Apr 9, 2014 By Abby Wernert chief Photographer 3 min read

Both students and cafeteria workers alike found themselves dancing along to the music of Blue Jupiter as the a capella group performed in the cafeteria on Tuesday during dinner.

The group, comprised of members Marty Gasper, Diana Preisler, Jonathan Minkoff and Jeff Washburn, started at Berklee College of Music in the summer of 2001.

“Berklee was an interesting experience,” said Gasper, the only original member of the group. “I found that frustrating that there was no performance outlet.”

Gasper approached his friends and proposed the idea of forming a group as a way of making some money while also performing. Although the group did not have much luck finding gigs, they enjoyed making music, which was the primary focus.

The group moved to New York after working together for three or four years. In 2004, after moving, the old members left and the current members have been there ever since.

Blue Jupiter started off with mostly performing jazz style music but moved to other genres after honing their skill.

“We like to bring the party to the performance, and so you’ll find a lot of our music is upbeat, it’s pop, a little rock influence, a little jazz influence, but for the most part, it’s dancing and it’s pop,” said Gasper.

The group is also known for taking Broadway songs and rearranging them into more contemporary and pop sounding mixes.

“We take Broadway songs and we twist them up,” said Preisler.

Originally the dinner and the performance was scheduled to be outside but it was moved indoors due to the threat of weather.

Jordan Totty, junior forensic science major, said the performance would have been better outside as it would have allowed more than the students who attended dinner to listen to the music and some of the students eating dinner might have felt as if the performance had been forced on them.

However, the relocation of the event did not prevent Totty and others from enjoying the performance from Blue Jupiter.

“I think they’re really good. It’s super fun to see music like this genre,” said sophomore pre-med major Damara Deal.

Before coming to the university, Blue Jupiter had just come from a music festival in Chicago and Washington, D.C. where they headlined with former American Idol contestant Blake Lewis. Before that, the group had headlined on a cruise ship in the Caribbean.

The group also travels around the country to about 40 to 50 colleges and universities per year. They have an educational component working with students in kindergarten through 12th grade, as well as university students, where the group will come in for a day or even a week to help and coach student singing groups.

Additionally, the group also sings the jingles in the Nabisco Oreo and Nokia Corp. commercials.

The group also has plans to work on a couple of music videos and go back into the studio to work on two upcoming albums.