On April 2, the audience squished into the Clark Thrift Store for Startup Sounds, a student music showcase. Their legs brushing against their neighbors’ thighs and their feet against the person in front of them. They sat patiently in the dimly lit room for the first act to start, see their friends’ accomplishments, listen to some music, and as the microphone host says, keep the hype train going. The host of Startup Sounds welcomes the first act, and the room comes to life.

Startup Sounds featured the students of the course MUSC 133, “Beginning A Music Career.” Professor Ash L’esperance decided after three years of teaching the class to organize an event and showcase for the aspiring musicians taking the course. 

“I’ve been part of this great cohort of teachers that are working on POP [Problems of Practice] classes. More and more we’re talking about how to get our classes out in the community and get our students to do more hands-on, real-life work. So naturally, for a music class, I thought, ‘okay, let’s perform a show!’”

Beginning a Music Career revolves around the lessons and knowledge L’esperance has developed over her years in the music industry, a career that has taken her from Nashville to Worcester. She and her husband, Eric, have a musical collaboration, titled Ash & Eric with numerous albums, EPs and singles proving their success in the field.

Despite whatever nerves Professor L’esperance held about the event, her hopes came to fruition. Every musician gave a wonderful performance. For some students, they had never sang in front of an audience before, yet their acts showed remarkable depth, confidence and stage presence.

Students Lydia Hadie and Caelan sang a beautiful song titled “Sunflower Kisses”, evoking feelings of summer, the dawn of new love and wanting to feel closer to somebody. Hadie performed two more songs later in the night, “Bus to Boston” and “Picture Frame”. Contrasting their earlier melody with Caelan, these songs described the feeling of being stuck and  rewinding to a previous, seemingly better time with somebody who has moved on.

Other musicians also exemplified the themes of feeling stuck, with songs expressing fears of watching other people and the clock moving onward while they can only watch.

Similarly, another performer, Kymani Shay describes their song, “Time Until It’s Done” embodying the message “you can’t do anything but move on.” 

The eight musicians performed a variety of genres from indie to game music to rap. 

Student Malcolm Kirby exhibited two songs from their video games: “Vs. Estelle” and “Aquamarine.” Kirby describes the difficulties of portraying emotion for bizarre scenarios like fighting a posh character named Estelle or a battle between the player and their mother-like figure underwater, but ultimately explains this sort of challenge is an example of why they love creating game music. 

Professor L’esperance then showcased her and her husband’s own song,“God Knows I’ve Tried.” Ash & Eric” sung with a background of soft acoustic. Their song begs a higher power to recognize the effort they exerted throughout their life. This was juxtaposed with another theme in the song, a current human relationship, supposedly built on an equal level of power, but ultimately one of pleading and sporadic affection, like the benevolent charity of a non-responding higher power. 

Near the end of the night, Caelan walked up to the stage, this time followed closely by Professor L’esperance. L’esperance spoke to the audience about how Caelan wanted to sing a song she herself wrote. L’esperance explained how, although originally Caelan planned to perform the song alone, she now wanted to sing with her too.

“For one of my students to come to me and say ‘I love your song so much, I wanna play it at the show’. As a musician, that’s why you do it. You want someone to be inspired by your music.” L’esperance later elaborated.

The pair sang Ash & Eric’s new single, “Chasing the Light,” and despite their lack of preparation, the song sounded beautiful with the soft guitar and subtle harmonies.

Although the audience’s butts hurt, they stayed for final remarks from L’esperance. She expressed how grateful she had a group of “ten perfect kids” to kick-off the new element of Beginning a Musical Career.