We’re fortunate to have so many great venues for playing and listening to music in Fairfield.

A new website, the Fairfield Music Gallery provides  you with a place to sample the richness and depth of local songwriting and musical talent.

The site provides musicians, songwriters, singers, engineers and the like with personal profiles and a place to store and promote mp3s, videos, podcasts, create discussion forums – and more.

Unlike MySpace or Facebook, this site is only for Fairfield and the surrounding area. Our mission is a simple one, to provide a place for local musicians and their fans to promote themselves, meet each other, and possibly even work together as a result of their interactions on the site.

Sign up as a member and join the appropriate group (songwriter, musician, singer, recording engineer, fan, etc) You can put a few photos on your page, load a few of your original songs (mp3), load a video of your original music performance and redirect people to your own website if you’d like.

Some of the local talent who have joined includes: Sharon Bousquet, David Seagull, Owen Blake, Aaron Blum, David Bordow, Theo Shier, Joe Toth, Mark Soth, Mike Scanlon, Laura Cohen, Beth Payne and Stevie Ray Jeffries.

For those of you who do not have the ability to record your work, Mark Soth of Blue Cat Alley can arrange for the recording of one or two pieces depending on the complexity/ length etc – at no charge -  from his home studio (which provides very decent quality.)  Contact  Mark at mrf@mchsi.com and he can arrange for a recording session.

Please check out the site and enjoy!

Saturday Night at the Sondheim series and FMC Productions is pleased to present “Motown R & B,” Friday, January 29th and Saturday, January 30th at 7:30 featuring Fairfield’s own “Soul Revue Orchestra.”  This event is being produced by FMC Productions who brought you concerts such as Woodstock!,  Good Die Young and Fairfield Unplugged.  Motown R&B will feature many of the musicians from these past productions as well as some fresh new talent.

Tickets are $15 and can be purchased on line or at the Fairfield Arts and Convention Center Box Office.

This production of Motown R&B is being co-sponsored by FMC Productions and KRUU-LP 100.1 FM, an open source, grassroots community radio station.

The Saturday Night at the Sondheim Series is part of a monthly program designed to raise funds to support the Stephen Sondheim Theater and the Fairfield Arts and Convention Center.

The Chamber Singers of Southeast Iowa will present “Seasonal Songs of the Spirit”, on Saturday and Sunday, December 12 and 13, at 8:00 p.m. at the First Presbyterian Church at 200 South Main in Fairfield.

The beautiful choral works in this year’s program express the deep spiritual values that uplift our lives and give rise to joy, love, and praise. The songs extend from the Renaissance to the present day, representing seven countries and a wide range of musical styles and inspiration, including gospel, Hebrew, and African pieces. Composers include Renaissance masters di Lasso and Phillips and contemporary icons Stephen Paulus and Moses Hogan. The concert explores spiritual experience in individual life, in seasonal traditions, in different cultures, and in community.

“This year our program explores how spirit affects and shapes our lives in the world,” says Elaine Reding, director of the Chamber Singers. “Throughout history and around the world, people have always gathered together in song to celebrate and enliven the deep spiritual bonds of love that connect us to each other, to our community, and to the divine, and this year’s choral program expresses these more lasting spiritual connections between us all. We hope everyone will join us at this year’s concerts for music that beautifully captures this spirit of the season.”

In lieu of ticket sales, the Chamber Singers will rely on your generous good-will offering at the door. For more information, please call 641-472-1539.

If you enjoy the free Live on the Square concert series – or if you don’t – now is the chance to make your voice heard loud and clear.

Take 5 minutes out of your busy day to answer these 8 questions and you can help to shape the 2010 season!

Click here to take the survey

Right here in my basement actually.  Thanks to Lisco fiber, YouTube and U2 I’m sitting here enjoying a live U2 concert taking place at the Rose Bowl in California.  It’s pretty amazing.

The video is smooth and the audio hasn’t skipped yet (I’m ten songs in so far).  And the way Bono keeps singing to the camera is making me feel like I’ve got the best seats in the house, along with everyone else on the Internet.

You may be thinking that a YouTube stream cannot come close to the concert experience, but it’s absolutely moving me.  The once “indie” rock band who played the soundtrack through most of my teenage years is now using the Internet to create the world’s largest rock/pop concert, connecting years of fans and demographics into one shared experience.

And if connecting everyone on the planet wasn’t big enough, they connected to a russian astronaut orbiting the earth on the international space station to sing along on the big screen.  Only Bono could pull this off right?

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My wife and I attended the “River Rats” Dueling Pianos show at the Arts and Convention Center last night. It was a fairly full house and a very diverse audience – kids to people who are even older than I , and from all walks of life. Really very representative of Fairfield.

It was just what you’d expect from such an act. Two good piano players who could sing, engage the audience, generate some laughs, and somehow play an incredibly wide-range of songs. We’re talking – and I’m not making this up – The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys, Paradise by the Dashboard Light, I Walk the Line, and of course, classic piano bar tunes such as Piano Man and Brown Eyed Girl.

The convention hall was set up like a club, with the stage in the middle of the room with white table-clothed tables surrounding it. There was a full bar serving snacks, and table service. The bar was staffed by Becky – bartender extraordinaire whom anybody who attends shows at the Center would know – as well as, get this Tammy Jones, General Manager of KMCD/Classic 96. Talk about community support!

Based on the participation level and people taking pictures on the stage with the talent, I’d say that a fun time was had by all. And the musicians? Well, not only did they enjoy it – they told my wife as much – they mentioned 2 or 3 times how much they loved the room and the Center as a whole. Of course, they’d like to come back and I for one, wouldn’t mind that at all.