Lissa Rosenthal Executive Director | bio
 lissa<at>futureofmusic.org

Jean Cook Director of Programs | bio
 jean<at>futureofmusic.org

Michael Bracy Policy Director | bio
 michael<at>futureofmusic.org

Kristin Thomson Education Director | bio
 kristin<at>futureofmusic.org

Casey Rae-Hunter Communications Director & Policy Strategist | bio
 casey<at>futureofmusic.org

Chhaya Kapadia Events & Operations Manager | bio
 chhaya<at>futureofmusic.org

Chris Naoum Policy Counsel | bio
 chris<at>futureofmusic.org

Nicole Duffey Operations Coordinator | bio
 nicole<at>futureofmusic.org

Future of Music Coalition
1615 L Street NW, Suite 520
Washington, DC 20036
(202) 822-2051

Staff Bios

Michael Bracy

Michael Bracy is a partner in the government affairs firm Bracy Tucker Brown & Valanzano. He also co-founded the Future of Music Coalition and currently serves as a board member and Policy Director and co-owns Misra, an independent record label based in Austin, Texas.

Michael is known for his policy work in front of Congress and the FCC, including media consolidation, radio regulation (including Low Power FM), and ensuring public interest principles are at the heart of the legal structures that will help dictate new technological frameworks. Michael is a recognized public advocate both for the music community and for the need for increased citizen participation in the policy process. He has testified before the Congress and the FCC, and speaks often on these issues at conferences and in the media, including CNN, MSNBC, National Public Radio, Washington Post, New York Times, Billboard and elsewhere.

Michael attended Georgetown University, where his courtship with his future wife, Kelly, began in earnest when they co-hosted a radio show on the campus station. After graduation, Kelly and Michael spent seven years in Seattle, where Michael worked in the educational communications field specializing in producing and directing live, interactive educational and government television programming. Kelly and Michael have three children, Eliza, Sophie and Owen, and live in Arlington, VA.

Jean Cook

Jean Cook has been playing violin since 1979. She is a founder and director of Anti-Social Music, a New York-based new music collective. She currently records and tours with Ida, Jon Langford, and Beauty Pill. Recent performances and recordings also include with Tom Abbs/Frequency Response, Assif Tsahar, Sabir Mateen/Juxtapositions Plus!, and Taylor Ho Bynum/Spidermonkey Strings. Jean’s administrative background includes working as a publicist and curator for Washington Performing Arts Society, producing and hosting radio programs for 89.9 WKCR-FM, New York, and producing dozens of new music performance projects including a multimedia DIY opera called The Nitrate Hymnal. In 2004 Jean worked for Air Traffic Control, a political action group helping musicians to be more effective in the 2004 election cycle. She joined Future of Music Coalition to help them expand the work they do with the classical and jazz communities in 2005, and assumed the Deputy Director role in 2008.

Nicole Duffey

Transplanted to Washington D.C. from her hometown of Atlanta, Nicole has a long background in not for profit management and theatre production which serves her well wearing many hats as FMC’s Operations Coordinator. After earning bachelors in theatre performance at Georgia State University, she spent several years as a freelance properties artisan, and performer while paying the bills as the Box Office Manager of Jewish Theatre of the South. In 2005 Nicole relocated to the Midwest to pursue a master’s degree in Theatre History at the University of Central Missouri where she taught, directed and performed while writing about gender & performance and Elizabethan stage practices. Aside from serving as a “devoted fan” to several local bands while in college, Nicole’s experience with the music industry includes some “legendary” open mic nights and studio work singing for the Nophi Records project The Secret Life. A bonafied geek Nicole can be found talking up HINT at major sci-fi conventions across the country and feeding her craft habit with an online shop specializing in steampunk gear and abstract art at www.sparcole.etsy.com.

Chhaya Kapadia

Chhaya has been Future of Music Coalition’s Events & Operations Manager since January 2008. Prior to moving to Washington, DC, she spent several years coordinating tours at noted Boston roots music booking/management agency Concerted Efforts for artists such as Orchestra Baobab, Ali Farka Toure, Rokia Traore, Booker T. & The MG’s, Yat-Kha and others. She has also traveled internationally tour managing Pape & Cheik and The Holmes Brothers. Chhaya’s background in arts management serves her well at FMC where she organized 2008’s “What’s the Future for Musicians?” seminar series, assisted with coordination for the sixth and seventh Future of Music Policy Summits, as well as numerous events and meetings for artists and managers. She received a BA from Emerson College with a major in Audio Engineering and was also previously an in-house engineer with WERS-FM Boston. Chhaya first began working for FMC as Operations Coordinator in May 2006. She keeps a personal blog under the moniker of Liquid Sunshine.

Chris Naoum

Chris Naoum is the Policy Counsel at Future of Music Coalition. With his background in telecommunications and media law and policy, Chris focuses on FMC’s open Internet policy agenda, media ownership reform efforts, intellectual property law and policy issues and the recommendations form the National Broadband Plan that will have the greatest effects on the arts communities. Prior to joining FMC, Chris served as the Legal Research Fellow for the Benton Foundation and as a law clerk for a local media company.  Chris has also previously worked as a summer legal clerk in the office of Commissioner Adelstein at the Federal Communications Commission. 

Before moving to Washington, Chris received his BA from Emory University and his JD and MA in Television Radio and Film Policy from Syracuse University. Chris is also an avid music fan and has built relationships with a numerous bands and musicians over the years. Chris has previously helped artists with copyright and license registration, album funding, investment contracts and booking deals.

Casey Rae-Hunter

Casey Rae-Hunter is a musician, recording engineer, music journalist and public policy wonk. He attended university for jazz guitar at 16, but spent most of the 1990s toiling in the indie music trenches, fronting and/or playing guitar for a list of bands too long to mention. He made the transition to studio hermit around 2000. Since then, he has mixed and mastered numerous releases in genres ranging from bluegrass to hip-hop. As a music journalist and critic, Casey has profiled some of the leading figures in both underground and mainstream music, including Antony & the Johnsons, Mike Watt, The Books, Lindsey Buckingham, Animal Collective, Jolie Holland and Built to Spill. Casey regularly speaks at universities and conferences on issues such as new business models for artists, telecommunications policy and intellectual property in the digital realm, including appearances at Georgetown Law, the University of Maryland Business School, Maryland Lawyers for the Arts, University of Buffalo and Syracuse University. He routinely works alongside leaders in the music, arts and performance sectors to bolster understanding of and engagement in key policy and technology issues, and has written dozens of articles on the impact of technology on the creative community. Casey serves on the Board of Directors of the Media & Democracy Coalition. He currently records and publishes under the moniker The Contrarian.

Lissa Rosenthal

Lissa brings more than 15 years of experience in arts leadership, advocacy and nonprofit development to her role as Executive Director. Prior to joining FMC, she served as Programs Director for the American Council for the Arts (presently Americans for the Arts), where she spearheaded national Arts Advocacy Day and the Nancy Hanks Lecture on Arts and Public Policy. As Development Director of P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center — an affiliate of The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City — Lissa led fundraising and community outreach initiatives for the internationally renowned institution, produced its highly acclaimed Warm Up music series and played a vital role in the historic merger with MoMA.

During her tenure as National Program Director for PAX: Real Solutions to Gun Violence, Lissa directed its highly acclaimed national public health campaigns dedicated to reducing youth gun violence in America, including SPEAK UP — a teen violence prevention initiative in partnership with Teen People Magazine, MTV Networks and Atlantic Records. She has also worked extensively in AIDS fundraising and event production, raising millions of dollars and awareness for AIDS service organizations nationwide.

As a social justice advocate, and prior to relocating to Washington D.C. to join FMC, she led and supported numerous fundraising and awareness-generating campaigns in Pittsburgh, PA. Most recent volunteer activities include work with the national hunger relief agency Share Our Strength and their Taste of the Nation events. This led to her nomination for Share Our Strength’s National Leadership Award, ranking her among their most effective national advocates and volunteers. A promoter of all things green, she has authored several “green” cover features for Pittsburgh Magazine. Her Pittsburgh home is one of the region’s first and largest green renovations.

Lissa is a dedicated champion of the arts, particularly music, and is committed to improving the lives of musicians whose work enriches everyone.

Kristin Thomson

Kristin Thomson is a community organizer, social policy researcher, entrepreneur and musician. After graduating with a BA in Sociology from Colorado College in 1989, Kristin moved to Washington, DC where she worked for two years as a national action organizer for the National Organization for Women. She left NOW in 1992 to make a full-time commitment to Simple Machines, an independent record label she co-ran with Jenny Toomey. Over the label’s 8-year history, Simple Machines released over seventy records and CDs, published the Mechanic’s Guide to Putting Out Records, Cassettes, and CDs, and organized three high-profile music festivals in Washington, DC. While running the label, Kristin and Jenny also wrote, recorded and released four highly-acclaimed Tsunami records on Simple Machines, and toured the US, Canada, England and Europe extensively.

After Simple Machines stopped putting out new records in 1998, Kristin permanently relocated to Philadelphia, PA where she lives with her husband Bryan Dilworth, a concert promoter, their son Riley, and plays guitar in the lady-powered band, Ken. In 2001, Kristin graduated with a Masters in Urban Affairs and Public Policy from the University of Delaware. During her graduate program she was a recipient of a School of Urban Affairs and Public Policy Fellowship, and the Urban Affairs Association Award that recognized her thesis, The Internet as an Agent of Change, as a valuable contribution to the body of usable social knowledge. As FMC’s Education Director, Kristin is responsible for project management and research, and has overseen event programming, including recent Future of Music Policy Summits. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband Bryan Dilworth, a concert promoter, and their son, where she also plays guitar in the lady-powered band, Ken.