Concert series taking place on Prince Edward Island
Community Spotlight Series: Marlene
As we celebrate our 30th anniversary in 2025, we’re excited to reflect on the vibrant stories and community members who have helped shape Under the Spire’s story. Our Community Spotlight Series will feature a diverse group of supporters, sharing their personal connections, experiences, and favorite memories with us across 10 interviews. Through their testimonials, we’ll explore why Under the Spire holds a special place in their lives and in our community. We are deeply grateful to everyone who has contributed to this celebration by sharing their reflections with us!
Community Spotlight Series
Interview with Marlene Lawrence
1. How did you come to know about UTS, and how did you begin volunteering with the organization?
I had known of the concert series for a long time because I grew up in the eastern end of PEI, but I’d never had a chance to attend the concerts. Then, when I moved back to PEI for work in 2012, I thought, ‘Well, if I’m gonna be here, I might as well do something where I can volunteer my time somewhere.’ And then I thought, ‘Well, I’ve always wanted to volunteer with this concert series.’ And I think the second summer I was living back here, I looked up the website to see if you had a need for volunteers. That’s really what kind of started me. I thought “Well, if I’m going to be in the community and get to know people in the community I might as well volunteer somewhere.” I’ve always volunteered in the past, and so I just wanted to do that – I thought it would be fun. It’s music – I enjoy going to concerts and stuff. So I felt it was kind of a win-win situation for me, and it turned out to be great. It’s a really good group of people . . . everybody is just so pleasant that it’s really a great place to volunteer. And the venue is beautiful of course – you can never overstate that. I think the first time that you hear music in that venue, you’re just hooked and you have to come back. There’s a very small percentage, I’d say, of people that have been there for a concert and not wanted to go back. I think that would be a very small percentage.
2. Before volunteering with UTS, did you have any previous experience in the arts community?
Well, my grandparents were very musically inclined. My mother grew up in that family of course, and so she was taught piano at a young age. She ended up being a pianist and an organist at church, and so I was always in church choir and stuff like that as I was growing up. That would have been in addition to music at school. That’s kind of where it came from. I’ve always had an appreciation for music, but I was mostly involved with church choirs and stuff like that, and that’s pretty standard for a lot of people like myself. There wasn’t a lot to do in a small community, and that was just part of your life – you went to church on Sunday and so you went to the choir because your mother was the organist. I was also in the choir at school. It was nice to have that exposure and things like that.
3. Can you share some special memories that you have from your time at UTS?
As far as the volunteering aspect of my memories at Under the Spire, I think it’s just that the volunteers and the staff we have are very cohesive. We go, we enjoy the music and we do our jobs that need to get done. A lot of the concerts that surprised me the most are the ones that I would not naturally gravitate towards attending. Everybody’s got their genre that they fall into, and I think it’s good that we have a good variety of options for people. I still can’t say that I’m totally an opera person, but the people that are, love it. I think that the children’s choirs that we’ve had have been the ones I was gobsmacked by because it was just so gratifying to hear those voices in that venue. There’s been other local artists who I hadn’t had a chance to see and I was totally thrilled to hear them, and knowing that they’re totally thrilled to play in the space is awesome too. You would think that some of them had been there before, but then you realize, “Oh my gosh, this is their first time at this venue!” There’s been such a great growth of talent, and like the whole Atlantic provinces in the last 20 years, it’s just incredible.
4. How has your time at UTS influenced your views on the importance of arts and culture?
Oh, I think it just reinforces its importance. I’ve always had a great appreciation for arts and culture. I still don’t know why everything is so underfunded all the time, but we have to live with that. It should have more value on a basis from a government perspective. . . but I always find one thing that I can always say is that it’s therapeutic. Music is therapeutic. Some people don’t really realize the value in that either, I don’t think, until you get there and you sort of just let everything else go. You can be at peace once you come out of there. It’s a great experience that way. Sometimes it doesn’t kind of hit you until you’re sitting in that space and you’re kind of taking everything in. . . and everything else just washes away and you can sort of go, ‘I forget what I was even troubled about before I got here’ you know. It is therapeutic in that sense.
The other thing I like about it is that we have a wide variety of people that come to this venue. I always find it interesting and rewarding to talk to people and find out where they’re from and why they’re here. If they’ve not had this experience before, I’ll chat with them at intermission to see if they’re liking it, or ask if they’re enjoying the concert so far. It might seem like a simple question, but they keep going, ‘Wow!’ like they can’t just wait for the second half. It’s a really cool experience that way, because you don’t always get that in other things that you volunteer for.
5. Why do you want to continue supporting Under the Spire and donating your time there as a volunteer?
Well, it’s a little bit of everything that we just talked about, if you want to put it in a nutshell. It’s a little bit about wanting to be part of the community. It’s also that piece of self-gratification in there because it is therapeutic, but it’s also an enjoyable experience. If I’m going to Under the Spire, even though I’m running a bit late, I still know that once I get there, everything will just work out fine because we all just work together to make it work. So I find it kind of a cohesive unit that way. . . I’ve seen a little transition in the people and in the amount of volunteers that are there, but I think for me, it’s exciting seeing young people coming up through now and because a lot of them are so talented and so capable at their roles. That is very rewarding for me to see that, because it’s gonna be in good hands.
6. Can you speak to the impact that this concert series has had on the community in your time there?
I think it has had a positive impact. I think it’s always hard to get people in your own community to support the arts in your community. It can be a tough call trying to get people in the community out there. I just think because of the evolution of the music industry in the last 10 or 20 years, that it makes the administrative role of things tougher, because there’s a lot more competition than you would have had to face in the past. That’s always a challenge – trying to figure out how to get around that, or how to make something exciting and new and fresh and still maintain that traditional core of people that you don’t want to turn off from coming here for a certain type of music, right? I don’t know why people think that it’s such an out of the way thing, because it’s not really. I do think about the variety of things that we’ve tried to kick the can on and do things a little differently in the last few years. I do feel that that’s kind of working in the right direction because our community base is so diverse now.
7. What does Under the Spire mean to you?
I think it’s a world-class venue in a rural setting on a very popular island in the summertime that we’re lucky to have. I think it would be a shame if something ever happened to it. But again, I just really feel it’s a world class venue that we should celebrate and appreciate that it’s here. It’s like a lot of things that are in our own backyard, you know – you don’t always get to them. If we don’t make a point of going, then you won’t get to go, ‘Oh, it really is a world class venue and we are lucky to have it in our backyard, so why don’t we go more often?’ That’s kind of the way I feel about it. I think it’s an important venue. I think it serves a purpose, a really strong purpose in the community. If it’s not there, then there’s a lapse of what it offers.
8. What would you say to someone who has never been to a concert at UTS before, or who may feel nervous about exploring a new genre of music?
I often say to people that it’s in your backyard – so if you haven’t gone, you should go. You should treat yourself and go. If you’re waiting for a special occasion, just go. You might be surprised like I am, at a lot of concerts when I go. It’s somebody I don’t even know that’s up there sometimes, or I haven’t listened to their music before. but I get there and I’m fine. Again, Under the Spire just offers that sort of breakaway from everything that’s going on in your life, and it gives you that opportunity to take in good music. Under the Spire is not out of the way, it’s in your community
We hope you enjoyed reading Marlene’s interview! Be sure to read the rest of the interviews in this series
