A Glimpse Into How Student Musicians are Reshaping Live Music at Georgetown University

As warmer weather starts to make its way through Washington, the mid-afternoon sun illuminates the grass on the Healy Lawn at Georgetown University, the sound of birds chirping, and trees rustling is suddenly shifted to guitar riffs, bass lines, and drumbeats echoing through amps and speakers. Georgetown students fill the lawn, applauding as student-based rock band, No One And the Elses take the stage for what will be their Saint Patrick’s Day weekend headline show.

“It was a last-minute call I think we had done a backyard performance a month ago, and we had gotten good reception, and we were like you know, live music seems to be getting good reception,” said Kumho Eric Chun a member of the band. “It was so great to be able to hear live music out on the quad, especially live music performed by my peers,” said Teddy Lagonico, a student audience member. These opportunities for student bands would not be the same without one driving factor at Georgetown, Prospect Records.

Prospect was founded in in 2018 with the mission to provide student artists opportunities to play concerts and express themselves. While Prospect is a student run record label, their approach is closer to being a space on campus where student artists can showcase their talent through live events, rather than the traditional approach of being a space for artists to record and produce music. Over the years, Prospect has given student musicians the opportunity to showcase their talent through open mics, concerts on campus, workshops, and fundraising efforts.

Sebastian Larsen has been the president of Prospect for the past two years, he reflected on his time not only as the president of the record label, but how he has seen it benefit his band, No One And The Elses. “Having that outlet for expression is not only good for the artists, because I think, as a guitar player myself, it’s an opportunity to showcase what I’m practicing,” Larsen said, “so it’s both great for the artists, but then I think its also good for the community in general.”

No One And The Elses started as a group of acquaintances, all passionate about music, playing it, writing it, and performing it. “The six of us just started jamming together, and you know, it worked out very well, and so we decided to make a band,” said Chun. “I don’t want to say it’s a project band, because I don’t want to relegate our band to a project, but the idea was let’s do as much as we can this year,” said Chun who will be graduating in the spring. “We felt like live music was kind of being killed out on our campus, so we wanted to be a driving force in bringing live music back to campus.”

One of the missions of Prospect is to provide Georgetown students with accessible live music, while also giving back to the community. “We are trying to grow the music scene on campus, all of our really big events are generally fundraisers, so I think that’s a big part of it,” said Larsen.

Griffin Elliott has seen how Prospect has shaped his experience as a student artist, “Prospect is valuable largely because they have a lot of sound equipment which is super expensive and hard to store,” said Elliott, “they’re really there to facilitate shows happening on a more technical and organizational side, Prospect has been awesome.”

Prospect has made a noticeable difference for student bands and artists, “Prospect is a central important resource for musicians on campus,” said Elliot. “They have been the connecting tissue, through the connection between students and student performers, and school officials,” said Chun, “I think it is hard for individual students, and individual bands to reach out to the school and ask for permission to perform, but if we go through Prospect, the school is more willing to hear us.”

To the members of No One And The Elses, live music has shaped their college experience, which was made possible through the support, organization, and promotion by Prospect. “I think the importance of it (live music) is really that there is a huge community of people at any given college that would love to be in a band if they’re not already,” said Elliot, “and if they’re in a band, they want places to perform and opportunities to do their thing.”

For Elliot, writing and performing music has been a major part of his life, before and now during college. He said that music is one of the most important things in his life, “the most gratifying thing is the feeling of being on stage and having a well-rehearsed set, and knowing how it’s going to go,” said Elliot.

Giving young artists the platform to perform their music has been important in building community at Georgetown. “I think people really liked it, I think if we prepare better next time, there will be a bigger turnout, and there will be a better way for us to promote, but I think for how quick we got everything together, with the help of Prospect, it was a very successful turnaround,” said Chun while reflecting on the Saint Patrick’s Day weekend show.

Georgetown is seeing a resurgence in the live music scene on campus, primarily due to the efforts of Prospect in promoting student voices. “I always think that if you can go to an event that has a DJ versus live music, I would probably always chose live music just because it is more exciting to me,” said Elliott, “I think that is the case at least for a lot of people, it is important to have moments like that just because it builds student culture, and lets the kids at Georgetown have a chance to express themselves in the way that they want to and it is just a lot of fun for everybody that gets involved.”