Necessity means we’re finding more ways to do things ‘from the comfort of home’ these days. It’s a list that hasn’t traditionally included enjoying live music, but even that’s changing at this point. A local couple, for instance, is sharing their musical talents by streaming weekly concerts from their home to yours.
Elmira residents Russ and Jennifer Shouldice have started a concert series they call ‘From our Living Room to Yours,’ where each week they perform a themed musical show via Facebook Live.
They were inspired to start their livestream shows after trying to prepare some music with their pastor. While putting technology to use came with a few hiccups, their urge to find a “low-key way” to share music and give people at home something fun to do turned into the idea for a concert from home.
“This has been just a really cool outlet. We did our album last year in the fall … and then this has kind of just been an opportunity, just a fun little thing for us to do,” said Russ. “We’re loving it.”
Jennifer says most of their music involvement is within their church community and their jobs, and since they have been unable to do musical gigs for some time, the online forum has been a great opportunity for them to do the thing they love.
Each concert consists of about five songs and lasts from 25 to 30 minutes. Each also has a theme that changes weekly, as they’ve played song covers from a wide array of styles. The thematic approach has included country, a night at the movies and even Disney.
“I was just creatively thinking ‘oh let’s do a Disney night,’ so then I think of songs we know from Disney movies, then we put together chord charts – and we’ve been coming up with creative ideas to get our kids involved,” said Jennifer.
Until recently all the music they performed were covers, but their May 1 concert focused on originals, and featured music they wrote themselves.
From our Living Room to Yours continues May 8, when they’ll be offering up part two of their original music theme, playing more songs they’ve created.
“We’re celebrating our 14th anniversary on May 6, and we’d like to share a song that Russ wrote that we played at our wedding and sang at our wedding on May 8, so I think we’re going to do another originals night,” said Jennifer.
Russ and Jennifer encourage the community to like their social media accounts so they can follow along with updates, get notified when concerts start and even give them requests for new themes.
Contact them through their Facebook page, Russ and Jennifer, to catch up on the concerts they’ve performed and request your favourite songs and theme ideas.
From our Living Room to Yours streams live Friday evenings starting at 7 p.m.
