April Mae’s June Bug Brass Band will sponsor its Mardi Gras celebration at Perkins Center for the Arts in Moorestown on Friday at 7:30 p.m.
The band’s show is part of Perkins’ DeCafe House Concert Series, which according to the center’s website, is a warm environment where people gather and enjoy live folk music, jazz or the blues. The 2022-’23 season included musical performances by the Abe Speller Jazz Trio, the Rob Curto Trio and Brian Betz and Behn Gallice.
“It’s off to a great start in 2023 here, so we’re very happy with the audience that we brought in and the quality of work,” said Bryan Williams, conservatory of music manager for the center. “I’m very excited to bring in this very unique concert that we have coming up.”
The band’s music focuses on the carnival season in New Orleans, a time to eat, drink and be merry before fasting and sacrifice during Lent. Carnival is full of parades, balls and other celebrations leading up to Mardi Gras.
“During that season, they have 80 parades, so there’s 80 different crews that put on the parades, and in every parade there’s multiple brass bands,” said Mae. “So there’s a long-standing tradition of brass bands and music specific to Mardi Gras and to music that’s specific to the Mardi Gras Indians, and so we are drawing on that pool of music.”
Mae reflected on performing at Perkins post-COVID, something she couldn’t wait to do with the brass band, as well as April Mae & the June Bugs.
“It felt so good to get back to playing,” she marveled. “We did a lot of livestreams; that was something I had never done before the pandemic … There’s nothing like being in a physical space with people and having that energy that goes back and forth between the audience and a performer.”
Mae describes that back and forth as magical.
“You give out your love and your art, and then they give energy back to you,” she explained. “Livestreaming is cool and all that, but it’s not the same.”
Mae praised Perkins for what it offers artists and musicians, specifically its atmosphere.
“Perkins is such a wonderful, listening performance space, so it’s really an indulgence to be able to perform in a space like that,” she said, “because you can really focus on the music and the people, and that energetic give-and-take you have when you’re in your art, when you’re in your element.”
For more information on Perkins’ DeCafe series, visit https://perkinsarts.org. For more information on April Mae’s June Bug Brass Band, visit https://aprilmaeandthejunebugs.com.
“Allow yourself the space to explore your creativity with the music,” Mae said of advice she would give fellow artists. “Give yourself the permission to explore that part of yourself, and then see where it takes you. Be open-minded.”
“I feel that music and arts are always a healing path. It’s always time well spent.”
