Tufts Unplugged' sparks on-campus musician community

    For any aspiring singer/songwriter, it's hard to imagine the long road ahead scrounging for gigs and taking every opportunity for promotion. A college campus, where opportunities in academics and extracurriculars seem endless, is a more supportive environment for musicians than the so-called "real world." The lack of opportunities for Tufts musicians to play to an audience has been a glaring problem on campus, and though there are a few places to see fellow students play — like Brown & Brew and Oxfam Café — a new student group has formed called The Musicians Collective at Tufts to solve the problem.
    This Friday night, "Tufts Unplugged," produced by the Musicians Collective, will be the first-ever songwriter showcase featuring Tufts musicians. Including 15 performers, the show is two hours, starting at 8 p.m. in the Distler Recital Hall in the Granoff Music Center. Performers will include the co-founders of the Musicians Collective, seniors Debbie Neigher and Bekah Gilbert, along with seniors Doug Pet, Ben Broderick and Kate Rizzolo, juniors Jake Stern, Josh Zeidel, Jeremy Strauss, Tara Vaughan and Jesse Kohn, sophomore Ben Anshutz, freshmen Steph Vasquez and Cody Hochheiser, and Tufts band FORT.
    The Musicians Collective, which was founded just last year, now has over 200 students on its mailing list, and seeks to create an open forum for an exchange of information on upcoming concerts, collaborations between musicians, sharing of equipment and general advice. According to Neigher, "Tufts Unplugged" fills a critical need on campus. "There are few opportunities at Tufts for composers and songwriters and people who do spoken-word. There are really no occasions right now for a large number of Tufts musicians to showcase their own work at one time and at one concert," she said.
    Co-sponsored by the Tufts Music Department, "Tufts Unplugged" is part of the Musicians Collective's aim to bridge the gap between musicians inside and outside of the department. Neigher said she feels that the Collective can provide a much-needed community for musicians on campus, "I felt like there were so many people that had talent both in and outside of the music department but there was no way for them to connect with each other on any level, be it musically or logistically — and I often hear people saying, ‘I want to form a band but I don't know how to find people.' There was no structure or place that would embrace musicians campus-wide," she said.
    To get a preview of Friday's show, keep an eye (and an ear) out for rogue performances on campus all week by featured songwriters. To get involved in the Musicians Collective, contact tuftsmusicians@gmail.com.