Besides checking out important spots in the history of the music business, I came to NYC for the Association of Popular Music Educators Conference held at NYU.  To be honest, I had no idea what to expect from this conference as the list of sessions seemed like the event could be one of those where you simply hear people read from their research papers.  As things turned out, nothing could be further from the truth.  I got a good sense of this from the opening session which focused on Beatboxing and the impact this was having on education and could have in our own programs.  One of the presenters, Johnny "Buffalo" Sansone is a member of the vocal group Backtrack that performed in our Performing Arts Series a few years back.  I enjoyed catching up with him, and he had fond memories of Phil Lowe and Hill College.

For the remainder of the day, I attended sessions on 21st-century music listeners, the pedagogy of popular music, beatboxing as therapy for students with learning challenges, composing the meaning of hip-hop, the history and importance of VIP Records of LA, education in music industry and rock music pedagogy.  I was especially impressed by the diversity of presenters with regard to age, gender and nationality.  This is truly an international conference.