By ELIZABETH LIU
Staff Writer
The Rose Record Label Group held their 5th annual gala with President Belinda Ligotino as their host on Feb. 16, at 7 p.m. in the William Randolph Hearst Building for Communications and Interactive Media.
For approximately a half hour when guests were arriving at 7 p.m., Ligotino was welcoming guests into the Hearst Building and informed them that there was dinner catered by The Point on Madison Avenue located in Albany, New York. The food was set up in the Conference Room in the Hearst Building.
Within the Conference Room, there was decorations above the food with Head Shots of Label Representatives that are current students who dedicate their time to the organization. There were representatives from the S.Man Music Publishing Company, Thorn Productions, and Rose Record Label Group. There was a display that guests could browse of past CDs that have been mixed, mastered, and produced by the students on the Label.
The front venue of the newly renovated Studio G3 was decorative and appeared like a formal, red carpet event. When an individual walked through the door of the Hearst building, there were Record Label Thorn Production representatives presenting a live demonstration of the science that is vinyl cutting. Junior Music Industry students as well as current Thorn Production Representatives Juliana Castrilion and Scott Lang were manning the table as the live music was going on.
“The records get mixed and and mastered so there either released digitally, or on vinyl, so this is the vinyl portion of the music recording process,” said Lang. “A grant was given to the Thorn Productions Department since my time on the Label, and it has been beneficial because it has enabled our engineers to get more training as well as experience to as far as maintaining the records and other aspects of vinyl cutting. If records aren’t taken care of, their life will actually be shortened and that is a part of the science that we learn about everyday.”
Event attendees could also get their picture taken for free. The photographer was Label Representative Music Industry student Sam Walczky.
Once people ate, they were welcomed into Studio G3 for the music presentation of the event. Dr. Sean McClowry had a short opening remark of introducing President Ligotino, stating that she “knew a little bit more about tonight’s event. Ms. Ligotino is also a recently nominated BOLD Women’s Empowerment Leadership Scholar.”
Ligotino walked onto the stage, and then asked if the label representatives in the audience could raise their hands, and pointed out that they would dorn a red ribbon on their chest to indicate that they were represntatives of the label. Ligotino proceeded to thank the work the label put into the organization as well as the event.
Ligotino thanked and welcomed the audience, as she presented the first band that was selected through a competitive audition process, “Band Name Loading.” Front man, senior Ryan O’Dea, brought on four other musicians with him. He had a set list of four songs, including a new single entitled, “Game Boy.” The audience appear to have a good time listening to the music as they nodded along to the video-game like vibes.
O’Dea played four more songs, while introducing the band as a “bunch of seniors that played together.”
After O’Dea left the stage, various songwriters such as Juniors Thea Mundy and Megan Osman, head of the Songwriting Department, played original material for intermission in between while the audience anticipated the Label Artists, Julia Gargano and Pink Nois. All songwriter representatives participate in the Rose Record Label with the S.Man Publishing Company.
Mundy performed her latest single, “Distance,” which can now be found on Spotify and all major streaming services, is her newest single to date. All songs that were performed by the Songwriters were their newest personal material.
After a few more songwriters, one of the headliner artists, Julia Gargano, a junior Music Industry major with a concentration in composition, started to perform with her live band. A few chords began to play after she played some of her original material, “You might recognize this song as a popular Hasty Page cover,” Gargano said during her performance, as the song “If I Get High” began to play.
Gargano played her original work, which include “Spaceman,” “Turn Cold,” and “Diamonds,” among others. She then announced that her latest single, “Tired” was released prior to the event on Feb. 16, as she began to play and end her set in anticipation for the other Label artist, Pink Nois.
After Gargano’s set was over, around three more S.Man Publishing Songwriters played some of their original songs before the last artist, label signed artist Pink Nois. He had a set up of a laptop computer and himself. Singles that were performed were “Still,” “Toblerone,” and “The Mandela Effect.”
Nois welcomed junior Music Industry major, Zane Agnew, to end the night with his latest single, “T4lking,” which can be found on all major streaming services including Apple Music and Spotify. The song was released on Feb. 16.
“I picked The College of Saint Rose to continue my musical education specifically for the composition program here,” said Gargano. “The professors have been absolutely amazing to work with. It was actually really hard to find a school with a program specifically in composition as that was what I wanted to do with my career in the Music Industry.”
