Every other month, an Auburn couple opens their doors to the community, inviting musicians and audiences to enjoy live music in an intimate home setting.

Sharon and Jaya Carl are the organizers of Auburn House Concerts, a series they’ve held since 2007. The concerts, held six times a year, are presented in their Auburn home, which seats a maximum of 50 people.

“It’s not a moneymaking venture for us,” said Sharon Carl, explaining that the suggested $20 donation goes back to the musicians. “It’s just something we do to bring music to the community and to support independent musicians.”

Those performers have included British folk singer Frankie Armstrong, Celtic harpist Chris Caswell and, most recently, folk musicians/comedians Lou and Peter Berryman. The duo from Madison, Wisc., added a stop in Auburn to their annual California tour. They were eager to play here after meeting Sharon Carl at a house concert in Winters.

“The hostess from Auburn came to our show there and enjoyed it, and asked us if we wouldn’t come play in her living room,” Lou Berryman said. “It was lovely – a perfect place for a concert.”

Sharon Carl said she and her husband, musicians themselves, have the pleasure of choosing the concerts based on musicians they admire. In addition to the concert, some musicians have held other events, such as when Caswell taught a drum and harp workshop before his concert. Other times there is a musicians’ jam after the show – especially if it’s Irish music, which the Carls play.

“It’s intimate,” Sharon Carl said. “We have a room that’s great acoustically, so there isn’t a bad seat in the house. You can hear everything, and you see the faces of the performers.”

The Carls have full-time jobs – Sharon is production director at Hopscotch US, which puts out a wedding website, and Jaya works for a biotech firm in Benicia. Their busy schedule allows time for only half a dozen concerts each year, so they make sure the shows they host are memorable . 

“To see music in this up-close-and-personal kind of way will bring possibly a new understanding, maybe a new inspiration,” Sharon Carl said.

Reach Krissi Khokhobashvili at krissik@goldcountrymedia.com.

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Up next

Performing at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 25, are Kyle Alden and Athena Tergis. Alden, a guitarist and baritone, is well-known in the Irish music scene, will perform “Songs from Yeats' Bee-Loud Glade,” a collection of poems by Irish poet and playwright William Butler Yeats.

Fiddle player Tergis is a graduate of Alasdair Fraser’s Valley of the Moon Scottish Fiddling School and is a three-time winner of the Junior National Scottish Fiddling Championship. She was the 2009 featured soloist for the Dublin Philharmonic Orchestra, performing throughout the United States and China. Tergis will teach a fiddle workshop at 4 p.m. Feb. 25.

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Houseguests

What: Private house concerts in Auburn

Cost: $20 suggested donation

Information: Performances require an invitation. Email info@auburnhouseconcerts.org or call (530) 885-4292 to request an invitation, and for reservations and directions.

Online: www.auburnhouseconcerts.org

Kyle Alden and Athena Tergis

What: Irish guitarist, vocalist and fiddler

When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 25

Gerry O’Beirne

What: Irish singer, songwriter and instrumentalist (guitar, tiple, ukulele, slide guitar)

When: Saturday, April 14

Euphonia

What: Acoustic combo featuring harmony vocals and mandolin, double bass, guitar, accordion and percussion (including jumping beans in a can and a jawbone), along with guitar and an array of homemade rhythm instruments

When: Saturday, June 2