Meagan Downing | Lariat Photographer
By Savannah Pullin
Reporter
Students will gather as a community to connect and build relationships in a creative and artistic way at 8 p.m. Thursday in the Bill Daniels Student Center Den.
Twice a semester, Baylor student musicians are encouraged to share their lives through their music at Acoustic Café..
One goal of Student Productions, the subcommittee of Campus Programs responsible for Acoustic Café, is to make music more prominent at Baylor through student performances.
“One of the cool things about Acoustic Café is that it is really casual,” Bellaire senior Maddy Giering, student booking manager of Student Productions, said.
Giering said many students in the audience are grabbing food in the SUB when they are stopped by the sound of talented artists. This casual traffic brings new students to the event every year.
Although Acoustic Café brings in an average of about 75 people, Giering said the variation of performed genres helps to attract many different types of people.
Artists are selected from the Uproar Network, a list of student artists at Baylor.
Once selected, the artists are asked to send in some of their content so the booking manager can develop an idea of their genre and musical skills.
“Booking talented artists is the first thing we look for,” Giering said.
The genre of music performed at Acoustic Café varies from artist to artist. One thing the artists all have in common, however, is that they are acoustic, meaning there is no electric or electronically generated music.
Waco sophomore Blake Sherman, who will be performing Thursday, describes his music as “indie folk.” Sherman has been performing since he was 13 years old.
“Most of what I write is story based,” Sherman said.
Sherman said a huge part of his music is based on conversations he has with God. Through these songs, audiences can get to know him on a deeper level, he said.
“Life is an enjoyable thing, regardless of what you experience. There is always something to cherish,” Sherman said.
Sherman said he loves connecting with his crowd, further bringing to fruition Baylor’s goals of community and building relationships.
The goal of Acoustic Café is to “keep a more intimate environment,” Giering said.
Through this intimacy, students are able to connect to each other and really engage in the performances.
Giering said Acoustic Café is geared to underclassmen because many upperclassmen are not willing to make the commute back to campus once they have left.
Unfortunately for the performers at Acoustic Café, this makes it difficult for them to reach a large audience.
On the other hand, if the audience were too large, the event would lose its intimacy and unique place amongst the many other concerts Baylor presents, Giering said.
Highland Park senior Andrew Chang said he remembered his past experience attending Acoustic Café as well put together and intimate.
Although Chang mentioned it was “something more suited toward those in relationships,” Giering said many people come in groups of two to five, just to meet friends, have coffee and hang out. This allows attendees to make the performances as intimate or as laid back as they desire it to be.
Students are invited to enjoy snacks and make new friends as artists share their music and provide a fresh outlook on life through a musician’s eyes.
