12/06/19
NORTH ADAMS, MASS. — A group of 11 Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts (MCLA) music students are set to release a holiday EP featuring their take on seven classic Christmas songs. “A Very North Adams Christmas: The Holiday EP” will be released as a physical CD during the MCLA Winter Concert at 7 p.m. on Monday, Dec. 9, at the MCLA Church Street Center. To celebrate the release, a teaser performance of one of the songs will close the performance. The concert and a limited number of CDs are both free.
The students recorded the album in MCLA’s own recording studio, where most of them have taken Home Studio Recording with Professor Jeff Link and private composition lessons with Professor Michael Dilthey. Many of the students had performed in school concerts before, but few of them had ever recorded music.
This debut project from the MCLA Music Program was inspired by the students’ excitement to enter the music industry. While taking Professor Diane Scott’s artist entrepreneurship class this fall, several seniors decided they wanted to collaborate on a project with their classmates before they graduated. Scott reminded them of the campus resources that would allow them to self-produce their own projects. This inspired Senior Demetri Williams’ idea to record a Christmas album with his classmates: Devin Gibbs ’20, Garrett Derosia ’20, Rudy Dormeus ’20, Rowan Lampert ’20, Dylan Martin ’21, Sam Berthel ’22, Haley Rode '22, Bryan Butler '22, and Jacob Siegel Zeserson ’23. Jordan DeGaetano ’19 produced the EP, and Alex Berry ’20 was the audio engineer. Nick Colabella ’20 designed the EP’s artwork, and Kenny Olchowski ’20 photographed the band.
