Steeple Street Music Academy in Mashpee has partnered with Bonfini Entertainment to bring a series of live performances to the academy’s 60-person performance space, The Listening Room of Cape Cod. The goal is to host intimate performances where audiences can meaningfully listen and engage with the music.
A concert featuring Phoebe Katis is upcoming on Thursday, July 23, and Leah Marlene is set to perform on Saturday, August 6.
Founded in 2021, Bonfini Entertainment is run by local musician and former American Idol performer Natalia Bonfini and her sister, Jocelyn.
Natalia Bonfini grew up and currently lives in Eastham. A 2014 graduate of Nauset Regional High School, she moved down south after graduating from Lesley University, fell into the music scene there and started gigging full-time.
When the pandemic hit in 2020 and there wasn’t much going on, like many people, Bonfini moved back home.
She described the music scene in the South as different from here on the Cape.
“In Florida, everything is more corporate,” she said. Almost every venue that I worked with worked with an agency to help manage their music.”
Bonfini noticed that these agencies helped keep things flowing smoothly.
Back on the Cape, Bonfini said she had venues reaching out to her but that things were less organized than they had been in Florida.
“Things might happen last minute, a musician would cancel or something would come up and they wouldn’t have a Rolodex of musicians to connect with.”
Dealing with issues like these, Bonfini surmised, was “the last thing a venue wants to do, especially when it’s summer on Cape Cod.”
Bonfini said she had talked about the idea of starting an agency and, one day, simply jumped in.
“I had just played a show and I was sitting at the bar waiting to get paid,” when Bonfini said she overheard the bartender and the owner of the venue talking about live music, saying how they and their customers loved it but that they just didn’t have the capacity to do it.
“I don’t know what inspired me to chime in, but I said—I am a booking agent, I’ll do it—even though at that time I wasn’t, and I had no experience.”
Bonfini said the venue’s owner “took a chance on me, and from there it just grew. Word got out and venue after venue started reaching out, asking me to manage their music.”
As a working musician, Bonfini felt she was at an advantage as an agent. “I knew what the musicians wanted and how they worked.” Having grown up on the Cape, Bonfini also knew many of the local musicians personally and was acquainted with many of the venues.
“I was immersed in the art and music community and I love business as does my sister, which is why I brought her in.”
Staffing can be scarce in every industry on the Cape, especially in the summer.
As a booking agency, Bonfini Entertainment works for the venue, but since Bonfini is a musician herself, “it’s very music forward.”
The way Bonfini described the business, most of the time agents take their fee directly from the musicians, so the musician gets paid a certain amount and then, from that amount, pays a fee to the agent.
“I never liked the feeling of that because it seemed dishonest,” said Bonfini. “An artist was told they would be paid a certain amount, but really it’s less. I always want to be upfront with the venue and say, this is what the musician is being paid and I charge an additional fee on top of it. That is my way of being open and honest with the venue and also being musician-forward.”
Bonfini said she started by working with local bars and restaurants and expanded into private events, backyard parties and weddings as well as to off-Cape venues in Boston and other parts of New England.
“Last year we booked over 500 events for local artists from Provincetown up to Maine and New Hampshire. This year we are on track to do almost 700.”
When things started getting to be too much for her to handle, Bonfini brought her sister Jocelyn on board.
“I needed someone I could trust with the financials and the social media and I thought—who better than my sister? There’s no one I trust more in the world and I think it’s cool to keep it a family-style business.”
Bonfini said her sister does much of the fundraising, financials, billing and social media for the company.
Busy with the business, Bonfini said she’s moving away from performing seven days a week. “I’ve gotten to a point where I can be a little more choosy and pick the show that I really love.”
Bonfini said that she and her band play on average four to five days a week, “and I focus the rest of my energy on Bonfini Entertainment.”
As the business continued to grow, Bonfini felt the next step was to move into original music and small concert spaces, which is where The Listening Room of Cape Cod came in.
“My sister and I felt like the natural progression for Bonfini Entertainment was to do more listening rooms, which play original music. We felt like that was really missing on the Cape. There are very few small intimate venues.”
Owned by the husband and wife team of Demetrius and Kate Becrelis, Steeple Street Music Academy opened in Mashpee Commons in 2019.
Bonfini said she first connected with Steeple Street as a teacher when the company first opened.
“We’d always stayed in touch. I knew Demetrius through the music scene. I was always a fan of his band Tripping Lily. I grew up listening to them and was a little starstruck when I first met him.”
After converting space in their building that formerly served as a preschool, the Becrelis’s opened The Listening Room of Cape Cod in 2024.
The couple reached out to Bonfini Entertainment earlier this year, looking to brainstorm programming in the space. Like other venue owners, they were trying to manage the listening room on top of running their business, an entire music school.
“They’d sold out every show they’d had in their listening room, but they didn’t have time to manage it and maintain their momentum,” said Bonfini.
“They told us their vision but also encouraged us to be creative with the space. I appreciated that they trusted us so much.”
Bonfini said she started reaching out to more regional and nationally touring artists versus local musicians, “something new for me,” she said. “We wanted to work with national and regionally touring artists that you otherwise wouldn’t be able to see unless you went to Boston or New York.” Bonfini said she hopes to continue to include local musicians as opening acts to featured performers.
Bonfini Entertainment opened its lineup at The Listening Room in June with a concert by Chris Trapper. In addition to Katis and Marlene, they have JR Richards lined up for a show on November 6.
“Our goal is to have concerts once a month throughout the summer and to also have shows in the off-season,” said Bonfini.
Steeple Street Music also has an outdoor space. “We’d love to put a stage out there,” she added.
“We have a lot of ideas and the great thing is that Steeple Street is a non-profit and The Listening Room falls under that. My sister started a sponsorship program where local businesses can sponsor a show, which in turn goes toward paying the artist so we can keep ticket sales accessible.”
Phoebe Katis, who will perform on July 23, is a soul and blues pianist and vocalist from England. “She’s on the East Coast touring and we’re thrilled to have her,” said Bonfini.
Bonfini first met Nashville artist Leah Marlene when they were both contestants on American Idol in 2022. Marlene ended up making it all the way to the finale and finished in the top three, then went on to start her own independent label. “She’s a great songwriter,” said Bonfini. “We’re excited she’s coming.”
For those unfamiliar with the idea of a listening room, it’s basically a small, intimate concert space. “You get the same atmosphere as a concert, the stage, the lights, but you’re only 10 feet from the performer,” said Bonfini. “It’s like you’re sitting in the artist’s living room. It’s all about original music and the stories behind the songs and things like that. After the show, the artist can sit and talk with the audience so there’s relationship building, which is really cool.”
Bonfini said she’s hoping to bring back a vibe that existed on the Cape in the 1970s and ’80s.
“My dad was a musician back then and the great thing about the Cape was that a lot of musicians have what you might call mileage clauses, meaning that if they are performing in Boston, they can’t also perform within a certain mile radius of the venue. But the Cape is far enough away that artists can legally come and perform, so the Cape was always a stop for them. Some of the performers might be coming through for a big show in Boston and they want to test their material on a smaller audience. It’s also a vacation spot; a lot of artists have second homes or family in the area. We really want to bring that back to the Cape.”
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