What Is A House Concert?

Música Del Río
House Concerts

We invite you to join us for a small gathering with friends to enjoy exceptional and well known singer/songwriters and musicians
in our living room filled with Música Del Río, "music of the river"
in Atascadero, our town in the upper Salinas River Valley of California.

Fred & Sharon Munroe

Please Join Us!

Música Del Río house concerts are a private party for invited guests who RSVP with plans to attend.

We use a web based list management system to send invitations for the upcoming concert to everyone on our email list.

To be included on our the email invitation list, send an email to Musica Del Rio with the word "please" in the subject line. You must include your name, where you live and a contact phone number, so we can reach you if there should ever be any last minute change of plans for a concert you are planning to attend.

	What is going on here?
	Música Del Río is a gathering of friends to enjoy outstanding acoustic music in our living room. With room for about 60 friends; musicans and singer-songwriters find our house concerts to be a joyous way to share the art of their craft. 100% of the donation you make to attend this gathering goes to the performers. We do this for the love of music, the love of friends to share it with and the love of opening our front door to make it happen.

What Is A House Concert?

“What is a house concert?” has become the question we are now asked daily since we took on the project of creating and offering Música Del Río, “music of the river” in Atascadero, California.

House concerts are an offering to the community based upon a love for acoustic music when experienced as close to the source as possible. Yes, this means that 40-60 friends, old and new, are invited into our living room to share an evening with like-minded music lovers who have come to help blur the line between performer and audience. House concerts are not a spectator sport; we are all just fellow travelers.

As with any gathering in our home, we want friends to have time to make new friends. Usually those new friends include the musicians who have come to share their craft that evening. There is almost always time for a little more socializing before the show starts, during intermission and after the close of the concert.

This is not a commercial venue or a commercial venture. The ticket price is a voluntary donation with 100% of the proceeds going directly to the musicians who perform on any given night. Because this is not a commercial venture, who we present and how often we present is completely about what music we really want to have in our living room.

Some hosts present at least one concert a month or every other month. Others just wait for the right artist to come along; therefore the schedule is always open for discussion. In the west, many presenters do not schedule concerts during the summer because of many music festivals and active outdoor venues. In the northeast, the opposite is often the case in order to take advantage of the best weather.

There are a few local and regional house concerts nearby. Links to these and others along with smaller commerical venues can be found on the "More Music" page on this site. There may be a few others locally that are so private they are only known to 30 or 40 regular attendees. A few outdoor house concerts like Shady Grove or Inglish Fest take place only once a year.

On or near the Hwy 101 corridor there are at least 27 communities where house concerts are hosted on a regular basis. Generally there is a house concert within a 2 or 3-hour drive of anyplace in California. These 27 hosts and many of the over 150 others throughout the United States regularly keep in touch to help musicians better utilize their time on the road. They are also helping house concerts grow as a way to make the presentation of live acoustic music an affordable part of more peoples lives. We are all in this together and happy that we are.

(Pictured is the bluegrass group Jimmy Chickenpants performing live at the Tree House Concerts in Pacific Grove, CA on March 18, 2006.)