Hi. My name is Shaya. I lead the creation of useful software tools, photograph people in their element, and support communities by bringing together people and resources.
I also enjoy creative and interdisciplinary thought. Here’s what I’ve been working on:
Photography.
A large-scale photographic mural in collaboration with the Seattle Glassblowing Studio.
Tech.
Working with the wonderful folks at Cinapse.io, an on-set digital management tool for major motion pictures & premium television.
Leading a team of volunteers at the Seattle-based arts nonprofit Live Music Project, to develop new features for LMP’s international community calendar of classical music concerts.
Writing.
Occasionally, I write about music and technology for Chamber Music Magazine. Here’s a partial list of those articles and other contributions.
Communities.
Musochat was a monthly conversation about new music on Twitter that began in July 2015. New Music Box wrote about it, and SoundNotion interviewed our leadership team for their podcast, as did The Portfolio Composer. Musochat grew into a self-sustaining community; in 2018, after three years and 100 discussions, Musochat evolved away from being a structured interaction. It continues to be an ongoing, ad-hoc resource network for the new music community.
Interviews.
In February 2022, I spoke with Kiesha Garrison for her podcast YOU Better!, a show about self-love that also considers the challenges of our social conditioning. Kiesha has a unique ability to draw ideas out in conversation that you hold within yourself but maybe never articulated, or even considered. Here’s a snippet: “In this episode, Shaya – a descendent of both a blacklisted physicist and a Holocaust survivor – shares about her upbringing as a young woman who was raised with a charge to make the world better.” If you need encouragement that you matter, this episode is for you.
In this 2017 episode of ThisChoirNerd, a podcast by Markdavin Obenza, I discuss how to connect strangers with music, collaborating in the digital space, how unpaid work affects (or doesn’t affect) quality, tips on advertising a concert, and audience building. Mark is director of the Byrd Ensemble and producer for Scribe Records.
Also in 2017, Jonathan Shipley interviewed me about the Live Music Project for Encore Arts Seattle.
Conferences.
“Mission-Driven Technology: Building Products That Reflect Your Values” – Seattle Interactive Conference, October 2017 (panelist)
Every business needs to approach technology in a new way, and nonprofits are no different. Leaders in the nonprofit technology space share how they’ve married the best of startup practices (agility, lean development, collaborative methods) with the nonprofit backbone (mission, values, governance) to build innovation into their organizations from the ground up. As they discuss the challenges they’ve faced, and how they made their successes possible, you may be inspired to change how your own organization builds software.
“Supporting New Music with Software” – New Music Gathering, May 2017 (panelist)
The Live Music Project connects audiences with live music experiences through its online calendar, fundraising platform, and other software tools. New Music USA provides significant grant support and provides advocacy and promotion through its platform, built and maintained by in-house developers. CASH Music works directly with musicians to build free and open tools, empowering them to control their careers online — from promotion and sales to growing the connections to their audiences. Software is an increasingly vital tool for organizations committed to supporting artists. Learn how each of our organizations sees developing software as part of our work, and how artists can benefit from the software tools being created.
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Interested in collaborating? Drop me a note!
