UTA Radio hosts Neo-Fest, a night of neo-soul and spoken word poetry

Written by Marissa Hall

Monday, 24 March 2008 07:53 PM

UTA Radio introduces new music to students in the hopes of becoming a yearly event.

All semester long the UTA Radio staff has tried to attract attention toward their online station by disc jockeying other organizations' events.

Now the station has an event to call its own.

"Eventually doing events will lead to a lot more listeners and us being able to do additional stuff on campus," station manager Anthony Gordon said. "As we do more, people will take us more seriously."

The station will host Neo-Fest, a night of neo-soul music and spoken word poetry, at 7 p.m. Wednesday in the Maverick Activities Center Lone Star Auditorium. The event celebrates neo-soul music, which takes classic soul music and combines it with hip-hop, Gordon said. Neo-soul culture also includes spoken word poetry.

"Neo-soul has a conscience and spoken word goes along with it," he said. "Neo-soul lyrics equate to spoken word."

Students will perform poetry alongside New Orleans spoken word poet GFSoldier and Mike Guinn, Fort Worth National Poetry Slam Team founder and member.

Dallas saxophonist Shaddow will also perform neo-soul music. Station promotions officer Shaunta Wiltz said the woodwind artist inspired her to create the event.

"I had Shaddow in the studio and I kept in touch with him," she said. "His music is real neo-soul. I thought we should have a fest with poetry and soul singers."

Station program director Tonesha Winters said the professional acts are appearing for free, which helped them have the event at no cost to the station.

"All the professional acts I talked to were like 'that’s great, we'd love to do that,' " Gordon said. "They want to reach out and touch somebody else so they can become better in the future."

Winters said the event has something for everybody, just like their station. Since working at the station, she has found different genres of music that she enjoys. Neo-Fest could introduce students to a new music genre too, she said.

"It's an event for everyone, not just for people that like neo-soul," she said. "Anyone can get something out of it."

Winters and Gordon both would like for the event to become an annual one. They agree it will help make the station more visible.

"People don't know we have a radio station," Gordon said. "And the more we're out there and the more we're doing events and being a part of other groups' events, the more attention it will attract to the station."

Grant to fund UTA radio studio expansion

Written by Marissa Hall

Monday, 25 February 2008 07:51 PM

Broadcasting management junior Danny Chey dj's a radio show on UTA Radio.

The Communication Department has accepted a $10,000 bid to expand the UTA radio studio.

The renovations include adding two fully equipped single-person production booths, adding the radio office to the studio and fixing a hole in the floor, said Andrew Clark, radio adviser and assistant professor. One of the booths will be wheelchair accessible.

"The renovations will make it more efficient to broadcast," he said. "There are an increasing number of broadcast classes and we want to make sure there are enough booths."

The money came from a renovation project grant from the Provost's Office. Charla Markham Shaw, department chair and associate professor, wrote the proposal.

“The station still has the same equipment and setup it's had for years," she said. "The way it's set up is not the best. The real issue is trying to maximize the space."

Construction should start this summer or fall and will be completed as quickly as possible, Markham Shaw said.

The construction probably will not interfere with students working in the studio, but it depends on when construction begins, Clark said. If students are unable to broadcast, they can move to another studio in the building.

Clark, associate professor Tom Ingram and senior lecturer Brenda Jaskulske got the idea for the renovations when they attended the National Association of Broadcasters conference. They saw the booths and thought they were an inexpensive solution to create more space in the studio.

"We're trying to look at the program and plan for the present so students are prepared for their careers, but also plan for the future," Markham Shaw said. "We don't want to be tied to things that go extinct quickly."

News broadcast junior Tonesha Winters works as the station program director. She said the renovations will allow more broadcasting students to work at the same time.

"They've really thought of the students," she said. "I would have done the same thing with the money."

UTA Radio revamps its Web site, on-air shows

Written by Marissa Hall

Thursday, 21 February 2008 10:59 PM

Tonesha Winters hit one of the hundreds of buttons in the UTA radio studio.

'You're listening to the 'Underground Playground.' The time is 11:02," she said, interrupting the R&B song.

"That was your nice voice," radio news director Kate Rosas told Winters with a laugh.

Winters, broadcasting news junior and radio program director, and broadcast news senior Rosas laugh a lot on their new morning show "Underground Playground." Along with disc jockey Cassondra Dean, known as Black Dymond on the air, they discuss news, entertainment gossip and anything else relating to students.

The show is only one way the online station tries to improve itself, Winters said. Station staff also disc jockeyed the Homecoming Step Show for the first time, is planning a spring picnic and will host Neo-Fest, an event where poets and soul singers will perform, on March 13.

"Our goal is to get UTA radio on the map," she said. "More students should know about the station."

This is a change of pace that came when students from last semester’s Radio Production class collaborated to improve the station. Students wanting to be on UTA Radio must take the course.

"The people who took Radio Production last semester were really passionate," Winters said.

With only assistant communication professor and UTA Radio advisor Andrew Clark able to consistently help with the station, maintenance responsibilites lie mostly with the students, he said.

"The students we have at the moment are dedicated," he said. "I need reliable students to represent the station and the university, and that’s what we have."

The students are updating their Web site, which should be ready in March, Winters said.

Clark said if it was in the budget he would hire a full-time manager and an engineer to maintain the equipment. Two other professors help with the station some and, next fall, a new professor with a professional radio background will be hired, Clark said.

Winters said while there aren't many professors involved with the station, they're very supportive. Previously, she planed to attend the University of North Texas, but the professors here won her over.

"They really have you as their best interest," she said.

Had she attended UNT, Winters could have worked at a long-running station. They’ve owned a radio frequency since 1969, station general manager Russ Campbell said. Leonard Mogel's book "This Business of Broadcasting" named UNT's Radio, Television and Film Department one of the eight best college broadcasting programs in the country.

"One of the reasons why I think we're rated that way is because we've always had the goal of exposing our students to all areas of media," Campbell said. "Doing that makes a stronger department."

UNT's station also has two other full-time professional staff members.

Though UNT's station is bigger, Winters said she loves working at UTA Radio because the students here are dedicated to improving it.

"You really need students who want to do this to make it better," she said. "And we have them."

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