Registration is conducted the same day of each workshop, with no prior registration necessary. 50 participants will be admitted each session, with registration beginning promptly at 9 a.m. in BMI's main lobby. Numbers will be handed out on a first-come, first-served basis, until all 50 seats are filled. Please email NashvilleWorkshops@bmi.com with any questions regarding the workshop.

Leading in nominations are Stew (Mark Stewart) and Heide Rodewald, co-creators of Passing Strange, a rock-oriented, atypical Broadway hit. The duo have been nominated for Best Original Score and Best Orchestrations, while Stew received nods for Best Book of a Musical and Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical. Passing Strange also received a Best Musical nomination and was also recently awarded the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best Musical.

Award-winning composer and pianist Alan Menken is up for Best Original Score for The Little Mermaid; lyricist Mark O’Donnell received a Best Book of a Musical nod for Cry-Baby, as did playwright Quiara Alegria Hudes for In The Heights.

Addition recognition goes to songwriter John Farrar for his contributions to Xanadu, which received a Best Musical nod.

Jorge Villamizar performs his single “Ninguna.”

BMI’s Anne Cecere, Casey Robison, Marissa Lopez and Tracie Verlinde; Jorge Villamizar; BMI’s Claudia Billen, Delia Orjuela, Angelica Mejia, Erica Ramon, Ray Yee, Barbara Cane and Maria Elena Perez.

Photos by Marlene Meraz

Born Dwayne Michael Carter, Jr., Lil Wayne is a native of New Orleans. Born in 1982, he was in a program for gifted kids, even entering the drama club by middle school. At 11, he met Bryan “Baby” Williams, owner of the then-budding Cash Money Records. After leaving raps on Baby’s answering machine, Wayne was brought into CMR’s fold and quit school at 14.

In 1997, Wayne became part of the then-burgeoning Southern rap movement as the youngest member of the group Hot Boys. He soon appeared on a song by Hot Boys member Juvenile, whereupon he uttered the now ubiquitous phrase “Drop it like it’s hot.” (Not long after, Wayne, along with members of his crew, took to calling jewelry as “bling-bling,” a term now fully ingrained in the American lexicon.) Wayne’s 1999 solo album, the platinum Tha Block Is Hot, was highly regarded, and it shot to #3 on the Billboard 200.

His 2000 follow-up album, Lights Out, went gold, followed by another gold album, 500 Degreez, but it was the release of Tha Carter in 2004 when Lil Wayne began to hit the artistic stride. Experimenting with rhythm, cadence, and a general use of his voice as melodic instrument, Wayne also began perfecting a vivid and often humorous, sometimes stream-of-consciousness narrative style. Soon after, he appeared on “Soldier” by Destiny’s Child, which topped charts. Wayne became a hot commodity, with artists including Fat Joe, Jay-Z, Bobby Valentino, and Kanye West featuring him on their songs.

By 2006, Wayne’s career was moving at warp speed. There was Tha Carter II, also gold, and a blitzkrieg of mixtapes. Somewhere in between, Wayne found time to enroll in college, studying political science at University of Houston in 2005. That interest perhaps influenced his scathing of President Bush on his acclaimed song about Hurricane Katrina, “Georgia…Bush.”

He is said to have made over 800 recordings in 2007, and almost as fast as the songs appeared, so came the praise. Rolling Stone called his “Drought” series among the best albums of 2007; GQ named him one of their men of the year; an MTV poll crowned him emcee of the year; and Blender named him Best Rock Star Alive.

All of this has fueled intense anticipation for his next album, Tha Carter III, due in June. That project’s lead single, “Lollipop,” is his biggest hit to date — landing at #1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 and MTV’s TRL — proof that he has fully cracked the mainstream. Moreover, the song’s success suggests that in spite of everything he’s done already, he’s really just getting started.

The Symposium is designed as a forum to bring jazz composers of all ages and nationalities together for an informal exchange of ideas, information, and inspiration.

This year's Symposium will include noted master artists Stefon Harris, Bill Holman, Jim McNeely, the Turtle Island String Quartet, among others, in a series of lectures, master classes, panel discussions, new music reading sessions, research presentations, and concerts.

Pre-registration fee is $195 ($165 for students) when purchased by May 2, 2008. After May 2nd, the registration fee is $225 ($195 for students). Registration fee cover the cost of admission to the opening reception and all evening concerts.

To register, click here. Tentative conference schedule information, as well as local accommodations are also listed.

Shepherd’s childhood intuition has been proven correct. The Leroy, Alabama native’s debut album, Sounds So Good, was released in March to overwhelming critical acclaim, and her first single, “Takin’ Off This Pain,” was a radio hit. The success is sweeter because Shepherd wrote or co-wrote 10 of the 11 songs on the album — and the remaining track was penned by her brother-in-law and sole co-writer, Adam Cunningham. “How do you write with somebody you don’t know?” she ponders. “It’s hard for me to understand that.”

Shepherd’s family-first attitude is no accident — at 21, she’s the married mother of a young son. “I grew up thinking that was the thing to do, to be a stay-at-home mom,” she says. “And I was, until this record deal stuff exploded.”

The “record deal stuff” happened after her three-song demo found its way to BMI’s Nashville office, where Shelby Kennedy heard it and brought her to UMG Nashville in January 2007. Before she knew it, Shepherd was in the recording studio with producer Buddy Cannon recording Sounds So Good.

Now Shepherd is eagerly looking toward the future. “I’ve got so many songs, and I’m gonna keep writing,” she says. “I’m getting a taste of what it’s like for people to relate to my music, and it tickles me to death. It lights me up on the inside, because I knew that’s what I was supposed to do.”

In a festival first, the New Orleans-inspired street concert staged at the Hog’s Breath Saloon featured BMI songwriters Robert Earl Keen and the Jeffrey Steele Band, and attracted hundreds of revelers.