Musae

On the surface, Musae is a six-piece vocal band based out of Atlanta, GA. But dig a little deeper and you’ll find that Musae is a recent answer to a long-standing question: Why aren’t there more professional female a cappella groups?

The catalyst came at SoJam 2010, where Lauren Barreiro and Kari Francis led a roundtable discussion about women in a cappella. Vexed by the undue number of negative stereotypes surrounding the genre and eager to begin a collaborative professional pursuit, the two searched for similarly driven vocalists—fellow AcaBelle alumna and Empire leader Angela Ugolini, U of O Divisi alumna and super-bass Johanna Vinson, Berklee Pitchslapped soloist and director Hannah Juliano, and musical theater authority and UGA Noteworthy alumna Courtney Godwin—and Musae was born. The group finally met for the first time in March of 2011 only to find that their collective sound was anything but the indie, post-collegiate style they had expected. Undeterred, they scratched their prepared arrangements and concocted a new version of “Natural Woman” as well as an amalgam of tunes by Donna Summers, fully embracing their newfound loud, funk-infused style in their first three days of shared existence.

The name comes from Latin, plural for “musa”: muse, a nod to the mythical goddesses of inspiration. Likewise, Musae aims to not only uplift and enthrall but also inspire and empower audiences both new to and familiar with their a cappella vocal style of performance. Each “muse” brings a notably different background and approach to music-making, resulting in a delightfully textured and diverse product, sometimes augmented by pedals and effects but never wavering from the human voice as the root of all sound. United by a passion and propensity for music, these muses plan to tear down archetypes regarding female a cappella and breathe new life into the professional scene in the United States and abroad.

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