Struck with an idea in their WLTL management class early this year, Lily Dodge ‘24, Leo Dempsey ‘24, and Katie Beyer ‘23 came together to start up a new live music project that showcases student talents and musical abilities. It’s called WLTL Unplugged. 

“We get students to come to the studio with a guitar, singer-songwriter style, and we record them live-in person and put it on air afterwards,” Dempsey said.

LT students are the main demographic for these showcases, however, the group has been considering welcoming alumni and others into the studio, Dempsey said. With multiple successful recording sessions behind them, WLTL Unplugged is gaining momentum and looking to bring in more student musicians.

“My favorite part is seeing the different talents here at LT,” Beyer said. “We had LT musicians play, and we had an artist design the poster. It’s really cool to see.”

Each collaborator of the project has their own unique music tastes and experiences, so they have worked collaboratively on finding musicians, recording performances, and editing audio afterwards. Dodge, Dempsey, and Beyer each record different musicians, later working to put it all together and make a show out of it. Sparrow Fuller ‘24 (vocalist) and Ella Cuttica ‘24 (guitarist and vocalist) are two of the most recently featured LT musicians. 

“I get to listen to a bunch of people at LT who are in bands,” Dodge said. “I feel like it’s a really cool way to help people get experience and expand WLTL’s range of what we do with music.” 

The managers divide up the work evenly to schedule performances and get them on air. The group has new ideas for the future of the project, hoping to bring in bigger bands and more participants. New equipment is also in the works for WLTL Unplugged. With better equipment, the project would be able to host bands and bigger groups of people in the recording studio. This way, they are able to get a wider variety of performances and musicians featured. The current equipment can only be utilized with a specific type of music and a very small group. They hope to get the new materials up and running by next school year, Dempsey said. 

Current managers look to continue WLTL Unplugged in the 2024-2025 school year, with new leaders taking on the roles along with returning ones.

“In the future, we hope to have every artist featured that wants to be,” Beyer said. 

“WLTL would love to be a place where artists can stop by and showcase their abilities, and remind people that [it] is more than radio.”