Music Men
OWU alumni Jasey Schnaars ’72, left, and Eric Gnezda ’79 are award-winning musicians and performers. They will perform Oct. 22 in nearby Worthington. (Photo courtesy of Eric Gnezda)
Award-winning songwriting, world-class musicianship, and splashes of humor will come alive when Ohio Wesleyan University alumni Eric Gnezda ’79 and Jasey Schnaars ’72 join Pete Cary and Arkadiy Gips in concert at 8p.m. Oct. 22 at the Peggy R. McConnell Arts Center of Worthington, 777 Evening St.
Gnezda, a Worthington resident and OWU visiting instructor of public speaking, tours nationally as a singer-songwriter and keynote speaker, has appeared on NPR and “Entertainment Tonight,” and was awarded Ohioana’s 2006 Citation for Music Composition. His latest CD, “Songs of Hope in a Changing World,” is available on iTunes, Amazon, and CDBaby.
Schnaars, an ASCAP-Award-winning songwriter, penned “Nothin’ Like Love,” a Top 10 country hit for the late Eddie Rabbitt, and is a founding member of the Kansas City Jammers, a ’70s band founded during his days at OWU, and which is enjoying a revival in popularity, thanks to an Internet movement that began in Austria. Schnaars, a Delaware resident, began playing guitar at age 8 and, at 12, played in a band at the legendary Main Point in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, where Jim Croce opened for him! His latest CD, “Jasey,” is available on iTunes, Amazon, and CDBaby.
Gips, a resident of Columbus, recently spent two years as a featured musician on Madonna’s latest world tour. Cary, a fluid songwriter of pop and country, is one of the region’s most in-demand guitarists, and has opened for John Hiatt, the late Steve Goodman and the Neville Brothers.
Concert tickets are $20 online and $25 in person.