Last fall, as many of you know, Watchfire Music presented a series of Inspirational music concerts here in NYC under the banner of the WFM Listening Room.  Julia Wade, Watchfire Music’s best-selling artist, headlined five of these concerts with various opening acts chosen from a wonderful list of New York talent.

We opened up with three concerts on Central Park at Jenkins House Concerts, an intimate parlor setting in a brownstone just off the park and soon outgrew this lovely, but too small atmosphere.  At that point we moved the last three concerts into Shetler Studios Penthouses to accommodate the audiences that kept coming back again and again and each time bringing more and more friends.

Jenny Burton with Kevin Osborne and Friends closed Series I just before Christmas and sold out two weeks before the performance date.  So we moved the venue to Shetler’s largest venue, Penthouse I, and sold it out in the next 24 hours.  And who says the music business is dead?

The idea of simply listening to great music performed by great artists without all the hoopla is becoming, once again, attractive to concert goers seeking a worthwhile inspirational listening experience.

This month, in fact Friday, March 25^th, Series II begins.

Both venues taught us a lot.  We did the first series totally off mic.  People loved the natural intimate quality of the sound of those beautiful voices, but I thought that sometimes the music lacked the drive that it could have and sometimes some of the singer-songwriter piano players had trouble getting their voices over the pianos as the audiences grew larger and larger.

So we’re putting the next series on mic with an extremely high quality sound system that will never be loud (we want to maintain that natural intimate atmosphere), but have the presence and power when we need it, especially with larger audiences.

But the real news here is that we’ve found a fantastic new venue for all five concerts comin’ atcha this spring.  Now the WFM Listening Room will be presented at 63^rd Street and Park Avenue in a new performance space that is elegant, easily accessible, and twice as large as any previous space to accommodate our growing audiences.  We are blessed.  Still intimate, yet beautifully appointed and complete with first class sound system, The WFM Listening Room has now found its ideal space.

Jenny Burton kicks it off March 25^th at 8 PM with along with a terrific act to be named later this week.  Make your reservations early (212 244-0426) because even this new room may not be able to accommodate the growing demand.  We’re presently staffing up and preparing for this opening and we’ll be letting you know of further concerts yet to come.

If you were a part of this exciting new idea last fall, we know you’ll be back.  Tell your friends, bring your family, tell a stranger about it and shout it in the streets.  Just be there.