Someone in your town may be a concert planner, an impresario. It might even be your next-door neighbor. While not in the same league as famous impresarios, such as Bill Graham, Quincy Jones, or Andrew Lloyd Webber, your hometown impresario offers a unique concert experience.

RSVP, David Archuleta!

It’s the house concert, one of the latest trends in the music world. An invitation goes out to forty or fifty friends, all avid music lovers. It might read something like this, “You are cordially invited to our living room (den, backyard, or basement) to hear world-famous singer (drummer, pianist, or guitarist), NAME OF ARTIST, at a private concert. We ask only that you bring your ear for great music and a small donation.” As the music industry struggles to develop a new business model, both artists and listeners often feel left out in the cold. The house concert is a grass-roots effort to bring music back into our lives in a direct, warm and friendly manner. Avoiding hyped-up promoters and greedy venue owners, the house concert provides the pure and simple delights of music.

Before he became a “teen singing sensation,” David Archuleta often performed in nursing homes, hospitals, churches, restaurants, and even private houses in his home state of Utah. Even though he has achieved success since American Idol, he often says he prefers the small, intimate theatre where he can establish a connection with the audience. The house concert is the ideal venue for artists, even well-known ones, who want their music to be an expression of their humanity.

This article in my local newspaper caught my eye. “Mayor talent in the house” by Michael Dougan explores this new trend in music.

Other House Concert resources:
Celebrating Songwriters
Acoustic Vortex
Rose Street Music
Tips for your own home shows
List of touring artists available for home concerts

Totally Random

And now something totally random for those of you who live in cold, freezing, wintry, snowy climes! A digital snowman!

Here is a Unicode Snowman: ☃

If you can see the snowman above, your computer has a font that will correctly display unicode. Unicode Snowman

Until next week, here’s the buzz word…

Buzz Word

impresario
Main Entry: im·pre·sa·rio
Pronunciation: \ˌim-prə-ˈsär-ē-ˌō, -ˈser-, -ˈzär-\
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural im·pre·sa·ri·os
Etymology: Italian, from impresa undertaking, from imprendere to undertake, from Vulgar Latin imprehendere — more at emprise
Date: 1746

1 : the promoter, manager, or conductor of an opera or concert company
2 : a person who puts on or sponsors an entertainment (as a television show or sports event)

Now make a beeline to last week’s “Type Bee”.

Creating Sweet Buzz for David Archuleta