#iVoted: Music and Civic Duty

Emily White is an Amazon #1 best selling author of How to Build a Sustainable Music Career & Collect All Revenue Streams and hosts the #1 Music Business podcast globally of the same name. White is the Founder of #iVoted, which produces data driven concerts that lets the public in on election night who show a selfie from outside their polling place or at home with a blank and unmarked ballot. Future voters enter by sharing what election they will be 18 for. Non-citizens and those eligible to vote enter #iVoted Concerts by sharing which artist they’re most excited to see. #iVoted’s all-women, majority BIPOC C-Suite produced the largest digital concert in history in 2020 to increase voter turnout for the United States’ national elections. MIT has since analyzed this work, showing that #iVoted increases turnout by over 7%. White is a 2024 Visiting Fellow at JHU’s SNF Agora Institute. She is a Founding Partner at Collective Entertainment in New York City and has proudly served on the boards of the Well-Dunn Foundation, Future of Music, CASH Music, SXSW and The David Lynch Foundation Live. She has additionally served on The Grammys’ Education Committee and Pandora’s Artist Advisory Council. She was named to Billboard magazine’s 2020 Women in Music Executives of the Year list. Her work has been additionally profiled in Variety, Fast Company, Forbes, Bloomberg, Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, Alternative Press, Brooklyn Vegan, The Fader, Stereogum, Relix, CNN, Vox, The Huffington Post, ESPN and more.

Megan Ihnen is a mezzo-soprano on a mission to change the world through the commissioning, performance, and proliferation of new music. She has collaborated with individuals and ensembles around the globe including: International Contemporary Ensemble, Fifth House Ensemble, Great Noise Ensemble, Rhymes With Opera, and Synchromy. She is deeply committed to the belief that new music should be performed and loved in communities of all sizes. Megan’s advocacy for music and musicians extends beyond the performance stage. She also effects change as a non-profit arts coach and consultant. She is currently the executive director of the Live Music Project which advocates for connecting people with live early music, classical, and new music experiences in a way that strengthens community, celebrates listener agency, and amplifies local arts resources. You have also likely interacted with her work for Nief-Norf, New Music USA, and many individual artists throughout classical and new music. Megan’s work at the intersection of performance, creative placemaking, audience development, and music entrepreneurship is a delight to her clients and colleagues.