The Drury Lane House Concert series brings in top local musicians for intimate, limited-ticket shows on the Drury University campus.
The Scoop sat down with Jim Rae, one of the show’s co-producers and its audio engineer, to get a better idea of what has happened with the show, which is the beginning stages of production.
What roles does Rae have as co-producer and audio engineer?
“We redid the set, got the lighting corrected, got the stage re-done, got all the tables and chairs together, got all our new cameras and our students running the cameras, so I helped get all that going, basic studio design,” says Rae. “I also record the audio of the show there. We have mic stands here for the players, and I go over there [pointing to audio equipment over to the side] and record it. I also send it through the live sound system, so the people that are here watching can hear the music as well.”
Along with his duties during recording, he also has the task of finding bands for the show. However, since word about the show started spreading in the musical community, the job has become a lot easier.
How does the show find bands?
“At this point in time, I’ve already begun to get inquires. Once you start something like this, there’s a whole niche of people who want to play and people who want to come see it. We’ve started to get some contacts already.
“We reached out to the first couple, obviously. I just came from a folk conference in Kansas City, saw a lot of cool acts up there, and so we’ll probably start pulling from some things like that. Really, it’s our own tastes, and what we think is going to make the best television show ’cause in the end, we don’t want to make just a television show, not just episodes with players, but a variety-type show.”
How can the public participate in the shows?
“It’s not necessarily open to the public, you have to reserve seats via online, there’s an email which is on the Facebook page,” Rae says While you can reserve a seat, they are very limited. Because the show is recorded in a studio, there are only about 20 to 30 seats each show.
“This is a very listening-centered environment. It’s not something you just show up to. It’s not a party.”
When’s the next show?
Brandon Moore and Kyle Young will be performing with Patrick Mureithi on Thursday, March 12.
