‘Electric Hour’ hosts student musicians

plantings.

Since its founding, pNpp has planted over 14,000 street trees — around half of the city’s 27,000 street trees. The cost of each planting is split equally between the endowment and the city, Tharinger said.

When the city’s urban forest was first inventoried 15 years ago, Tharinger and other local organizations realized that low-income neighborhoods and neighborhoods of color have far fewer trees — a concept known as tree inequity, which results in elevated asthma rates and hotter temperatures in those areas.

“The fact that these communities have fewer trees, hotter summers, higher asthma rates and lower environmental privilege isn’t a coincidence — it’s the result of systemic disinvestment and racist policy, from ‘redlining policies’ that denied loans to those in ‘high-risk’ neighborhoods to ‘urban renewal’ projects that marked entire communities of color as ‘blighted’ and in need of clearance,” according to the pVD Tree plan’s “Mapping Tree Equity” Zine released in 2022.

Two years ago, pNpp formed a coalition with other local organizations — including Movement Education Out-

BY ISABEL HAHN STAFF WRITER

Every Monday evening this month, Brown students and members of the providence community have trickled into the Music Mansion at 88 Meeting St. to watch live performances by student musicians.

Dubbed “an artist showcase for busy people” by co-founder Chance Emerson ’23.5, the Electric Hour music series offers artists from Brown a casual platform to share their music with peers, all while donating the proceeds made from each event to local arts charities.

Monday’s Electric Hour show featured songs from a variety of genres performed by Leo Major ’24 and Gabriel Toth ’24.5, Spencer Barnett ’24 and the string band Cat Jones & The Rest of ’Em, led by Catherine Jones ’23.

Emerson and Karim Zohdy ’25 started organizing Electric Hour after coming across the Music Mansion, an old house on Meeting Street that had been converted into a concert venue. They aimed to make it a space for the community members to congregate over a shared love for music and held the first Electric Hour show in March.

“One of the most difficult parts of starting out my music career was the initial step from on campus to off campus,” Emerson said. “I didn’t feel like there were many avenues to do that.”

“I wanted to use my platform and knowledge of how to put on shows, contract linguistics and my music network to spotlight artists I like and help the community that let me do what I love,” Emerson said.

Along with providing a stage for student musicians, Electric Hour donates to local charities by asking attendees to pay whatever they are able to. Supporting the Avenue Concept, a public art organization in Rhode Island, and community arts center AS220, Electric Hour has been able to donate the entirety of contributions made by attendees after receiving a grant from the Brown Arts Institute that covers the cost of booking space.