Three Song Stories

Joshua Conyers is an Assistant Professor of Voice at the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester, and a Grammy-nominated Baritone who is known for his captivating performances and recognized as one of the leading dramatic voices of today. He has performed with The Metropolitan Opera, Seattle Opera, Washington National Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, English National Opera, New York P...

Bill Bowen is a singer/songwriter/computer engineer who grew up in Fort Myers but headed off to New York City in the 90s, in part to live the big city life and in part to be able to see Moxy Früvous shows.  Bill is also the former roommate and Foosball partner of WGCU’s own Mike Kiniry. SONG 1: "Garden Party" released in 1972 by Rick Nelson & The Stone Canyon Band on the album of the same name...

Andrew Lipke is a composer, producer, arranger, conductor, vocalist, multi-instrumentalist, and educator who has toured for more than a decade with the Led Zeppelin tribute band Get The Led Out and performed as a vocalist with Steve Hackman's Brahms V Radiohead symphonic synthesis ; and he collaborates with World Café Live on music education programs for underserved youth in the Philadelphia area....

Mickela Mallozzi is host and Executive Producer of Bare Feet with Mickela Mallozzi , a PBS travel series that showcases the diversity of dance from around the world Mickela is a professional dancer and trained musician who had a dream in 2010 about travelling the world with a camera while dancing in the lives of everyday people. Since dreaming that dream she’s collected four Emmy Awards for the sh...

Christina Goh is a French composer, poet, and vocalist whose multidisciplinary universe includes digital art, poetry and musical creation. She’s the initiator of a vocal technique for accompanying high range percussion and she’s a member of the Board of Directors of the French Association for Percussion.  Christina has performed her music from Indonesia to Canada, demonstrating her vocal technique...

Kim Dunham was born in Pennsylvania but grew up in Michigan. She moved to Connecticut after high school and lived there for about six years before moving to Florida in 1999. Kim’s been working at WGCU since 2019 as part of the membership team.  SONGS AND LINKS The original opening 20th Century Fox intro into the original theatrical release of Star Wars in 1977.  https://youtu.be/oJguy6wSYyI?si=SRw...

Madison Morris is a singer-songwriter who focuses on bringing his storytelling nature to light over top of an Americana sound - playing more than 200 live performances throughout the year as a full-time musician. He co-wrote "We're All Still Here" with his wife in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian after they were displaced from their home and lost so much. It was included on the official ballot for G...

Scott Turow is a writer and attorney. He is the author of fourteen works of fiction, including Presumed Innocent , and most recently, Presumed Guilty , which hit the shelves in January of this year. All of his novels have been New York Times bestsellers. His works have been the basis for film and television projects…last year Apple TV+ released an eight-part limited series based on Presumed Innoce...

Tom Bayles is Senior Environmental Reporter at WGCU. A lifelong Florida journalist, Tom has covered stories in 67 counties, including plenty of hurricanes. Tom covers climate change, biodiversity, water quality and quantity issues, Everglades restoration efforts, endangered and invasive species, beach and coastal issues, and the intersections of global warming and the economy, politics, religion,...

Mary Bichner is an orchestral composer with synesthesia - that’s the neurological condition that allows her to see splashes of specific colors in her mind’s eye when she hears their corresponding pitches. Mary has served as composer-in-residence at The Vasilicos of Santorini in Greece, for which she composed a new string quartet work inspired by the colors of the world-famous Santorini sunset; she...

Randy Kambic has written hundreds of articles for The Fort Myers News-Press, Southwest Florida Parent & Child Magazine, The Banner, Florida Weekly and now The Naples Press. He compiled a regular weekly section on recreational tennis and golf for the Coastal Life section of the News-Press for more than two years; Prior to that, he working in public relations in NYC for more than 25 years for se...

Jeff James is a Director of Professional TTEC Digital - and he's also the author of a self-published children's book called Brainbows: A First Reference Book for Very Young Minds . He describes himself as a music geek who spends his spare time listening to music, playing music (guitar mostly), or exploring music and looking for songs and artists that aren't famous but should be. See omnystudio.com...

Renée Benmeleh is a multi-cultural vocalist, composer, instrumentalist and teacher. She has been joyfully singing Improv, Jazz, World, Ritual, and her own Original music for more than 20 years in the San Francisco Bay Area. She’s the founder and agile facilitator at Sound Nourishment where she leads monthly classes, workshops, and events. She is also a Drum Circle Facilitator, and a childhood musi...

Chris Keys has been in the restaurant business for just over 30 years and has spent almost 18 of those years with Melting Pot. He’s been an Owner/Operator of the Fort Myers restaurant since 2018. Before he settled in with Melting Pot, Chris worked with a few different national restaurants that include Checkers, Lonestar Steakhouse, and TGIFriday's. But he says most places he’s worked at were indep...

Judge Michael Cicconetti is a retired Municipal Court Judge who served for more than 25 years in his hometown of Painesville, OH. He gained a nationwide reputation during his time on the bench for handing down sentences that could be accurately described as unique in certain cases. For instance, teenagers who flattened tires on school buses were ordered to throw a picnic for the school children wh...

Shirlette Ammons is a Durham, NC-based musician, writer, and producer who grew up in rural Eastern North Carolina in an area called Beautancus near the little town of Mount Olive (where they make the pickles). As a musician, Shirlette has released four albums including her latest, called Spectacles which came out in April of 2024. She’s published several books of her poetry, and is currently worki...

Mark Rodriguez is a stonemason who was born and raised and still lives in Sante Fe, NM. Mark is on a very short list of people who have received two double lung transplants. Mark’s experiences and trials have brought him to a place where bringing a message of resilience, perseverance, and great faith has become central to his perspective, which he brings to his work as an author, international spe...

Matthew Sabatella is a Hollywood, FL-based musician who performs regularly, both as a solo artist and as the leader of the Rambling String Band. He earned first-place ribbons in the 2019 Florida Folk Festival’s Old-Time Banjo Competition and the 2023 Florida Old-Time Music Championship’s Old-Time Banjo and Singing competitions. Matthew also teaches about America’s music at Lifelong Learning Instit...

Dr. Mark Schulman is an award-winning pollster and was co-founder & CEO of one of the nation’s largest survey research & polling firms, SRBI. He's has worked with news media, major corporations, foundations, and government. For news organizations he has tracked presidential job ratings, political campaigns, analyzed election results, and probed policy issues.   Dr. Schulman served as Time...

Dr. Joe Kiniry (Mike's big brother) - is a Principal Scientist at a Portland, Oregon-based technology company called Galois. He’s also the Principled CEO and Chief Scientist of a Galois spin-out company called Free & Fair that works on high-assurance election technologies and services. Prior to joining Galois in 2014, Joe was a Full Professor at the Technical University of Denmark where he hea...

Jeff Marks is a retired journalist and television executive who grew up and started his career as a radio reporter in Kentucky. He's held senior management positions in television newsrooms in Kentucky and Washington, D.C. including serving as general manager for television stations in Maine, New Jersey, Georgia and Virginia. Jeff became known worldwide in 2015 as the public face of WDBJ-TV in Roa...

Marc Collins serves on The City of Ft. Myers Planning Board, the Ft. Myers Charter Review Committee, and since late 2022 he’s been the Executive Director of the Uncommon Friends Foundation. The list of the nonprofits and other local organizations he’s either directly involved with or that he supports somehow is far too long to list here. Marc is very involved in the Southwest Florida arts and soci...

Griogair Labhruidh is a Scottish singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist whose distinct musical stylings merge Scottish Gaelic language, music, and cosmology with modern influences like analog boom-bap, hip-hop and soul-inflected jazz, creating a truly unique sound. Griogair has gained international recognition for his voice as a featured soundtrack artist and songwriter on the TV series Out...

Tracy Waugh is co-founder of a dark wave cover band called the Lovecats with her best friend Missy Balsam. These days, she sings in the cover band Rockadelic with Joe Palumbo and Dan Wolkoff.  Tracy has been in a series of original bands since high school, she says her favorite being Space Vacuum (From Outer Space). They released their album Starcade in 2005 on Dionysus Records. It featured songs...

Eric King s a senior interpretive naturalist with the Miami-Dade County Parks, Recreation, and Open Spaces Department. He manages and conducts nature-based education at Castellow Hammock Nature Center & Preserve in Redland Eric is also an avid butterfly and vegetable gardener as well as an eclectic musician who writes and produces everything from folk to cinematic music - and he’s currently in...