Want to hear more?

Song Sessions Vol. 1 (featuring the Fall 2009 Music 450 class) is available at Blue State Coffee, 300 Thayer Street in Providence. It is also available at the Dean of the College office, Room 218, 2nd floor of University Hall, Brown University. Office hours are 9am - 5pm weekdays. The price is $10 for the two-CD set.

Song Sessions Vol. 1 is also available from the online CD store CDBaby. (There the price is $15.)

All proceeds from CD sales will go toward covering production costs. Any money beyond that will go into a Music 450 "songwriter fund" to help support songwriters and songwriting at Brown.

Thanks to...

About the GISP...

This fall eight of the students from last year's Music 450 class (fall 2008) collaborated with Profs. Katherine Bergeron and Butch Rovan in a Group Independent Study Project (GISP) on Advanced Songwriting. The students created their own syllabus and assignments, including the challenge to write a new song each week. Over the course of the semester they collectively wrote more than eighty songs.

The class had its midterm concert on October 28, 2009, and its final concert on December 6, 2009 in Grant Recital Hall. Below are live recordings from both concerts.... (click and hold on the arrow at the right of the playbar to download -- choose "Save as Source")

MIDTERM CONCERT - October 28, 2009

1. Roman Gonzalez: Rocking Chair

2. Ben Nicholson: All the Small Things

3. Julie Osburne-Rothstein: Sally (with Josh Garcia on guitar)

4. Josh Garcia: a new song...

5. Parker Silzer: Valley Bridge

6. Rosalind Schonwald & Julie Osburne-Rothstein: My Madness

7. Jeremy Noah: Astral Companion (with Jonathan Leibovic on piano and background vocals)

8. Jonathan Leibovic: Jenny and the Ghost

9. Rosalind Schonwald: Grow (with Ben Nicholson on guitar)

10. Ben Nicholson: Citalopram

11. Josh Garcia: Dawn's Broken Crutch

12. Julie Osburne-Rothstein: Me and You (with Ben Nicholson, bass; Jonathan Leibovic, piano)

13. Jeremy Noah: Stays the Same

14. Rosalind Schonwald: He (with the rest of the class)

15. Parker Silzer: Arizona (Julie Osburne-Rothstein, lead vocal)

16. Ben Nicholson/Jonathan Leibovic: I'll Roll Back to You

17. Roman Gonzalez: Tribute

18. Josh Garcia: Hands in Our Pockets

FINAL CONCERT - December 6, 2009

1. Josh Garcia: Faster from the Sun (with Rosalind Schonwald, vocals)

2. Roman Gonzalez: Good St. George

3. Julie Osburne-Rothstein & Jeremy Noah: Wild Thing

4. Jeremy Noah: They Took the Kids Away

5. Katherine Bergeron & Butch Rovan: It Rains in His Heart
(with Parker Silzer, guitar; Ben Nicholson, bass)

6. Rosalind Schonwald & Ben Nicholson: The Ballad of Seamus Taylor

7. Ben Nicholson: Pink Pills (with Butch Rovan, tenor sax)

8. Parker Silzer: Easy Going, Easy Gone (Julie Osburne-Rothstein, voice; Jonathan Leibovic, keyboards; Parker Silzer, guitar; Ben Nicholson, bass)

9. Ben Nicholson: Coathanger

10. Rosalind Schonwald: Fish and Lobster

11. Parker Silzer & Jonathan Leibovic: Fjord

12. Jonathan Leibovic: Neverland (with Jeremy Noah, guitar)

13. Roman Gonzalez: Hotline Again (with Ian Fields, cello)

14. Julie Osburne-Rothstein: Worry Away (Julie, lead voice; Katherine Bergeron, Rosalind Schonwald, Jane Doe, backup vocals; Parker Silzer, guitar; Ben Nicholson, bass)

15. Josh Garcia: O Holy Night (with Butch Rovan, clarinet)

16. Josh Garcia: All Ye Shackled Men (rest of the class, backup vocals)

songwriting GISP

fall 2009 GISP (group independent study project)

Want to hear more?

Thanks to...

About the GISP...