MCCC Spices up Wednesdays with Live Music

Monday is traditionally blue; it’s the day you start the work week while fighting off the effects of overdoing it on the weekend. Friday is traditionally happy; the end of the work week and the beginning of another weekend of overdoing it.

Montgomery County Community College Music Instructor Michael Kelly and teachers and students in the college’s communications and music department have found a way to rehabilitate Wednesdays by presenting Music Wednesday—a weekly lunchtime concert in the atrium of the Advanced Technology Center at the college’s Blue Bell campus.

“Music Wednesday is sponsored by the MCCC Music Department, in conjunction with Montco Radio,” Kelly said in an email interview. “The lineup, booked months in advance thanks to the overwhelming interest and success of the shows, consists mainly of students from my songwriting and music technology courses, as well as students from the campus who provide an overview and CD of their work. The material performed spans all genres: rock, hip-hop, spoken word, classical, jazz, electronica, Celtic and performance pieces.”

At least twice a year, the chorus, or a string ensemble, plays in the atrium, giving a classical grounding.

“I have added music on Tuesdays and Thursdays myself, playing jazz with students on piano and guitar,” he said. “The majority of the pop/rock/blues performers are singer/songwriters, but many bring their own backing tracks or accompany themselves on keyboard and synthesizer, so the singer/songwriter genre is much wider than the audience may expect.”

Kelly and senior producer and technical services manager Matt Porter audition CDs of student material. According to Kelly, “if the material is solid or even semi-solid,” he and Porter greenlight the student to perform.

“Chris Coia, director of student leadership and involvement, also books Music Wednesdays to showcase musical acts from all over the country,” Kelly said. “We work together to offer the widest possible range of new music exposure to our student community.”

The concert series is not limited to the MCCC music student body. The fall 2010 semester featured performances by Jason LeVasseur from Winston-Salem, N.C., and Full Service from Austin, Texas; the latter band was in the area on tour and on its way to the World Café at WXPN in Philadelphia. (Kelly himself is on the way to the World Café, as his band The Grip Weeds [gripweeds.com] will be performing there Saturday, April 16.)

“People bring different genres to the table. It’s a very diverse experience,” said Alexi Windler, an MCCC communications student, in the press release.

Windler, who has been disc jockey “DJ Lextronic” at Music Wednesday, finds that the feedback of the crowd is important to his own performances.

“It gives me an idea of what people are into,” he said.

Like the performers, Music Wednesday continues to evolve.

“The 12:30 p.m. time slot is designated ‘down time’ here on campus, so there are large crowds that come to see the shows, especially when the weather permits us to perform outside, usually when we hit 60 degrees,” Kelly said. “Outside concerts are the most colorful; students will hang out all over the front of the ATC building, listening to the music, dancing, hula hoops flying, a very cool vibe, almost like a 'live on campus' kind of vibe.”