Robert W. Drake: The Ear Behind Atlanta's Sunday Variety Series

Robert W. Drake didn't set out to become one of Atlanta's steady hands behind the soundboard. He picked up guitar at age 10, later became what he calls a "mildly competent" trombone player, and might have stayed strictly a performer if not for a formative stint apprenticing at the Great Southeastern Freight Room in the 1990s. It was there, tinkering with mixing boards more than his instruments, that he found his real calling: engineering sound for other people's music. That path led him into touring work with Gwen Hughes, and later Mac Frampton, Capitol City Opera, and Drew Lafferty. Along the way, Drake credits engineer Blaise Leoni as a guiding influence -- someone who took the craft of sound seriously without ever taking himself too seriously, and who taught Drake how to think not just about mixing a show, but about the artists standing in front of the mic. Since 1996, Drake has engineered thousands of concerts and sound-designed hundreds of theatrical productions, work that's made him a quiet fixture of Atlanta's performing arts scene since 1993. These days, Drake serves as Artistic Director of the Academy Theatre and of Improvability Theory, while continuing to produce and engineer the Academy's Sunday Variety Series, a recurring showcase bringing musicians like Nancy Gaddy, Nathanael Smith, and Keith Harkin to Atlanta audiences. For Drake, the point of the series -- and of his work generally -- comes down to attention. He wants listeners to actually hear the music and the performers behind it, forming a real, intimate connection rather than half-listening in the background. In turn, he wants the artists on stage to feel that the room is genuinely locked in. It's part of a bigger goal: giving up-and-coming acoustic and jazz artists a rare kind of stage -- one with a crowd that's actually there to listen -- and, in doing so, helping keep Atlanta a city where musicians can grow and stay.