The annual GRAMMY U Conference, this year presented by Nike, will be held on Saturday, April 22 at the Hilton Downtown Miami. Designed for aspiring music professionals, the conference is open to all GRAMMY U members and will be livestreamed in part.

With in-person activations, career development stations, and a star-studded list of panelists including Latin GRAMMY nominated artists GALE, Elena Rose, and Guaynaa, this year's event will be the biggest conference yet. 

Yet the GRAMMY U conference wasn't always this size and scope. Travel down memory lane with the GRAMMY U Reps and learn how the conference has evolved since its inception in 2018, as well as what it takes to grow from a local event to a national program.

GRAMMY U Conference Came From Humble Beginnings

The GRAMMY U program has always aimed to provide college students with much-needed access to the often exclusive music industry. Through initiatives like the mentorship program, "Meet the Board" mixers and SoundChecks with major artists, GRAMMY U has opened the door to future industry professionals. It also was created to foster those who would hopefully become the future of the Recording Academy. 

In 2017, GRAMMY U Director Jessie Allen (then the Florida Chapter Project Manager) sat down with Janette Becerra, a GRAMMY U Rep who is now the Academy's Latin Membership Manager at the Recording Academy, to discuss what they could bring to their Chapter’s students. They came up with an idea to have a local conference for members in Florida. 

"We were looking for a better way to engage rather than just another Chapter event…the conference was a way that we could get the entire state involved," Becerra says.  

They planned for it to be held on a Saturday so members wouldn’t have to miss school and devised a plan for a state-wide carpooling program. Along with former GRAMMY U Director Virginia Faddy, Becerra and Allen created a day of panels focusing on professional and creative development. The first year's panels featured artists and professionals such as Senior VP of Marketing and former GRAMMY U Campus Ambassador Salomon Palacios, artist Emily Estefan, legendary singer/songwriter Betty Wright, and keynote speaker Mack Maine, President of Young Money Records.

Engineer/Producer Maria Elisa Ayerbe, Betty Wright, and producer/remixer JonFX at the 2018 GRAMMY U Conference | GRAMMY U

The Florida team held another GRAMMY U Conference in 2019, and tried to find innovative ways to improve and expand upon the previous year. One new installation included private demo review sessions, where guests could submit their music for a chance to get feedback from top industry executives and producers. 

The conference also featured a mentorship mixer, where attendees could network with peers and professionals. The keynote speakers were Latin GRAMMY-nominated artists Mau y Ricky in a conversation moderated by fellow Latin GRAMMY nominee, Manu Manzo. Singer/songwriter Cuci Amador, actress and artist Jackie Cruz, and music video director Milcho were just a few the panelists who bestowed wisdom about sustaining a successful career in the music industry. 

Manu Manzo hosts the 2019 artist spotlight keynote with Mau y Ricky | GRAMMY U

Making The Move To The Virtual World

Organizers intended to expand the 2020 GRAMMY U Conference across multiple Chapters, but were met with the harsh realities of mandatory lockdowns and quarantines. Normal end-of-year Recording Academy events were now impossible not only for the Florida Chapter, but for Chapters across the country. 

GRAMMY U student representatives’ terms were essentially cut short and, after working hard all year to inspire the next generation of industry professionals, were effectively ending their semesters on a discouraging note.

"We canceled our local conference venue. We already had a conference outline with tons of work being put into the 2020 event and the current Florida [GRAMMY U] Rep, Melanie McGrath, was completely dedicated to its execution," Allen notes. 

Allen and Faddy shared the sentiment that the 2019-2020 GRAMMY U season couldn’t end this way. 

"We entertained the idea of uniting all Reps across the nation to reimagine this program as a virtual event that they could build together," Allen continues. "This would not only solve the issue of how 12 Reps would be able to host events during the pandemic, but also give us an amazing opportunity which would ultimately end up evolving GRAMMY U’s structure to allow more community and collaboration."

Up until this point, GRAMMY U was predominantly Chapter-based, and members mostly had access to the events happening in their areas. Reps didn’t have many opportunities to work with each other due to the distance, aside from monthly virtual meetings.

Thus was born the inaugural National GRAMMY U Virtual Conference — the first conference accessible via livestream to members and nonmembers. To create such a massive event, the Reps from various chapters were split up into smaller groups to develop various aspects of the event. 

"It felt like for the first time we were able to bring the same exciting experience everyone buzzed about in Florida to students all across the country," says Melanie McGrath, the GRAMMY U Florida Chapter Representative for 2019/2020. "It was exciting to work with the other Reps from different cities — I'm still close friends with most of them to this day! — as well as learn more about navigating video/content creation and project management."

The conference featured artists such as Jojo and Oh Wonder as well as industry professionals NYU professor and President/CCO of One77 Jennifer Blakeman, Liz Rose, GRAMMY-winning songwriter and founder of Liz Rose Music Publishing, VP of Latin Music at Universal Music Publishing Group Ana Rosa Santiago, Senior VP of Creative at Kobalt Music, Al "Butler" McLean and Ruby Amanfu, GRAMMY nominated singer/songwriter and producer. It was a major triumph for GRAMMY U as members, who tuned in from all over, and appropriately kicked off with music videos and messages from students.

The New GRAMMY U

In 2021, Jessie Allen stepped into her new position as GRAMMY U Director and wanted to continue this collaboration between Reps from different Chapters to produce national events. Today, GRAMMY U Reps are heavily involved in both local and national programs.

As the pandemic climate continued, the next two years of virtual Conferences featured keynote speakers Julia Michaels and Conan Gray, respectively. The overwhelming progress of the Conference during this time has put GRAMMY U on the map in the music industry, and resulted in new opportunities to hold larger national programs, including the GRAMMY Week Masterclass with Jacob Collier and Jessie Reyez during GRAMMY Week.

Singer/songwriter Conan Gray during the virtual GRAMMY U conference in 2022 with National GRAMMY U Rep Sam Merkin | GRAMMY U

Carlie Anderson, who has been the Florida GRAMMY U Representative the past two years, is one of the many reps who has been diligently juggling both Chapter and local programs. 

"Working on the GRAMMY U Conference has given me perspective into how much production, planning and teamwork goes into executing an event on this scale," she said when asked about how having these opportunities as a student has affected her career. Anderson said she now feels prepared to take whatever the industry throws at her when she enters the music business as a graduate.

Becerra, whose one spark of an idea set the stage for what GRAMMY U has become today, now gets to see her hard work going far beyond what she imagined. "It’s cool to see something that started so small grow into what it is now." 

Presenting The 2023 GRAMMY U Conference

This long journey takes us to this year’s conference at the Hilton Downtown Miami. 

After three years of completely virtual content, GRAMMY U is bringing its first national conference to an in-person audience! The event will feature a keynote with Latin GRAMMY-nominated artist Guaynaa in a conversation moderated by Emily Estefan. Panels include discussions on songwriting with artists Elena Rose, GALE and ISADORA, as well as a deep dive into personal branding with industry pros from TikTok, Spotify, and Beats Communications.

An industry mixer will enable GRAMMY U peers from all over the country to meet each other, along with Recording Academy and Nike executives, for a treasure trove’s worth of experience and advice on building your career. Coupled with this mixer will be a special activation by Nike where guests can take one of a kind photos, a professional headshot station, and plenty of GRAMMY U-inspired snacks and merch. 

While the in-person activations are a wonderful luxury, we don’t want to limit the benefits of the conference for our members who aren’t able to make it out to Miami. The GRAMMY U Conference will be livestreamed on the Recording Academy's YouTube and Twitch channels, while a digital program book and virtual badges will be among the ways virtual attendees can engage. 

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