Three Song Stories

Rob Kovacs is a multi-award-winning video game composer, pianist, songwriter, and Twitch streamer who bridges the worlds of gaming and music. He’s known online as 88bit, and performs at major gaming events like PAX, MAGFest, and TwitchCon.  Rob made history in 2005 when he was a senior in college when he became the first person to perform Steve Reich’s Piano Phase solo on two pianos at once…one pi...

Jason Colannino is a singer-songwriter who was born and raised on the Jersey shore but has called Boynton Beach home since the early 90s. Jason has recorded four albums of his original songs: Since 1969 , Piece of the Sun , Lost in Vacation , and his most recent A Hawaiian Music Tribute , which is a collection of cover songs by Hawaiian songwriters because in recent years Jason added the ukulele t...

Gabe McCauley is an Emmy-winning writer, actor, director, and storyteller who says he is driven by a singular purpose: to shape the culture of tomorrow through the power of film.  As founder of lilDRAGON and Soul Feather Studios, Gabe has built a creative legacy across genres and formats, from network TV to indie film and the feature film Heaven Bound. He’s directed nine seasons of national televi...

Sean Dietrich is Known to many or most as Sean of the South. He's Sean is a columnist, novelist, and stand-up storyteller known for his commentary on life in the American South. His work has appeared in Newsweek, Southern Living, Reader's Digest, Garden & Gun, and his column appears in newspapers throughout the U.S. He’s published fifteen books, makes the Sean of the South Podcast, and has app...

Alexis Aggrey is a director and producer who has worked with public television, cable TV, and museum clients for more than 15 years, creating documentary content that educates and inspires. In 2016, she produced three galleries of media on African American History and Culture for the Smithsonian in Washington, DC. She formed The Aggrey Company in 2019, it’s a production company she describes as a...

Jeannine Joy is the President and CEO of United Way of Lee, Hendry, and Glades Counties. She began her journey with the organization in 1995 as a Campaign Associate and has since held several leadership roles, including Vice President of Resource Development and Marketing, before assuming the CEO position in June 2019. Over her 30-year tenure, Jeannine has helped raise and distribute more than $24...

Scott Fais is host of Florida Road Trip produced by WUCF in Orlando and broadcast on PBS stations around the state including WGCU. Prior to joining Florida Road Trip in late 2023, Scott spent two decades in Central Florida as a television reporter, producer, and director. He hosted Florida on a Tankful for about a decade on News 13 in Orlando and Bay News 9 in Tampa. SONG 1: “Holiday Road" by Lind...

Abraham Joseph is co-founder and CEO of a brand new app called “BoomBox” that he’s created with a team of current and former FGCU students - he himself is currently an MBA student at FGCU. With a background in psychology and a passion for music's connective power, Abraham has transformed his personal experiences of disconnection into a platform that fosters genuine connections through shared music...

Salem Ilese is a singer-songwriter who’s probably best known for her singles “Mad at Disney” and “PS5” both of which went viral relatively early on in her career. She’s sung at venues including Outside Lands, The Forum, and The Hollywood Bowl, and has toured multiple times throughout Asia. She’s worked with artists like Demi Lovato, and Gwen Stefani.  Salem began her songwriting career at the age...

Stella Cole is a singer who has preformed at Carnegie Hall and Madison Square Garden, and in 2023, she worked with Scott Bradlee’s Postmodern Jukebox, touring the country, as well as Australia and New Zealand. She’s now released two albums independently with Grammy-winning producer Matt Pierson – one called simply “Stella Cole” and the other “Snow!” which featured a duet with Glee TV and Broadway...

Koura Linda is Founder & CEO of Space Dream Productions, an independent film, music, and media production company that is “grounded in the idea that all storytellers are ambassadors of humanity.”  Following a sudden and critical medical event, Koura was forced to reevaluate her life and she decided to move forward with her physical limitations and disabilities by creating an accessible space f...

Nick Berg is an American-Iranian author who was born in Tehran in 1967 to an Iranian mother and an American father, experiencing Iran’s vibrant culture and its political upheavals. His novel, Shadows of Tehran , mirrors his life through the protagonist, Ricardo, reflecting Nick’s struggles with identity, betrayal, and redemption. Nick moved to the U.S. when he was 20 and served in U.S. Army Specia...

Jason Chapin was a producer on the documentary film “Harry Chapin: When In Doubt, Do Something” which told the story of his father’s musical career and humanitarian work. And he is a producer of the soon-to-be-released “Cat’s in the Cradle 50th Anniversary Celebration” - it’s a film about the Harry Chapin’s #1 hit song that continues to impact countless lives around the world on so many levels.  J...

Zach Smith is the owner and operator of Ceremony Brewing in Bonita Springs. After nearly a decade of teaching in Collier County Public Schools, Zach's passion for the hospitality industry led him to open Ceremony Brewing in in 2021. Growing up, Zach often felt like an outsider. He was raised by a single, working-class dad and they didn’t have the luxuries that people often associate with Naples. A...

John Greene is a three-time leukemia survivor, who has channeled his grit into fundraising and advocacy for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, walking alongside others on the long road of recovery. Outside of work, he chases mountain trails, grilling the perfect steak, spending just enough time in the pool, watching Philly sports, and finding the next Phish jam — sometimes from the stage with hi...

Clarke is a musician and artist whose improvised and mostly unstructured guitar pieces built up from multiple improvised layers create a dreamlike, atmospheric soup of sound. His first solo album "Hear Us Through the Hole in Thin Air" came out in 2020. His next "A Theory of Color," is in the final stages of production now. In 1981 he put together a band that would go on to be notorious in the Texa...

Lance Wissinger is a speaker, entrepreneur, and political strategist whose life took a turn in 2003 when a car accident with him behind the wheel led to a five-year prison sentence for vehicular manslaughter.   While incarcerated, he founded successful programs that empowered fellow inmates through business planning, public speaking, and personal growth. He went on to become an advocate for justic...

Dan Mangan is a Vancouver, BC-based musician. Dan has played Jimmy Kimmel Live, Glastonbury, and sold out Massey Hall, as well as scored soundtracks for television and feature film. He is also a co-founder of Side Door, a marketplace platform connecting artists with alternative venue spaces for in-person & online shows. Dan has won 2 JUNO Awards and is thrice Polaris Music Prize-nominated for...

Phonte Coleman is best known as a founding member of hip-hop group Little Brother , and as one of the co‑hosts of the podcast Questlove Supreme with Questlove.  In the late 90s, Phonte met Thomas “Big Pooh” Jones and Patrick “9th Wonder” Douthit and they started making music together as the hip-hop collective, Justus League and released their first album The Listening in 2003. They changed their n...

Joe Harley makes music under his moniker Hotel Life, which signed to 9 Lives Records in 2023. He began playing guitar in the Fort Myers bar scene in 1993 with a number of bands including Potato Gun and Strip Club Moms. Potato Gun played the official grand opening of FGCU in 1997. Joe moved to St Pete in 2000 to be in an original rock band there and then moved back to Matlacha in 2002 where he got...

 Petar Kodzas was born in what’s now Serbia but was, at the time, Yugoslavia. During college, Petar toured and recorded as a lutenist with an early music ensemble; he played over 100 shows at the professional musical theatre, sat in jazz sessions, and performed throughout the former Yugoslavia as a musical ambassador for the international organization Jeunesses Musicales. Petar was also Senior Ins...

Jameson Yingling is a filmmaker, philosopher, and social entrepreneur who's work focuses on existentialism, phenomenology of aging and death, postcolonialism, and ecological interdependence. He is an FGCU and Teach For America alum, and he was a founding partner of the Bonita Springs media company Sugarshack. Right now Jameson is spending time as a guest lecturer at FGCU helping to lead what’s cal...

Desmond Meade is a MacArthur Genius Grant Fellow; a Nobel Peace Prize nominee, and having been named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time Magazine. He's also’s author of the 2020 book “Let My People Vote: My Battle to Restore the Civil Rights of Returning Citizens.” Desmond is President of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition -- the organization that led the successful e...

Edward “Teddy” Byrne is a Producer and Writer at WGCU on the “Southwest Florida in Focus” TV show team. After earning degrees in Journalism and Psychology from Keene State College Teddy settled in Southwest Florida starting with a job with WINK News.  As a Sports Producer there, he had the opportunity to tag along with the FGCU Men’s Basketball team during their epic “Dunk City” adventure to the S...

 Lainey Schooltree is a musician, comedian, streamer, and former half of the musical comedy duo The Steamy Bohemians . She then formed the solo art rock project Schooltree. When the pandemic hit, she began performing on Twitch and found that live-streaming offered the interdisciplinary playground she'd been after. What began as a temporary pivot became a long-term transformation and these days she...