Georgia State Professor Invited to The Recording Academy's Membership Class

Al Thrash, Professor of Music Management in the Georgia State University School of Music, was invited to the Recording Academy's membership for 2020. The Recording Academy is the member organization behind the GRAMMY Awards. As the world's preeminent membership organization for performers, songwriters, producers, and engineers, members work together to build a better and more exciting world for music and its makers. This diverse class was selected by a committee of industry peers based on exceptional contributions to the music community. The Recording Academy invited 2,300 music professionals to join as its 2020 new member class. The invitees come from wide-ranging backgrounds, genres, and disciplines.

"We are proud of the strides we've made toward ensuring our membership is diverse and inclusive, which is reflected within this new pool of invitees," said Harvey Mason, Jr., Chair and Interim President/CEO of the Recording Academy. "While this progress signifies meaningful impact, there's still more work to be done. We'll continue to fight to achieve inclusive representation across gender, race, age, national origin, sexual orientation, and beyond within our community. Furthermore, we're excited to see how the incoming new member class's contributions will help inspire meaningful change within the music industry."

Professor Thrash has more than 20 years of experience in the music and entertainment business. He started his career as a marketing representative with BMG Distribution. Thrash handled sales and marketing duties for some of BMG's most prominent artists, including Outkast, Britney Spears, Whitney Houston, Dave Matthews Band, and Usher. After seven years with the company, he left and partnered with a friend to launch a music consulting company, Own Music LLC. They successfully created events and secure endorsements for music artists with brands such as Coca Cola, Adidas, T Mobile, Essence Music Festival, and Miller Coors.

In 2008, Mr. Thrash joined Thirty Tigers, one of the premier music distribution companies in the industry as a Project Manager. Thirty Tigers has helped foster success stories for many artists, including Carlos Santana, Lupe Fiasco, Aaron Watson, Jason Isbell, and CeCe Winans.

Alumna Lizz Wright, another member of our School of Music family, was also honored with an invitation this year. The vocalist will be part of the membership class of the Recording Academy for 2020.

For more information on the Recording Academy, go to https://www.grammy.com/grammys/news/recording-academy-invites-celebrates-its-2020-new-member-class.