About Black Tea Music

Black Tea Music is a boutique music promotion, publishing, and management representative for composers and new music-inclined artists. Black Tea Music’s activities include, but are not limited to, music publishing and rental / sales administration, editorial assistance, catalog promotion, commissioning and other contract negotiation, performance booking, and project development. Black Tea Music also partners with preferred third party vendors (e.g. PR, legal, printers) for a comprehensive menu of professional services.

Trudy Chan (Teamaster)

Trudy Chan (Teamaster) formed Black Tea Music after gaining decades of experience in music publishing and many other music-related activities. Originally from Hong Kong, she worked for many years at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts and the University of Hong Kong where she received the first of her two Master’s Degrees (in musicology) in 1999.

From 2004 to 2015, Trudy worked in the promotion department of Boosey & Hawkes, an international music publisher whose roster of composers includes John Adams, Louis Andriessen, Anna Clyne, Paquito D’Rivera, Brett Dean, David Del Tredici, James MacMillan, Steven Mackey, Meredith Monk, Steve Reich, Ned Rorem, and Christopher Rouse–with all of whom she has personally worked in activities ranging from catalog promotion to securing commissions.

For the past twelve years, Trudy has participated in the annual conferences of Chamber Music America and the League of American Orchestras, and also regularly attends convenings of the American Choral Directors Association, Chorus America, Conductors Guild, Gaudeamus Music Week, the International Society for the Performing Arts, the International Association of Music Information Centres, the International Society for Contemporary Music, the Music Publishers Association, and OPERA America.

In addition to her work on behalf of composers and new music behind the scenes, Trudy also actively performs as a keyboardist (both piano and harpsichord) in solo, chamber, and orchestral music, most notably as part of the Cheah Chan Duo which she formed in 2009 with vocalist Phillip Cheah. When she is not engaged in musical activities, Trudy passionately cooks recipes from a wide range of international cuisines. (She has more than 700 cookbooks at home.) She also loves to drink black tea.

Beth Holub (Tea Shop Manager) 

Beth Holub (Tea Shop Manager) joined Black Tea Music in 2019. Originally from Tucson, AZ, she is an active Marketing, Public Relations, Strategy, and Arts Administration professional in the New York City area specializing in classical music and publishing.

She has a BA in Viola and Art History from the University of Arizona and an MBA in Marketing and Management from Fordham University, Gabelli School of Business. Beth was the General Manager for Boston-based Symphony Nova, where she spearheaded a new business model fine-tuning the structural and organizational aspects for the orchestra, as well as executing a new branding, marketing, and PR strategy. As Senior Publicity Manager at Unison Media in NYC, she successfully secured interviews, features, listings, and reviews for clients in major press markets such as New York City, Minneapolis, Atlanta, Houston, and Boston.

From 2013-2018 Beth was the Marketing Director, and from 2015-2018 held the dual role of Director of Promotions, at Carl Fischer Music/Theodore Presser Company working with both the educational and concert catalogs in both wholesale and direct to consumer capacities. Beth has been honored by Direct Marketing News as a 40 under 40 professional to watch, and attended both the League of American Orchestras Essentials of Orchestra Management arts marketing intensive training program (2011) and National Arts Strategies Senior Management Leadership Seminar (2016-2017).

Beth also runs Repeat Media, her own graphic design and marketing consultancy agency, is an adjunct professor at New Jersey City University teaching music business, gives lectures and seminars on the business of music, and is an active violist in NYC performing orchestral, opera, and chamber music.

Dennis Tobenski (Tea Archivist) joined Black Tea Music in 2017. He is a composer of acoustic new music, a vocalist, and a strong advocate for living composers. Dennis received his B.Mus. in Vocal Performance and Music Theory & Composition from Illinois State University, and his M.A. in Music Composition from The City College of New York.

He is also the founder of NewMusicShelf, an online marketplace for independently-published composers to sell digital editions of their works. In 2018, he published the first four volumes of the NewMusicShelf Anthologies of New Music: four voice type-specific collections of art songs by living composers from around the world. He currently working on volumes for alto saxophone, viola, piano, countertenor, and bass-baritone, as well as a collection of piano etudes collected by pianist Jenny Lin.

He is a member of the Board of Advisors for Composers Now, and the Board of Directors of the KeyedUp MusicProject. Dennis lives in Astoria, Queens with his husband Darien Scott Shulman and their cat Pistachio. www.dennistobenski.com