“Cursed Child” Composer Imogen Heap Developing App for Musicians

Imogen Heap, the Drama Desk Award-winning composer of the score to Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, is embarking on a project that will allow musicians to store all the information about their publishing rights, recording rights, and composition rights in one place.

The project, Mycelia, is an app that will use blockchain technology to help musicians keep track of and get paid for their work. Heap told Business Insider that she believes the app will enable musicians to collaborate and grow their work more easily.

It’s about how to ease flow of payments, how to ease collaboration, how to grow partnerships, how to make better collaborations on a business level and a creative level.

Although blockchain is not the only answer to this gap, Heap said she was excited to pursue the new technology for use in the music industry.

There are many ways to do it. But for me, it’s important to be in this space because it’s a growing space and the music industry has to move with the times and I just want to make sure that we’re here and prepared — the music-makers are prepared.

Heap credits the success of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child for her ability to pursue Mycelia.

I’m also in a position, thanks to Harry Potter to be honest, that I’m not needing to make money on the next album and the next tour. I’ve just [been] lucky to be in a position where this magic play is essentially giving me a wage every week, which has never happened in my life before. Who would have thought? Harry Potter is the savior — well, not a savior but Harry Potter is enabling this.

Heap has been considering developing Mycelia for three years but is finally able to move forward with the project. She hopes to launch the app by September 2018, at which point she plans to do a world tour to promote the project. Read more about the project and technology here.