Cynthia Meng Schools on Hadestown, the NYC Theatre Scene, and Data Analytics in the Music Industry
SEASON 4 | EPISODE 2
Whether we like it or not, data is baked into everything in the music industry. Gone are the days of A&R stumbling upon artists in a dive bar and saying, “ya know what…they’re next, because my ear said so”. Was that ever the case? One could argue not. But breaking down why a record deal is just the beginning is another post.
Episode 56’s friend of the podcast literally taught me the role of data analytics in the music game. Cynthia was my instructor for “Data Analytics in the Music Business” at Berklee College of Music. Graduating from Harvard with a degree in Computer Science, she went on to work at Next Big Sound – a platform acquired by Pandora to provide social media, streaming service, and radio analytics. Bottom line, we’re getting the chance to learn from someone who built the analytics services major record labels are using to shape the music industry today.
Oh, and that’s just a sliver of what she’s accomplished. Some highlights from her career include Hadestown on Broadway, which just accelerated its return to the stage, to a recent streaming production of The Last Five Years from Out of the Box.
“When I came to the city I had this vague idea that I would gig on the side, do my day job, and then see where things went…I was playing piano for random improv shows…doing score work for people…then I slowly become more ensconced in the world and at some point it felt like ‘oh, I’m in the scene’”.
This is a great episode for folks interested in getting involved in the New York theatre scene. One of the key insights Cynthia provided one subject was the following:
“For the theatre scene, it’s a really small scene. That’s the good news. It’s so localized. If you’re looking for Broadway, you come to New York”
Next up: a secret movie project.