As the new semester begins, new music will soon hit the Rowan community, too. The music scene at Rowan has been expanding, and there are plenty of new bands and artists to discover. 

For first-year or transfer students interested in specifically alternative music, the Rowan Alternative Music Club (RALT)  has just finished its first-semester meeting. This time with a new executive board hopes to bring in new members, new events, and a better consistency of their gatherings. 

Over the weekend, RALT held their first welcome-back meeting at the Boyd Recital Hall. The meeting was held at 4:30 p.m. this past Saturday, and new members experienced one of the Rowan community’s bands: LVNA. To start the meeting, there was an introduction to the new executive board. 

Andy Ciardella, a senior music industry major with a concentration in technology, took the place of the former president, as some of the board members graduated last semester. As he leads and oversees most of the operations of the organization, his future task is to incorporate past elements from previous years into Rowan Alternative. 

“So it’s really like taking a little bit from every single year I’ve been a member and trying to, you know, take my favorite parts of role, and I guess, like Frankenstein, it together almost,” Ciardella said.

Ciardella also stated that he wants to improve the accessibility of RALT’s shows that they will eventually put together. 

“My goal is also to make shows more accessible to, I would say, for on-campus students. We’re known to do a lot of off-campus shows or shows at houses, but when I was a freshman, I definitely would have appreciated more stuff to be accessible to me,” said Ciardella, “…because I was living on campus. I didn’t have a car, I didn’t have a way to make it really off campus that made me feel safe at night.” 

Maddie Reddy who serves as the marketing chair for the club, as well as one of the singers from LVNA, agrees that some of these events can be more accessible for students who do not have the resources to get to a show. 

“I loved playing in the Student Center pit for Battle of Bands. I would love for us to do another show there, just because, I like, having everybody on all of the levels like above and just looking down on us,” said Reddy, “then having people filling the Student Center pit was really cool. So yeah, just utilizing our Rowan spaces more.” 

Reddy hopes to bring in more members for the club as well as increase the number of events that they have held in past semesters. Reddy and Ciardella believe that the meetings should also include time to socialize with other members. She specifically explained that it can be hard to have that time during a concert when most people are there for the music. However, she is determined to increase the club’s membership through her promotion, which she has already done via Instagram, and passing out flyers about RALT.

For the treasurer of RALT, Elizabeth Grecco, this has become a safe space for her. Not just because of the music, but because of the many friends she has made attending each show. 

“It feels so special, and I’m so grateful to experience this, just like RALT and putting on shows with my friends, and I just hope to see the Rowan and Glassboro music scene grow more and that it stays alive after we graduate,” Grecco said.

Grecco hopes incorporating more social events like game nights or acoustic nights will help students network with each other, and also help members form bands through their love for music. 

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