Goa college students hosts musical jams online during lockdown

With the entire event scene moving online for a while, young event curators and musicians have started hosting bi-monthly online jams. Jeruel Paul, a management student from Goa University has been hosting his Monday Blues sessions live on social media where he collaborates with several musicians in Goa and other Indian cities to being some fun music to his audience.
"My main aim is to bring out quality talent from young upcoming musicians in Goa, and at the same time, divert the minds of people from the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, and give them something to enjoy .
Artistes have a 25 minute slot in which they perform and I also ask them questions about their musical journey and and talk about experiences, which music lovers usually enjoy," he says.
Yesterday's gig involved Emmanuel de Noronha (FY BA MassCom student from St Xavier's College), Loraine Lopes Lobo (class 12 student from St Xavier's Higher Secondary School), Leola Lopes Lobo (engineering student from Angel Institute of Technology) and Pearl D'souza (class 12 student from Sharada Mandir Higher Secondary School). Several other Goan musicians like Keane Cotta, Lester DeSouza and Sharlaine Menezes have performed in the earlier sessions. There were artistes like Jarryd Rodrigues and Sanjana Shenai from Mumbai and Madhavi Menon from Kochi too.
They play acoustic covers of pop, blues and jazz songs. "Some do originals that they've written as well. Some even improvise with instrumental improvs on the spot," adds Jeruel. Most of their music is in English, but they occasionally have Hindi songs too. "It's not restricted to any language," he says. Does he plan on continuing the online gigs after the lockdown? He says, "I usually curate a music/comedy shows and open mics. So after the lockdown, we'd be doing a combination of both, live shows and online shows."