"Muse Bird Cafe" at THe Conway Muse

Jaspar Lepak - is a folk/Americana songstress whose remarkable gift for melody is only surpassed by her poetry. Playful, intimate, heartfelt, and intense, her lyrics expose a brave vulnerability as well as an art for storytelling, while her clear, strong voice penetrates the heart. Singing with the kind of Americana, lullaby ghost of a voice that listeners search for in roots music (Twin Cities A.V. Club), Lepak charms as she stirs, and her performances keep your toes tapping and your heart on your sleeve. Since 2004, Lepak has been sharing her songs throughout the Midwest, but from 2009 to 2011 she lived in Durban, South Africa. Performing on some of the country's premier stages, she gained an enthusiastic following, and in July of 2011, she recorded her sixth original CD, Forgiving Wind, which Rolling Stone South Africa hailed as an album full of beauty and original charm." Lepak currently resides in Seattle and released her seventh CD, Wide World, this spring. Crafted with simple elegance, Wide World showcases the best of what Lepak's live performances have to offer: humor, vulnerability, an emphasis on nature and the seasons, and a quiet fierceness that champions the female voice and honors the emotions of the heart. Mindy Dillard is an adventurer and an award-winning singer-songwriter. She plays clawhammer banjo and rhythm guitar, often in alternate tunings to accompany her electric and raw, crystal-clear voice. Her music pulsates with funky rhythmic grooves and sparkles with heartfelt storytelling. Mindy is a mythological scholar and has performed her one woman folk rock opera based on Grimm's fairytales and the work of Clarissa Pinkola Estes internationally. In June 2015 she won Susanne Millsaps performing songwriter competition in Salt Lake City, Utah (which is also her hometown). She opened for folk icon John Gorka at the 2015 Utah Arts Festival. Mindy's musical influences include Joni Mitchell, Dar Williams, Cosy Sheridan, Stephen Sondheim and Ella Fitzgerald. A genre bender, Mindy's sound holds shades of old-time Appalachia, contemporary folk, gospel, musical theatre and rhythm and blues. Through her music she seeks to transform the ordinary into the magical and poison into medicine. www.mindydillard.com Tekla Waterfield - Seattle based singer/songwriter - calls on a wide range of influences, including folk, country, rock and soul, fitting neatly into the wider genre of Alt-Country or Americana. With many years of choral singing and classical training under her belt, Tekla's vocals are at once smooth and angelic, emotive and raw. Her songs explore universal life themes of love and love lost, travel and change, family, poverty and searching for a sense of home and belonging. Tekla's band, Tekla Waterfield and the Sweet Nothings features Bill Riach on drums, Dune Butler on bass and backing vocals, Mike Thornhill on lead guitar, and Charles Wicklander on keys/vocals. Sometimes other people join in on the fun too. (Jarrett Mason, Andy Lowe, David Salonen, Eric Vanderbilt-Mathews, Jill Zirkle and more.)