local music

An encore presentation of our show from earlier this year featuring music performed live in studio by the Southwest Florida-based band The Swingin’ Clique.

The Southwest Florida based arts organization Love Your Rebellion is hitting the ground running as we approach the traditional performing arts season. We’ll get a preview of all the Love Your Rebellion has to offer in the coming months with the organization’s founder and board of director’s chair, Angela Page.

Singer/songwriters Bill Metts and Bruce Gallant perform as a duo at venues throughout Southwest Florida. The two met through the Americana Community Music Association in Fort Myers where they’ve each spent years leading the organization’s singer/songwriter circle. Metts is also co-founder and Vice President of the nonprofit Hope By Song, where Gallant also serves as Recruitment Director.Metts and Gallant stopped by the WGCU studios to perform live! We’ll learn their original tunes and gain insight into their individual approaches to songwriting.

We listen back tour our show from April with music recorded live in studio by members of the Florida Gulf Coast University Bower School of Music’s Jazz combo. The students spent the last school year writing and collaborating on their own music.

The Southwest Florida-based alternative rock/pop punk band Perfect Sequence is set to release their new EP “Defiance” on June 4. Just last week, the band released a music video for the title track of the EP that pays homage to the Black Lives Matter movement.

Members of the Florida Gulf Coast University Bower School of Music’s Jazz combo have spent the last year writing and collaborating on their own music under the direction of FGCU’s Director of Jazz Studies Brandon Robertson. We’ll meet members of this elite jazz ensemble and hear them perform original tunes composed by each member. The FGCU Jazz Combo consists of Matthew Edwards (bass), John Gonzalez (drums), Mason Hunn (piano), Frank Saunders (trumpet/soprano saxophone) and Jorge Ylisastigui (tenor saxophone).

The singer/songwriter duo of Bill Metts and Bruce Gallant perform prolifically throughout Southwest Florida, and this week, we they’ve come to the WGCU studios to perform for us! We’ll hear original tunes from these dynamic musicians gain some insight into their approaches to songwriting.

The Southwest Florida-based band The Swingin’ Clique performs live in the WGCU studios ahead of their physically distanced outdoor show on Saturday, March 13 at the Alliance for the Arts in Fort Myers at 7:30 p.m.The band’s performances create a unique immersive experience with their fresh take on traditional jazz, showtunes and melodies from the Great American Songbook, inducing nostalgia or anemoia for America’s swing era of the 1930s and 1940s.We’ll meet band members Hunter Dahlen (vocals, guitar, violin), Jonathan Ingram (bass), Stephen Johnson (trombone, trumpet), Bobby Ryan (drums) and Amy Sbarra (vocals).

The final episode of 2020 marks our annual yearend music review! Despite the ongoing pandemic, musicians in Southwest Florida provided an expansive volume of new music to help get us through this tough year. We’ll hear a selection of some of our favorite new tunes this year drawing from a broad spectrum of genres including Bossa Nova, Alt-Americana, Southern Rock, Reggae/Soul, Synthrock, Alternative Electronic, Flamenco Nuevo and much more!

This Thanksgiving Day evening we listen back to our program from earlier this year featuring music performed live in studio by the Southwest Florida-based soul/reggae/rock band The Freecoasters!