Each semester, the music department puts on a series of concerts featuring student musicians. While some may overlook the importance of live music in an academic setting, concerts like these prove to be beneficial to the school community.

Tuesday, March 14 was Jazz Combo Night, and the turn-out was great. The show took place inside the music building in a large classroom rather than the performing arts center, and the crowd took up almost all of the seating.

Four student bands played a 3-4 song set, each with their own unique style. [Inaudible], Vermillion Lounge, Crunchy Love and Runnin’ on Empty were the four featured bands of the night. Throughout the semester, the bands work closely together to prepare for these graded performances. The teachers usually are the ones organizing these events, and it can be pleasantly surprising to see their students perform outside of the classroom.

Crunchy Love, one of the featured bands, packed a pleasant surprised towards the end of their set by a surprise rap performance by Danny Balderramos. “That was the reaction we were going for!” bass player Sean Spangenberg said.

“With two hours of music, a lot can go wrong but a lot can go right,” said event co-director Ben Levine. “Most of the students here are jazz history students, so their assignment is to go to one of these live events and write a paper on it. But besides that, most people stayed until the end. It was a good turn out.”

Levine and the rest of the department hope on bigger audience attendance for future live concerts. If these shows keep going the way they are now, it won’t be so hard to fill up aisles. Audience participation is also a key element in these shows and keeps the crowd going.With the amount of talent that these student bands bring, it is no surprise that the music department is doing so well with bringing students together by putting on concerts.