About
Jeremy Peters, FRSA, MBA (Cantab), is an Assistant Professor of Music Business and is an affiliate faculty member of Labor@Wayne and the Entrepreneurship Department of the Mike Illich School of Business. He's a humanist who looks at professionals in the creative industries and why they do/make.
He maintains an active teaching, performing, researching, and publishing practice and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts. Jeremy's scholarly work centers on arts entrepreneurship, music sociology, organization theory, the creative and cultural industries, and pedagogy. Jeremy is particularly interested in qualitative and mixed-methods research that incorporates aspects of oral history, ethnography, and archival research.
Before his turn toward academia, he was the Director of Music Publishing for Ghostly International, having built the division at the company. At Ghostly, he worked on projects for film, television, advertising, and video games with brands such as Nike, Microsoft, HUMMER, Apple, Lincoln, Motorola, Ford, Adult Swim, major television networks, and Sony PlayStation. As well, he was the music supervisor for the EMMY Award-winning documentary film, “MEDORA.” He is a practicing entrepreneur as a partner and co-founder of the record label Quite Scientific Records.
Jeremy previously held lecturing positions with the University of Michigan Law School and School of Music, Theatre, and Dance, teaching coursework on copyright, problem-solving, entrepreneurship, and the music industry. He has presented papers at numerous scholarly conferences including Social Theory, Politics, and Arts, and conferences for the International Association for the Study of Popular Music - US, International Music Business Research Association, the Social Theory, Politics, and the Arts Conference, the United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship, the Society for Arts Entrepreneurship Education, the International Association of Arts and Cultural Management, IUPUI-NEA Arts, Entrepreneurship, and Innovation Lab, and the Creativity, Knowledge, Cities conference. Additionally, he spoke at music industry conferences such as Iceland Airwaves, Reeperbahn Festival, by:Larm, South by Southwest, CMJ, A2IM Indie Week, Billboard Film & TV Summit, Future of Music Summit, and the Michigan Ross School of Business’ Entrepalooza Conference.
Jeremy graduated with an MBA (concentrating in Strategy with courses in Creative, Arts and Media Management) from the University of Cambridge Judge Business School. He is a life member of Clare Hall College, where he was the recipient of the Culture, Arts, and Media, Boak Research, Clare Hall, and Mellon Bursaries to support studies of the intersection of culture and business practice. He holds an undergraduate degree with dual concentrations in Music and Political Science from the University of Michigan’s College of Literature, Science and the Arts.
He is a member of The Recording Academy (the GRAMMYs) as well as many scholarly associations, including the Society for Arts Entrepreneurship Education, Music and Entertainment Industry Educators Association, Academy of Management, the US Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship, International Association for the Study of Popular Music - US, Society for Ethnomusicology, and American Musicological Society. He currently serves as an advisor to the Detroit Sound Conservancy and as Treasurer of the Board of Directors for Detroit’s professional choral ensemble, Audivi. Previously, he held positions with the American Association of Independent Music (Governmental Relations Committee), 826michigan (Vice-President of the Board of Directors), and Ann Arbor Area Chamber of Commerce (Board of Directors).
Skills and services
I consult or provide services in the following fields: Forensic musicology, copyright, ethnographic data gathering, entrepreneurship, strategic management and business processes.
Clients
University of Michigan, Kickstarter, Drip.fm, Assemble Sound, Techstars (volunteer mentor), Sergent Results Group, AlphaInsights, Confidential Political Clients
Work experience
2020 - Present
Wayne State University, Assistant Professor of Music
2018 - 2020Wayne State University, Lecturer of Music (Full-Time)
2019University of Michigan, Lecturer of Law (Part-Time)
2014 - 2017University of Michigan, Lecturer of Music (Part-Time)
2012 - PresentIndependent Business Process & Music Consultant
2006 - PresentQuite Scientific Records, Partner
2003 - 2017Ghostly International & Ghostly Songs, Director of Music Publishing
Education & Certifications
2017 - 2018
Master of Business Administration, University of Cambridge
2017 - PresentCopyrightX, Harvard University
1998 - 2004Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Music, University of Michigan
What do you mean by humanistic/the humanities?
The humanities are a grouping of fields of inquiry that are particularly interested in people - what they do, why they do what they do, and how their environment (broadly) impacts both of the aforementioned. Borrowing from the National Endowment for the Humanities:
The term 'humanities' includes, but is not limited to: languages, both modern and classical; linguistics; literature; history; jurisprudence; philosophy; archaeology; comparative religion; ethics; the history, criticism and theory of the arts; those aspects of the social sciences which have humanistic content and employ humanistic methods; and the study and application of the humanities to the human environment with particular attention to reflecting our diverse heritage, traditions, and history and to the relevance of the humanities to the current conditions of national life.
So, for instance, looking at the sociomusicological aspects of musicianship might be one of "those aspects of the social sciences which have humanistic content and employ humanistic methods," especially when ethnography, oral history, and other methods that document subjects (or better yet, allow them to speak in their own words) are used in the process of inquiry.
The practice of the arts as an individual or group might not be humanistic (and thus the domain of the National Endowment of the Arts, which supports the generation, installation, display, and/or performance of works of art), but asking questions and finding out how humans go through that process is humanistic. A comparative study of the business outputs of groups of artists might not be humanistic, but an ethnographic investigation of a group of people who are in business together to understand how and why they partner with one another is humanistic.