I'm pleased as peaches to announce that I will be participating in the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop this fall! For the many of you who don't know what the heck the BMI Workshop is, I will do my best to explain it. It should be duly noted that I haven't yet attended a single session so it's quite likely I haven't got all my facts straight, but here goes: the quick and dirty version is that the Workshop is like a once-per-week studio class for musical theatre songwriters. Composers and lyricists are paired up and given assignments (writing prompts) for new original songs. The participants then compare work with the "class", wherein they receive constructive criticism from their classmates and the program's moderators.
The first year of BMI is jokingly called "speed-dating" because lyricists and composers are shuffled around between assignments so as to expose the participants to a variety of collaborative experiences.
"But, Josh, you write music and lyrics. Do you just write by yourself? Or, do you alternate between participating as a composer and participating as a lyricist?"
Good question, you!
Although I fancy myself a composer-lyricist (and librettist, too, thank you very much!), the Workshop only accepts participants as one or the other. I will be participating in the Workshop as a lyricist.
The Workshop is a two-year program and the second year operates a little differently than what I described above, but let's post about that bridge when we get to it. Many of my heroes have gone through this workshop so I am over the moon to have been accepted! Also, please wish me luck as I have had virtually no experience collaborating in song-writing...
I'm so looking forward to this new experience and I hope you all will be looking forward to the new work I'll be doing in this Workshop!
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