Keynote presentation:

On deadline, in the dark: Decades on the music beat

Jon Bream of the Minnesota Star Tribune is the longest tenured music critic at a U.S. daily newspaper. In this keynote, he will share tips he’s learned while attending 10,000 concerts, writing reviews on deadline in unconventional places and conducting interviews with legends like Taylor Swift, Bob Dylan and Prince. He wrote his first review for his high school newspaper.

Meet Jon Bream

Jon Bream has been the award-winning music critic at the Minnesota Star Tribune since 1975, making him the longest tenured daily newspaper music critic in the United States. He writes about all styles of music except classical. He has attended more than 10,000 concerts and interviewed the King of Pop (Michael Jackson), the Queen of Soul (Aretha Franklin), Prince, Bob Dylan, U2 and three Beatles as well as Lady Gaga and Dolly Parton, among many others.

The job has found Bream performing with Alice Cooper, jogging with Willie Nelson and shooting hoops with Shaquille O’Neal as well as taking phone calls from Taylor Swift, Charlie Puth and Adele.

A native of St. Paul, Minn., Bream received a BA in journalism from the University of Minnesota. In 2015, he sold his vinyl record collection and used the funds to start the Jon Bream Scholarship for Arts Criticism at the University of Minnesota