Gulf Coast Life Arts Edition

Conversation and music performed live in-studio by the Florida phantom folk band the Swamp Rats consisting of Scotty Crow on vocals, guitar and cajón and Andy Starkey on vocals and banjo.

We listen back to selections from our show from this past spring featuring jazz performed live in studio by musicians studying under the Florida Gulf Coast University Bower School of Music’s Director of Jazz Studies Brandon Robertson. Robertson and his students have performed on past editions of the show, but this episode marked the first time we heard his students performing vocal jazz selections.

We explore the Ghostbird Theatre Company’s performance/installation hybrid, “One Island,” ahead of its opening at the Wasmer Art Gallery at Florida Gulf Coast University.

This week the Fort Myers Film Festival will screen three environmental documentary selections from award-winning filmmaker and conservation and science communicator Sonny DePasquale. We’ll explore these documentaries with the filmmaker.

The Florida Repertory Theatre in Fort Myers closes its 24th season with a production of the authentically Southern romantic comedy “Maytag Virgin,” by playwright Audrey Cefaly. We take a closer look with the play’s stars and only actors Tyler Layton and Duke Lafoon.

A new chamber orchestra in Southwest Florida called Camerata of Naples will hold the final concert of its debut season on Mother’s Day, May 8. The concert will include the U.S. premiere performance of “Rhapsody on a Theme of Albinoni for Violin, Cello and Harpsichord,” composed by Alexander Goldstein. We’ll talk with the composer and the musician co-founders of the chamber orchestra violinist Boris Sandler and pianist Bella Gutshtein.

We get a preview of the 12th annual Fort Myers Film Festival, which runs May 18-22. The festival includes screenings of more than 70 films in seven categories and includes submissions from all over the world as well as films about and shot here in Southwest Florida. We’ll talk with the festival’s founder Eric Raddatz.

We’ll feature music from South Florida-based rap, hip-hop, and EDM artist, performer and producer Nory Aronfeld ahead of his album release party April 24 at the iconic Faena Theater on Miami Beach. From lo-fidelity beats to psychedelic instruments, to songs heavy on lyricism and wordplay, his original compositions are genre blending and genre bending.

Musicians studying under the Florida Gulf Coast University Bower School of Music’s Director of Jazz Studies Brandon Robertson join us for an hour of music performed live in the WGCU performance studio! We’ll hear a mix of vocal performances as well as music selections from an instrumental jazz trio.

We hear from five Southwest Florida poets who will share their work next week at PoetryFest 2022 at the Sanibel Public Library during National Poetry Month. Ahead of the evening, poets Dorothy Howe Brooks, Dan England, Chris Godwin, Joe Pacheco and John Robilotta recite some of their original poems and share their insights on the art of writing poetry.