Speaking, Workshops & Group Experiences
Talks, teaching, workshops and participatory experiences exploring music, rights, culture, discovery and creative value.
Barry Cole is a guest lecturer, panelist, moderator and workshop facilitator whose work sits at the intersection of music, film, media, technology and culture. He speaks about the forces shaping how music is discovered, valued, licensed and remembered, from music supervision and rights to catalog power, artificial intelligence and the cultural life of sound.
His programs range from keynotes and industry conversations to case-study workshops and participatory experiences in which groups use music, place, memory and human connection as tools for discovery.
IFP Summer Producers Program
For nearly fifteen consecutive years, before IFP became The Gotham, Barry spoke to IFP’s Summer Producers Program, giving successive classes of independent producers a practical grounding in music rights, budgets and clearances.
Ideas built from three decades of practice.
Music as Narrative Architecture
How music functions as story, character, memory, emotion and cultural context, and how the best directors use it.
Music Rights Without the Mystery
The strategic issues behind music licensing, clearance and budgeting, explained for people who make things.
The Hidden Value in Creative Assets
How rights holders and organizations identify and activate the value already sitting in their catalogs.
Music, Data & Context
How music intelligence reveals value beyond charts and streaming metrics.
The Future of Music Supervision
AI, rights, technology, production economics and the changing role of the music supervisor.
The Songs That Know Us
Music, memory, identity and human connection, drawing on Barry’s work as music supervisor and co-producer / transmedia producer of Alive Inside: A Story of Music & Memory and three decades of choosing music for stories.
Customizable sessions for people who work with music.
For producers, filmmakers, artists, labels, publishers, universities and creative teams. Offered as introductory sessions, intensive workshops, case-study discussions or multi-session programs.
- Music supervision as narrative strategy
- Building a realistic music budget
- Licensing and clearance before the crisis
- Archive, fair use and music-rights decision making
- Catalog readiness and creative-asset value
- Music discovery beyond recommendation algorithms
Formats and depth are shaped with each host. Producer resources support several of these sessions.
Programs where the room does the discovering.
45 Atlas: A Place-Based Music & Storytelling Experience
Dig the place. Read the room. Write the story.
45 Atlas is a participatory music-discovery and storytelling experience built around the Phono Field Guide. Participants follow human, geographic and cultural clues rather than personalized recommendation feeds, then turn what they discover into a playlist and a story.
The Dig
Follows hyperlocal clues through places, people, artifacts, credits, memories and musical connections.
The Set
Asks participants to read a real or imagined room and build a playlist with a narrative arc.
The Third Song
Identifies the unexpected track, relationship or new meaning that emerges when the discoveries meet.
The completed result becomes an Atlas Entry: playlist, Third Song and Set Story. 45 Atlas can be adapted for universities, museums, libraries, festivals, conferences, record stores, listening rooms and cultural organizations, as a presentation, workshop, facilitated group Dig, live vinyl set or combined experience.
Records revolve. Stories evolve.
Museum, Campus & Place-Based Digs
Custom Digs turn a museum, campus, neighborhood, archive or cultural site into a field of clues. Participants move through a designed route, notice relationships, make musical and cultural connections, and carry selected discoveries into a playlist, conversation or shared story.
Programs can be developed around a collection, exhibition, city, theme, historical period or local music culture. The host organization and Barry determine the route, level of facilitation, group structure and final shared outcome.
Barry also develops Sound Atlas, an in-development interactive installation exploring geography, movement, archival audio and place-based listening. Discuss a Sound Atlas Presentation
- Keynote or featured talk
- Panelist or moderator
- Guest lecture or masterclass
- Professional workshop
- Facilitated group experience
- Museum, campus or place-based Dig
- 45 Atlas presentation, workshop or live experience
- In-person, or virtual where the format permits
- Film, television and media organizations
- Universities and training programs
- Music-industry conferences
- Labels, publishers, catalogs and estates
- Museums, libraries and archives
- Festivals and cultural institutions
- Creative teams and professional associations
- Listening rooms, record stores and community arts organizations
Invite Barry to Speak or Facilitate
Conferences, campuses, cultural institutions, creative teams and rooms full of records.