The first Groupmuse classical piano concert in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia will take place December 14 at 7:30 pm.
The piano concert will feature Christopher Schmitt, a classical concert pianist, teacher and chamber musician. Schmitt holds a Doctorate in Piano Performance from The Juilliard School, and performs regularly in small ensembles at the White House and DC metropolitan area as a member of the President’s Own US Marine Band.
(You can sign up for the December 14 concert here. Tickets for this first Groupmuse concert in Berkeley Springs are limited to 35.)
Groupmuse is the brainchild of Sam Bodkin of Charles Town, West Virginia.
“Groupmuse is an online social network that connects classical musicians to local residents so that that the community can organically generate its own classical music house parties we call Groupmuses,” Bodkin told This Week in Morgan County host Russell Mokhiber. “They are not just concerts. And they are definitely not just parties. They are a hybrid of the two. They idea is that we can come together and share some of the great expressive accomplishments of our western civilization and build community around that shared experience.”
Bodkin says that about 40 Groupmuse house parties take place in the United States every week.
“We charge people $3 to RSVP for a space at the house party concert,” Bodkin said. “That goes to Groupmuse to offset our costs. At the actual event, everyone is expected to pay a minimum of $10 and as much as they can afford to give. And all of the money collected at the event goes to the musicians. It’s a highly trained level of talent that we seek to share with our community and it needs to be compensated. We do take a lot of pride in getting musicians pretty well compensated for these evenings.”