist and their team. Myriad decisions, from instrumentation to personnel to atmosphere, shape the sound (and the success) of the finished work. Nashville sessions are special, romantic and particularly American, like the locker room of the New York Yankees or the kitchen of a great New Orleans restaurant.

Music Producers Institute (MPI), an experiential learning company that helps aspiring music producers learn a rarely-taught craft, is proud to announce Executives In Session. These two-day retreats take executive teams to a rarely seen inner sanctum, where music and its production is presented as a metaphor for life and business.

This unique experience is offered as an alternative to traditional corporate leadership education. Most of us love music, yet few people ever get to see or understand how their favorite songs came to be. We believe that this process, fascinating in its own right, is also surprisingly packed with lessons in leadership, teamwork, communication, strategy and collaboration. Even for individuals who have no prior interest in music or the recording process, Nashville’s creative apparatus offers insight in a highly relatable and entertaining way. We’d like to invite your executive team to a memorable, fascinating and educational experience.

WHO WE ARE:

Craig Havighurst is a multi-media storyteller with a passion for education through music. He’s an NPR features reporter, a documentary filmmaker, a freelance journalist, the author of a definitive Nashville music business history and an interviewer extraordinaire who co-hosts the weekly retro radio show Music City Roots: Live From The Loveless Cafe. He’s also a former Capitol Hill correspondent and editor of several health care business/policy magazines. His wonky credentials began with a M.A. in public policy and management from Duke University. He married his former editor from the Wall Street Journal, so he knows how to take criticism, and he’s the proud father of an adopted Chinese pre-teen girl.

Steve Fishell is a Grammy-award winning record producer, music education entrepreneur and musician. Steve’s wide-ranging resume includes performance or projects with Little Richard, Radney Foster, Pam Tillis, Emmylou Harris, Willie Nelson, Mavis Staples, John Anderson, Uncle Kracker, Gretchen Wilson, Billy Joe Shaver, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Raul Malo and The Dixie Chicks. For six years, Fishell worked on the executive side of the business as a talent scout for Rising Tide Records and Sugar Hill Records. As a pedal steel guitar player, he’s mastered one of the most difficult instruments in the world, and as a husband and father, he’s mastered the most difficult job in the world.

Contact:

Steve Fishell: 615.283.0201

Craig Havighurst: 615.438.8488