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Music Tech Students Produce Award Winning Podcast

The Capital University awards showcase just got a little more crowded.

The Columbus Chamber of Commerce’s business-focused podcast, cbuzz – produced by Capital’s music technology students at Capital’s Convergent Media Center – was named the 2019 Best Business Podcast by the Columbus Podcast Awards.

Cbuzz is one of the pre-professional immersion classes offered to Capital students as part of a growing program in collaborative efforts between the University and the Central Ohio business community.

With top-notch recording studios, the CMC is the perfect setting to record professional-quality podcasts.

“This is an amazing relationship that Capital has with the Columbus Chamber,” says Chad Loughrige, assistant professor of music. “We offer the Chamber high-level production facilities to produce a high-quality podcast, and cbuzz offers our students professional experience and an opportunity to find their way along a career path.”

Since the relationship started in fall 2017, Capital students have produced 19 cbuzz episodes, with two more recording sessions scheduled this fall.

Cbuzz features innovative leaders in the Central Ohio region. Hosted by Mikaela Hunt, former Columbus TV news journalist and owner of Mikaela Media, a new episode is published the second week of every month.

Music technology students lend their audio engineering skill sets to assist in the recording and production of each episode. In additional, Loughrige explains, the students do “general polishing” of each podcast – editing content, highlighting areas of importance, adding background music and maintaining consistency of excellence across the episodes.

In addition to perfecting the real-world technical skills, the students learn to handle the pressure of producing and delivering a professional product in the growing industry of podcast production. They also get to work with some of Central Ohio’s business and community leaders, which could lead to other networking opportunities.

“The Columbus Podcast Award legitimizes the students’ coursework,” Loughrige says. “They are able to draw a line from what they are learning in class to something that is recognized for excellence by people outside the Capital circle.” Cbuzz was one of seven finalists in the Best Business Podcast category.

Podcast episodes can be accessed at columbus.org/cbuzz.
Read the Columbus Chamber of Commerce press release.