About once a month a musician or band shows up at my house, usually around dinnertime. Sometimes they set up a sound system, but most often they don’t because wood floors and tall ceilings make voices and instruments ring and shimmer. I move my furniture and set up chairs in readiness for an audience. I cook, put food and drink on tables and light candles.  Around 7:30 people start arriving and the magic begins. This is the set up for a house concert, one of the best ways to celebrate community, fellowship and life.
The musicians who come to my house are songwriters, each with different stories to tell and different styles of telling. The people who come to listen are friends, neighbors and strangers, friendships  developing with the frequency of the shared experience of music and fellowship.

In the revelation of stories told in song we learn personal histories, cultural histories and imagined histories woven with the thread of vocal and instrumental grace. No corporations are involved, no by-laws govern the gathering but the strength of fellowship, community and the unique pleasure of these evenings imbue each of us with formidable feelings of well-being.

That is the magic of the house concert.  -- Sigrid Christiansen

We came. We sang. At the Max M. Fisher Music Center. What a venue. What a privilege. What a blast.

Our musician friends stayed after the concert to share songs well into the night. What an absolute pleasure it was.

Ok, we were remiss in getting a recording or photos of our concert! What with the load in of … we'll have to count the number of instruments someday ... plus mics, chords, sound system, the usual band paraphernalia, well, Bobby brought the camera, I brought the recorder, but we didn't get to it. But what we did do was an hour show in front of the warmest crowd of 30-some. You can't beat an evening of music and laughter, no way no how. There was food and wine for starters and for the afterglow party, but the real magic happened when our musician friends in the audience broke out the guitars, banjos, mandos, etc. and swapped songs well into the night. I was lounging on the couch, tired and listening, thinking that music isn't about record deals and big cash, music is this moment. It's real people sharing the poetry of their lives through music and song and damn good music and song at that. It's akin to the eat local, buy local movement. Dig in, look around and find the musical roots in your own backyard. You'll live a bigger, more colorful life when you let this art in. --Lauren Crane