MGG

Canechella this March was a blast! I had the chance to perform three different sets throughout the day with Skyrise, Julia Barrist, and Justin K. It was a fun challenge switching between rock, country, and pop styles back-to-back, and each set brought a different kind of energy to the stage.

All three acts are signed to Cane Records, UMiami's student-run label, and it was exciting to represent such a diverse lineup under one banner. Big thanks to everyone who showed up and supported live music on campus, and to the Cane Records team for putting together such a fun event.

On February 27th, we had the pleasure of playing an hour-long set at Patio Jams on the Lakeside Patio. After getting rained out last semester, we couldn't have asked for better weather this time around!

It was amazing to see so many people come out and enjoy the afternoon with us. There’s something special about performing outside, especially in Miami!

Huge thanks to everyone who stopped by and to Patio Jams for having us!

On February 21st, we played an hour-long set at Dear Eleanor, joined by Amplidyne and House of Conway. Both bands crushed it, and it was awesome sharing the stage with such talented musicians.

This show was extra exciting for us because we debuted three brand-new singles that will be dropping soon! We can't wait for you to hear the studio versions. A definite highlight of the night was our cover of Limp Bizkit's "Break Stuff."

Thank you to everyone who came and to Dear Eleanor for having us! Amplidyne and House of Conway were amazing, and it was an honor to share the night with them!

Recently, I had the privilege of participating in the Donna E. Shalala MusicReach performance at the Frost School of Music donor event, Winter Wonderful. MusicReach is an incredible program that provides free music education to children, and I’m so proud to be part of it as a guitar teacher and mentor.

Throughout the past semester, I’ve been teaching a wonderful group of kids how to play guitar and perform in a band with other young musicians. At Winter Wonderful, my students performed an arrangement of All I Want for Christmas Is You by Mariah Carey for the donors, and they did an amazing job! Watching them grow in both musical ability and confidence over the semester has been so rewarding, and I’ve truly enjoyed getting to know them better.

I’m especially grateful that several of my students are girls. It’s inspiring to see young girls taking an interest in guitar and rock music, which are often male-dominated spaces. They’re incredibly sweet, hardworking, and talented, and it’s a joy to support them on their musical journeys.

I’m so thankful for my MusicReach position and the opportunity to showcase my students’ hard work. I’m excited to continue helping them reach new milestones next semester. Thank you to the MusicReach director, Joseph Burleson, and coordinator, Zachary Brown, for this experience. Also, thank you to Eli Yaroch and Amanda Pasler for guiding me this semester; I cannot wait to continue learning from you.

I’m excited to announce the release of Skyrise’s latest single— an adaptation of This Christmas by Donny Hathaway– which is featured on the Frost Christmas album (A Very Frosty Christmas). This was my first time arranging a song, transforming Hathaway’s detailed chords with multiple extensions into two heavy rhythm guitar parts. My goal was to capture the full color and richness of the original chords while staying true to the energy of the metal genre in both my arrangement and production. 

The result is a unique and dynamic blend of holiday cheer and fierce hard rock—an approach that I believe sets this adaptation apart. Taking on this project was a fun challenge, and I love the product.

“All The Love She Has” by Skyrise is officially out on all streaming platforms as of 11/22!! This is by far my favorite song we have released, and I'm extremely proud of our product. This song also completes our first EP cycle, and now we are moving onto workshopping the originals we have written this past semester in order to record them next spring. I'm very excited for us to continue progressing our songwriting and marketing skills! I hope you all love ATLSH as much as I do! And get ready for our Christmas song coming out December 6th!

Thank you so much to Reed Spahn for producing and mixing this track, and to Clavixus for mastering it!

I performed an 18-song set of original country music with the Frost ensemble Sunshine State on Tuesday 11/5! This past semester has been a great introduction to country music for me, as I learned a lot about rhythm playing and improvisation in a very new genre. I really enjoyed analyzing the guitar parts of artists such as Brent Mason, Vince Gill, and Jason Isbell, in order to model their styles and incorporate them into my own playing. 

Thank you so much to Dr. Brian Russell for introducing me to this genre, guiding my learning, and giving me this opportunity! And thank you to my bandmates!

I had one of my favorite performances with the Frost ensemble LandFall on Monday 11/4! We performed 8 new original songs: “Blind to the Blame,” “Draw the Line,” “Hide it All,” “Come Alive,” “Lime in the Coconut,” “Crazy,” “Life in Shame,” and “Ignite.” Skyrise expects to release four of those songs as singles over next spring and summer! “Ignite” was fully written by me, and I plan on releasing it as a part of a separate MGG EP within the next year. Several of these songs will be featured on Skyrise’s and my own Youtube channels very soon. I have really enjoyed continuously improving my songwriting and musicianship in this ensemble, and I can’t wait to do it again next semester! 

Thank you so much to our instructor (and my guitar teacher) Dr. Brian Russell for guiding us this semester, and thank you to Frost for this opportunity! And, of course, thank you to my amazing bandmates 💜

I had an amazing time playing a Frost party with Skyrise on 10/19!! The turnout was great, and we had a lot of fun performing all of our originals.

I’m proud to share that Skyrise has just released our latest single, Pierce Through, on 10/10! I got to produce this track alongside our talented keyboardist, Jennifer Phan. In addition to my role in production, I played guitar on the song and contributed to the writing process.

This is my second time producing a track, and I’m thrilled with the results— it’s a step forward for us in terms of sound and production quality. One of the unique aspects of Pierce Through is the firework-inspired effects we incorporated into the production. We used bottle rocket whistles, bass booms, and static crackling to emphasize key moments, adding extra depth to our solo sections and interludes. This feature really gives the song a dynamic, electrifying energy.

Our friends have been saying it sounds like what you’d get if Halloween and the Fourth of July had a baby— and we’d love for you to give it a listen and share your thoughts! We hope you enjoy Pierce Through as much as we enjoyed creating it!