The “In the Studio” series presented musician Alexi Paraschos on Friday as he discussed how he became successful in the music industry.
Paraschos’ music has been licensed for use in 14 different television shows across seven major networks including A&E, MTV, VH1 and BET, according to the CRC website.
Paraschos has performed with four time Grammy Award winner Angelique Kidijo and he was a featured artist at the South by Southwest (SXSW) festival in 2017, according to the CRC website.
Music Professor Maxwell Kiesner talked about the importance of this event and why it’s worth attending.
“It’s important to understand from an artist’s perspective on what it means to become a musician,” Kiesner said. “The music that he writes is coming from a place of really deep joy and love and it’s important for people to see examples of that in modern popular music.”
Kiesner spoke about what students should be able to achieve from going to the event.
“I want people to learn from his story, how he got started and how to be successful in music and try to take something away from that because we all need examples on how success manifests itself in the music industry,” Kiesner said.
Paraschos told students at the event that music was a career that he always wanted to do from a young age and anybody is able to pursue whatever career they set their mind to.
“I’m a big believer in what you want to do in your life,” Paraschos said. “Music has always been that thing for me and this is what I’m going to do as I get older.”
Paraschos said his undergrad degree was a huge help in his professional music artist career.
“The biggest way that my undergrad degree helped me in my professional music career is just having a degree and being able to get a side job to sustain myself as an artist.”
Three songs that are on Paraschos’ “Love Odyssey” album were discussed during the presentation.
The titles of the songs are “Love Odyssey,” “Distract Me” and “Mine.” Paraschos performed a live performance of his song “Mine” during the event.
The next song that was shared was “Caucasialosis” from Paraschos’ “25/8” album. He talked about how to be an ally operating in communities of color..
“I need to figure out how I can leverage the privilege that some good can come out of it,” Paraschos said.
Music Professor Kurt Erickson said he really enjoyed the event.
“It was great,” Erickson said. “I think it’s great when we can bring guest artists who are very open, honest and humble.”
Erickson said this event means more than just from a music perspective.
“It allows us to appreciate their music a lot more and connect to them on a more human level,” Erickson said.
Erickson mentioned one of his favorite moments about the event was the live performance that was done by Paraschos.
“One thing that I really liked was the live performance because it was so unexpected,” Erickson said.
The next CRC “In the Studio” event is on Nov. 5 and it’s called “CRC Music: In the Studio with Broadway Sacramento’s Scott Klier.”