Your Hosts; Fred & Sharon Munroe

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.

Introductions Are In Order

We are Sharon and Fred Munroe living in Atascadero California. The two of us met a few years ago while volunteering at the Live Oak Music Festival presented by KCBX Public Radio. We now share the responsibilities of Site Coordinator for this 4,000-attendee festival held every Father’s Day weekend, just north of Santa Barbara.

We have been life partners for just about 5½ years. We have been married since August 12, 2006 after Sharon got tired of listening to Fred beg. The four children we have between us; David, Gwen, Emily and Valrah; have also been longtime volunteers at Live Oak and share our love of music.

Obviously, our most common interest has been music since we first met. Sharon is an accomplished flutist and vocalist. Along with her love of music, she loves to spend a lot of her personal time making sure her children and her community find joy in song. When not doing this, Sharon teaches middle-school mathematics in Paso Robles, California.

Fred has made up for his inability to ever successfully learn to play any of the many instruments he has tried by spending a great deal of his personal time voluntarily promoting live music and community events. This has included the Stone Soup Music Faire in Grover Beach, CA and Live Oak. Fred is a travel writer for both trade publications and newspapers along with being a retail travel consultant. He also designs training programs for public transit organizations to assist new users of mass transit. His companies, Travel With Fred and Ridership Development Consultants, underwrite this website.

Interestingly enough, for the 40 plus years before we met, we shared a very similar view about the intimacy of live music and theatre. Three concerts seen from the back of the house cannot replace one seen from the front. This is one of the reasons why we have focused our volunteer energy on music festivals, street fairs and community events. You will seldom find us at any venue larger than the PAC, The Clark Center or the Santa Barbara County Bowl. You will often find us at The Red Barn, The Last Stage West, Castoro Cellars, SLO Folks and any event sponsored by KCBX Public Radio.

We do not profit financially from Música Del Rio. It is actually a rather expensive hobby, worth every nickel invested. We must admit that the quality of musician we see and listen to in our living room has gotten better now that 40-60 friends share in the cost by making a donation directly to the performers.

Música Del Rio grew out of a desire to open our home to friends who love live music as much as we do. We also realized that music shared in smaller venues was usually limited to bars and lounges. As we learned more about house concerts, it became clear that we were ready to start Música Del Rio. As we enter the third year of Música Del Rio, please know that all you need to be part of this community is a few free Friday or Saturday nights and a spot on our invitation list with your name on it. We hope to see you soon.