Members from the Iona faculty and staff kicked off the semester on Sept. 14 with a back-to-school concert on the new Murphy Green on Iona’s campus.  

The concert took place in the newly paved stone amphitheater, just above the grass area of the Murphy Green, outside the Lapenta Dining Hall. 

A crowd of students, staff and other members of the Iona community gathered to watch the event, where professors and faculty from a mix of departments played several songs mainly from the genres of jazz and blues.  

Professor Eodice (Philosophy), Professor Rosado (Music), Professor Umashankar (Religious Studies), Professor Veyvoda (Communication Studies and Disorders), Professor Ivanov (Computer Science) and Professor Kinney (Information Technology), were the professors and faculty performing at the concert.  

The concert, hosted by Professor Adam Rosado, who played the saxophone, started with “Key to the Highway,” before the professors played “Crossroads,” “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” and “I Need Your Love So Bad.”  

Rosado was also the faculty member from the music department who organized the event and practiced before the concert for the faculty.  

The concert then progressed into some jazz standards including “Summertime,” “Autumn Leaves,” “Green Sleeves,” “Back in Black,” “Sunshine of your Love” and “Mojo Working” before the concert concluded with the professors playing “Twist and Shout” by the Beatles.  

“People seemed to enjoy it as much as we enjoyed playing,” said Professor Eodice, who sang and played the bass guitar. “They certainly seemed to enjoy listening, that’s why we do this, it’s to make people happy, and I think they were.”  

Professor Rosado spoke about the atmosphere created by the Iona University community crowd. 

“It’s always wonderful to feed off a crowd; the crowd today was really good, they were engaged, people were laughing and having fun,” Rosado said.  

“So much of what we do as faculty is for the community, teaching students and helping their lives get better from it, so this was an extension of that, just a little bit of a different kind,” Rosado said. “The crowd seemed to enjoy it and that made everyone happy and feel good playing.”