By Madelyn Stone

News Correspondent

Some of Northeastern’s best musicians proved they don’t need electric instruments to make a buzz.
Sharing original songs and pop music covers, four students provided diverse acoustic entertainment Tuesday night at afterHOURS for the fifth NU Unplugged event. Founded at the beginning of the semester by Ben Mallare, a junior music industry major, Unplugged provides Northeastern singer-songwriters with the chance to collaborate with one another and perform their music throughout the year.
Middler communication studies major Rhianna LaRocque, sophomore computer science and music technology major Dan Arias, sophomore biology major and music industry minor Renée Pelletier, and sophomore  music industry major Dan Harcourt each performed three songs they rehearsed the week before.
“Every single performance we have four featured artists,” Harcourt said. “Each artist does three songs in a rotating cycle, two originals and one cover.”
Though the artists have their own solo projects, Unplugged provides an opportunity for the musicians to collaborate. The performers provide feedback for each other in rehearsals and contribute vocal and instrumental harmonies throughout each other’s performances.
“It’s a group, but it’s individual performers,” said Pelletier. “It’s giving those performers a chance to be themselves but it’s also collaborating. So I think it’s great because it’s allowing all these individuals to evolve within a group. It’s giving us all a chance to become better musicians and produce better music.”
Harcourt said he also appreciated the cooperation within the group.
“I really like the collaboration aspect of it all,” he said. “In the end it’s really a bunch of musicians hanging out together. It’s just kind of a free, open-ended, creative and friendly environment for cultivating music that we want to. I love almost every aspect about it.”
Ryan Sweezey, a sophomore journalism major with a music history and analysis minor, performed at two Unplugged events earlier this year. He also commented on the positives of collaborating with other musicians.
“It’s definitely a good thing to have multiple performers, because you get people going to see the other performers that [as a result] see you too,” he said. “I’ve played in afterHOURS on on random nights and it’s essentially playing for the Starbucks workers because nobody comes.”
Among those who attended Tuesday’s show was Nina Sennott, a senior human services major. She said she enjoyed the collaboration between the performers.
“It was amazing,” she said. “Their voices were amazing, and totally unique, and it was just refreshing to hear. I loved how they played off of each other. I never really see that ever, so I thought that was pretty cool. You can tell the chemistry between them, and they were all helping each other out. I loved it.”
Ryan La Sala, a middler anthropology and international affairs major, designed the Unplugged logo and helped advertise the group’s shows. He said he appreciates the smaller, more intimate nature of the Unplugged events.
“I really like that it’s a very organic environment,” he said. “It’s very authentic in that it portrays musicians as musicians. Sometimes the songs are brand new, sometimes it’s the first time they’ve ever been performed live in front of an audience at any sort of public venue, and I think there’s something intimate about hearing someone’s creation for the first time.”
Mallare developed the idea for Unplugged and helped organize the group’s events since the project began with a pilot show in September. Along with the Unplugged co-founders, including Harcourt and Lindsay Donald, Mallare coordinated an audition process to add more musicians to the group.
“We had thirty people send us submissions and we chose ten people to come try out,” he said. “Then we chose six out of them to be in the group. There were lots of great people we saw but we wanted to keep it pretty small, so there are 13 people in the group right now.”
But Mallare says the organization plans to expand in the future.
“We’re always accepting submissions,” he said. “We’re always going to be adding people. The email address is [email protected] and we want submissions from everybody.”
Harcourt suggested that those interested in becoming involved with Unplugged attend a show.
“If you want to be part of this group of songwriters, send us a video or come in and do a live performance,” he said. “You must be able to at least play one unplugged instrument. You must be able to do your own original material.”
Students can support Unplugged by attending their upcoming shows. Harcourt promised the performances  would not disappoint.
“Never expect a bad performance,” he said. “We’re continuously adding on new people so you’re bound to find something that you love.”