Close Up
A rising radio star
WBFO producer Alison Zero is making a name for herself in local music scene
Although she’s only been in Buffalo for a little more than a year, Alison Zero has made a name for herself on the local music scene.
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Listen to Wednesday Night Concerts (Live in Allen Hall) and Buffalo Avenues
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“Working in public radio, everyone’s got heart and it’s been a great experience so far.”
She’s only lived in Buffalo for a little over a year, but she’s already one of the most influential people within the Western New York music scene. Alison Zero—yes that is her real last name—the talent producer and music reporter for two of WBFO’s eclectic music programs, “Buffalo Avenues” and On the Border’s “Wednesday Night Concerts,” is becoming a familiar name to listeners of UB’s National Public Radio affiliate and those interested in local music.
Zero and her fiancé moved to Buffalo last August after he was accepted as a student in the UB School of Social Work. A native Long Islander, she spent the past seven years in New York City as a publicist for Girlie Action Media and Marketing, representing a number of performers, among them Beth Orton, They Might Be Giants, Moby, Bright Eyes and The White Stripes. After relocating to Buffalo, Zero thought she’d have to give up a career in the music industry, but after only a month of job searching, she credits UB for giving her, as she puts it, her dream job.
“UB gave me something that’s just amazing,” she says. “I love what I did as a publicist, but this is such a nice fit. Working in public radio, everyone’s got heart and it’s been a great experience so far.”
As talent producer for WBFO’s “Wednesday Night Concerts,” she finds musicians from around Western New York to feature during a live radio broadcast of a free weekly concert in UB’s Allen Hall Theater. Her background in music publicity has given Zero the unique perspective of knowing where these bands are headed and how she can help them get to the next level of success.
She believes it’s important that the series also involve the UB community. “We’re always looking for ways to bring the university into what we are doing,” she says. Which means that during any given performance, students, faculty, staff and area residents pack the 180-seat theater, an indication of the overwhelming popularity of the radio program that started only about a year ago.
Zero is also a reporter for “Buffalo Avenues,” WBFO’s magazine-style performance radio program, where she and several other reporters visit venues, record sound and provide a montage of audio for a weekly show. In this additional role, Zero exposes the WBFO audience to national touring musicians—an audience that, until recently, was accustomed to a mostly jazz-and-blues format at the station.
“There’s nothing really like these programs in Buffalo,” she says. “I think you can feel the energy in the entire staff enjoying these new adventures.”
Beyond her enthusiasm for the local music scene, Zero has become a fan of Buffalo’s other attributes, such as the city’s affordability and the lower stress level. Thanks to last year’s mild weather, even the threat of a notorious Buffalo winter hasn’t scared her or her fiancé.
And if she has her way, soon Buffalo will have even more musicians to feature on WBFO. “We’ve become spokespeople for Buffalo,” she says. “We’re trying to recruit people to move here—especially our musician and artist friends.”
Do you know a faculty or staff member who would make an interesting subject for a UB Reporter profile? Email ub-reporter@buffalo.edu.
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