The Official Student News Media of Southeastern Louisiana University

The Lion's Roar

The Official Student News Media of Southeastern Louisiana University

The Lion's Roar

The Official Student News Media of Southeastern Louisiana University

The Lion's Roar

    Guitar Fest combines multiple genres during All Styles Night

    Southeastern’s 2013 Guitar Festival continued with All Styles Night on Monday, April 15. Students, teachers and coworkers brought together genres such as jazz, bluegrass, pop, Christian and classical.
    Soloists Trey Bourgeois and Shane Zeringue opened the performance with acoustic guitar.  Emma Mosely followed with both guitar and voice performance with the song “Fire and Rain” by James Taylor.  Shannon Guitreau and Blake Guidry continued with a bluegrass medley of “I’ll Fly Away” and “I Saw the Light.”
    Despite forecast skies, the concert proceeded as planned. Patrick Kerber, director of Guitar Fest, introduced the next performance with a joke about it being a perfect “Louisiana night” for the concert and introduced Clint Rushing’s song “Windy and Warm” as fitting for the evening.  
    Andreina Colina, violinist, and Jojo Wight on electric guitar followed Rushing with a unique performance of “Something” by the Beatles and “Do You Know What it Means to miss New Orleans.” Kerber described the two diverse genres.
    “The first one was obviously pop music,” said Kerber. “It was a Beatles song, popular American pop music. ‘Do you Know What it Means to miss New Orleans’ that’s a traditional Dixie Land jazz tune.”
    Student band The Telegraph Salesmen followed with a humorous original song, “The Girl from Barcelona” with Nathan Heck on bass, Miles Lyons on drums, Matt Dalmann on trumpet and Carter MacFarland on guitar, who wrote the song for All Styles Night. The group plays in two different classes at Southeastern together, as well as outside of the classroom.
    “We’re all in the jazz band together and the jazz combos,” said MacFarland. “We practice together though about once a week.”
    The final and most well received group of the crowd consisted of three guitarists Jody Mayeux, Blake Guidry and Zackary Bonner. Mayeux is a sponsor of Guitar Festival and a teacher who owns Jody Mayeux’s Music Shop. The trio was originally only supposed to play two songs, “Autumn Leaves” and “Just a Closer Walk With Thee,” but the crowd convinced the group to continue.
    “There’s a little bit of improvisation with the last group,” said Kerber. “Originally they were only going to play two pieces, but I knew they’d be good.”
    Right before their impromptu song, “Watermelon Man” ended, it began to rain. Performers and several attendees came together to pick up the musical instruments and equipment before the weather ruined it.
    According to Kerber, it was difficult to bring together such a variety of genres and musicians.  
    “There is absolutely no way for me to describe doing this,” said Kerber.
    “This is the most difficult thing for me to do all semester. Putting all this together is like herding cats. I rely on the talent of the students to put things together. I leave it up to the students. It’s open mic by audition. They talk to me. They play for me, and I approve. Then we put it together.”
    The Guitar Festival will end with the Southeastern Guitar Ensemble on April 24, at 7:30 p.m. in the Pottle Recital Hall.

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