CIRCLE OF FRIENDS 2025-26 SCHEDULE
Click a show’s “View Event” button to order tickets.
All shows start at 7:30PM, doors open at 7:00PM. Tickets will be held at the door. No refunds.
In the event of bad weather please check this website for the latest information. If a show is canceled all tickets will be refunded.
Chris Smither $30
Chris Smither
“Smither is an American original – a product of the musical melting pot and one of the absolute best singer-songwriters in the world.”
—Associated Press.
Richard Shindell $35
Richard Shindell
Richard Shindell lives as both an immigrant and emigrant, crossing thresholds, that informs his illumination of the human experience through narrative song. Shindell has inhabited a Zen Buddhist monastery and busked in the streets of Paris.
Originally from New York, now living in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Shindell is a writer whose songs paint pictures, tell stories, juxtapose ideas and images, inhabit characters, vividly evoking entire worlds along the way and expanding our sense of just what it is a song may be. Meticulously recorded over three years in New York and Buenos Aires, his most recent release, Careless, offered an ambitious, luxurious, full- length statement. Shindell immersed himself in the studio, allowing the time and latitude to explore, experiment, take risks—to play—as each of these eleven songs was given form and substance. While his signature acoustic guitar style is used to good effect, Careless also found Shindell plugging in more. “The wider sonic and dynamic range of the electric has been a real inspiration. Rejuvenating.”
During the pandemic, Shindell stayed in Argentina, out on the wide open Pampa, reading, writing, taking walks, doing a little experimental recording, and tending the garden. He now returns to the road for a limited number of performances. Innovative, original and occasionally spiritual, Shindell’s songs weave tales that interchangeably champion the downtrodden, exalt the disaffected or wax empathetic to those lost to society’s fringes. From lighthearted ballads and adulterous love songs, to dirges and diatribes that skillfully skewer politics, prejudice, war and religion, to the comic point-of-view of a cow stuck in a barbed wire fence, he has a unique ability to morph into the soul of the many and varied personalities he casts as narrators in certain songs—veritable novellas framed in haunting acoustic melodies.
To book Richard Shindell in North America, please contact:
Craig Grossman
RUNA $25
RUNA
Celebrating 14 years together as a band, Celtic-American Roots music “super group”, Runa, continues to push the boundaries of Irish folk music into the Americana and roots music formats. Interweaving the haunting melodies and exuberant tunes of Ireland and Scotland with the lush harmonies and intoxicating rhythms of jazz, bluegrass, flamenco and blues, they offer a thrilling and redefining take on traditional music.
Ellis Paul, Alice Peacock opening $30
Ellis Paul
When the world was shut down by Covid-19 in 2020, Ellis Paul, like many musicians, turned to the internet as a safety net to catch the fall of his tumbling livelihood. He set up microphones and lights in a spare bedroom and started performing livestream shows, hosting songwriter sessions, and playing one-on-one concerts for fans. He relied on the good will of a devoted audience that he had built over three decades. He was able to cobble together enough to keep his family fed, and he did it all from his home.
He also began to write. Before the pandemic, he’d never had the luxury of so much time at home. Songs and recordings had often been created on the fly, on open calendar dates during intense stretches of over two hundred nights per year on the road. Rushing to studios, rushingto shows, writing on airplanes. But now Ellis was home, with time on his hands.
He was turning 55, and not struggling with the idea of the age, but the consequences of it. Dupuytren’s contracture, a disease that tightly closes the fingers into a fist, had settled into both of his hands. He was wondering how long he had left as a guitarist and a pianist before it rendered playing and writing almost impossible. It eventually would.
So he just began. Song by song. While he had the time and still had the use of his fingers. Eventually, his journals had over 40 new songs etched into them.
He wrote about turning 55 during a pandemic, about the catharsis of outliving the things he’d grown up with—milkmen delivering to the door, 8-track tapes, fax machines—while at the same time losing his hero John Prine to Covid-19...
Alice Peacock
Kim Moberg & Jenna Nicholls $25
Kim Moberg
“I had the honor last night of being a judge again in the Rose Garden Coffeehouse Songwriter Competition. Congrats to Kim Moberg who really shone bright last night. She will be a songwriter to watch in the coming years! Great songwriting, delivery, musicianship, topics, comfort on the stage and with her audience."
-Robert Haigh, Judge, 2018 Rose Garden Coffee House Songwriter Competition
"Kim Moberg has created a project that features not only her lovely voice but a songwriting style that can easily transition from the gentle Americana-tinged ballads to thoughtful protest songs. Above Ground is well worth a listen!"
-Joe Pszonek Radio Nowhere | Joltin Joe Pszonek Finnegan's Wake
Jenna Nicholls
In a tapestry of sound, Jenna Nicholls weaves a spell: strumming her ukulele with the spirit of New Orleans or crooning a cowboy’s tale with the soul of the West. Her melodies, like vintage vinyl spun anew, carry the weight of memory and promise of tomorrow. With three albums under her belt, her songs have found their way into the heart of cinema and the pulse of television. On the road she’s shared stages with legends like Ingrid Michaelson, and Oscar winner Glen Hansard. From the storied stages of Carnegie Hall and the Beacon Theatre, Jenna’s music echoes through the night, a testament to the enduring power of song.
“Her ability melodically to leave me wanting the next part of the story is mesmerizing. Jenna points out universal moments in our lives and even though they’re personal to her, I don’t feel left out. The level of descriptive writing in her lyrics is astonishing.”
– Melissa Ferrick
“Her songs land like a freight ship into the harbor of hearts and ears… The air changes. Pure mastery.”
– Glen Hansard
Crys Matthews $25
Crys Matthews
“A passionate and powerful blend of infectious Americana melodies and folky instrumentation, Matthews delivers her honest songwriting through a beautifully raw and unfiltered lens. Oozing soul, her voice bleeds with emotion and gratitude, while simple piano melodies and upbeat percussion fill you with appreciation and love for the people around us who fight for change.”
— Ear Milk
Garnet Rogers - Special FRIDAY Show - $30
Garnet Rogers
“Garnet Rogers is capable of awe-inspiring and unpredictable stuff – and that includes more than just music”
James Keelaghan $25
James Keelaghan
"He displays a genius for finding his way deep inside big stories, building them outward from palpably intimate moments."
~ The Boston Globe
Vance Glibert $25
Vance Gilbert
“If Joni Mitchell and Richie Havens had a love child, with Rodney Dangerfield as the midwife, the results might be something close to the great Vance Gilbert", says Richmond Magazine.
Susan Werner $30
Susan Werner
Over the course of her twenty five year career, Susan Werner has earned a reputation as “one of the most innovative songwriters working today” (Chicago Tribune). With formidable chops on guitar (she began playing at age 5) and piano (she was a guest on Marian McPartland’s Piano Jazz), along with a graduate degree in voice performance, her shows are a one-woman master class in musicianship. Although best known as an acoustic songwriter that came up through coffeehouses and folk festivals, the Chicago-based artist has written songs in the style of Gershwin and Cole Porter (I Can’t Be New, 2004), gospel music (The Gospel Truth, 2007), traditional Cuban “son” (An American In Havana, 2016), and New Orleans junk piano (NOLA, 2019). In 2014 she composed the music and lyrics to the musical theater score Bull Durham, The Musical (MGM). Her songs have been recorded by Tom Jones, Michael Feinstein, and Shemekia Copeland, and her latest recording of originals, The Birds of Florida, took flight in 2022.
Tickets may be ordered with a major credit card through PayPal. You do not need a PayPal account to purchase tickets. All sales are final.No refunds. Tickets will not be mailed; they will be held for you at the door. Doors open at 7:00PM.
In the event of bad weather please check this website for the latest information. If a show is canceled all tickets will be refunded.