Behind the Mic: The Muse Performance Space

This portion of the interview above has been edited for length and clarity:

STEVE: On the line with us from the Muse Performance Space in Lafayette, Pete Lewis and Clare Church – Hey, y'all!

PETE: Hey, how's it going?

CLARE: Good morning.

STEVE: Give us a sense of where the Muse is in time. How long have you been hosting audiences in Lafayette?

CLARE: You want me to take that, Pete?

PETE: Sure.

CLARE: We opened as a nonprofit in April of 2018, and we had our first concert on June 1st, 2018. So, it's been all the way through the pandemic, 14 months of which we did only livestream concerts three times a week.

ABI: When you developed the nonprofit, when you had the dream to do it, what kind of a space were you trying to create? What was the desire to make The Muse?

CLARE: We had done a gig, or I had done a gig down at the gig space in Santa Fe with Art Lande and the fact that it was a pure performance space that wasn't based mostly on alcohol and food, that it was actually a concert space primarily, really appealed to us. So, we set out to make something that was a pure concert space with the offering of snacks and beverages, but also, we asked ourselves 'What would musicians want and what would audiences want?' So, in the realm of what would musicians want, we wanted to be sure there was a great piano, which there is a great sound system, really good acoustics, well-designed acoustics in the room that were primarily acoustic in nature. In other words, we have amplification, but we want to make the acoustic equal in importance to the amplified sound, and also a warm environment for the audience and just treating the musicians really, really fairly, being kind to the musicians and the audience. For years when we were struggling financially, we would just look at each other and say, "We're just spreading goodwill. We're just spreading goodwill."

STEVE: And sometimes that's all you got is goodwill.

PETE: We also wanted, just to piggyback on that, wanted a place where musicians could present creative music, their own original compositions, things that maybe they couldn't do at other places. It's just purely concert and for the audience not to be obliged to have to buy anything. They could even bring in the meal if they want. So it's kind of more of a laid back, but a beautiful place to listen and hear music.

STEVE: Well, congratulations on five-star reviews. You get a hundred reviews on Google. Here's a quote, "The performance quality runs between quite good to knock-out-OMG-great."

CLARE: We do try to support developing musicians, but we try to make sure that the audience is aware of what we're presenting. If it's a student spotlight, for instance, if it's a recital, we like people to know what they're coming into so that, as much as possible, they can expect super high quality.

STEVE: Jam sessions: The variety that you all present is amazing.

PETE: Thank you.

CLARE: Yeah, I think we're down to two different kinds. We have the Oh Snap and the Jazz Jam.

STEVE: What's the difference?

CLARE: Oh Snap is a free, improv jam session which means anybody can come play or sing anything. They form bands, the person who's up forms their own band from who's in the house and what the instruments are.

ABI: Whoa!

CLARE: There is absolutely no preconceived structure or expectation, so it can be literally any kind of music. Sometimes it's just like a sound bath.

PETE: There was one time somebody brought theremin.

STEVE: Yes!

ABI: What?!

PETE: It was just amazing! So that, so much different than kind of our Jazz Jam, which happens at the last Monday of every month where there's actually jazz standards and jazz tunes called and people come up and play..

CLARE: We really wanted to have a professional house rhythm section that starts the gig so that especially vocalists can come up while the house band is still on stage because vocalists sing in weird keys. They're often nervous. We have some young, or amateur vocalists, and they're somewhat nervous, and so to be kind of taken care of by a professional rhythm section that knows a lot of tunes has been great, and we make sure they each get a chance with the house band before we move on and start bringing people up.

ABI: The care for cultivation of creativity is so important, especially for some of those younger musicians or somebody that's just getting up on the stage for the first time. It really does make a difference.

PETE: Yes, it's a very warm environment. Everybody's very supportive.

STEVE: For me, it's just the best, most beautiful, fun musical living room I've ever been in.

CLARE: You know, Dawn Clement's daughter, she said to Don, "Hey, can we go back to that person's apartment with the music?"

ABI: Aww!

CLARE: I like that!

STEVE: Nice! Well, hey, thanks to the Muse performance space for hosting a few concerts at the end of June to celebrate 40 years of KUVO with us. It's so cool to get with you and produce these shows.

CLARE: Likewise!

PETE: We're honored to do it and celebrating 40 years with KUVO, it's just fantastic - Congratulations!

STEVE: We'll give them the rundown: Friday night, June 27, with Gabriel Santiago and Elden Kelly Duo. Then on Saturday, June 28, the CCJA Alumni Quintet.

CLARE: Gabe Rupe, Aleks Girshevich, Sam Keedy, Shota Renwick, and Sonya Walker - all heavyweights in and of themselves, and we're joining them together.

STEVE: And on Sunday night, June 29, it's the CJRO Quartet format with Marion Powers at the microphone.