The College of Charleston’s Arts Management Program will host Charlotte Sellmyer, Senior Vice President of External Affairs for the National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA) in Washington, D.C. on Monday, Oct. 15, 2018 at 6:30 p.m. in the Recital Hall of the Simons Center for the Arts, 54 St. Philip St. Sellmyer will be a guest speaker in the program’s free IN THE MIX music industry series hosted by lead guitarist of Hootie and the Blowfish, Mark Bryan, the program’s Artist in Residence. She will discuss “The Music Modernization Act:  Compensation for Creatives in the Age of Streaming.”

Sellmyer will analyze the recent bipartisan legislation that updates licensing and royalty laws that pertain to streaming, and ensures that songwriters, artists and record companies will receive royalties on songs published or released before 1972. Sellmyer oversees all of NMPA’s communications, public affairs, events, songwriter engagement, advocacy and web presence. Prior to joining NMPA in 2014, Sellmyer worked on Capitol Hill and served as Communications Director for the U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security. She previously served as press secretary to the U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary handling intellectual property, copyright, criminal law, national security and constitutional issues. There, she was instrumental in the successful passage of the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act, the most significant update to U.S. patent law in over 60 years. She also has worked in the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs as well as a political media campaign consulting firm in Dallas. She is a freelance photographer whose work has been featured in The New York Times and Politico among other publications. Sellmyer is a graduate of Texas A&M University.