Centerville Library keeps the spirit of caroling alive past the 12 Days of Christmas with Kim Moberg’s monthly open mic, which starts Tuesday, Jan. 9, from 6-8 p.m., and runs every second Tuesday of the month thereafter.
Musical and spoken word performers may sign up on-site at 5:30 p.m. to play two songs or a 10-minute set. Additional performers and latecomers will be accommodated as time permits.
Misao Koyamo will provide piano accompaniment if participants bring their own sheet music. Whether you’re playing or listening, the event is free, but food bank donations are encouraged.
Moberg says volunteering to pull off the monthly open mic is her way of giving back to a community that supported her through an extraordinarily painful and trying 2017. In April, Moberg’s sister, Kelly, died of breast cancer; then Kelly’s husband died; then Moberg's mother died, and Moberg, herself, underwent a bi-lateral mastectomy.
Moberg was born in Juneau, Alaska, to a classical pianist mother of Tlingit descent and a U.S. Coast Guard veteran father from Kansas. At age 14 she began playing acoustic guitar on a borrowed, nylon six-string. She says music helped her adjust to her military family’s frequent moves.
A few years later, she bought a Gibson Epiphone and taught herself to strum and fingerpick to her favorite ’70s music -- James Taylor, Jackson Browne, and Carole King. However, stage fright kept her from performing live.
In 2014 -- after a hiatus from music to raise her two daughters -- Moberg set out to overcome that stage fright. Last year, Moberg founded the Craigville Coffehouse open mic, thanks to Centerville Library’s making the space available. She now performs regularly at local concerts, music festivals, fundraisers, and open mics on the Cape, Boston’s South Shore and Rhode Island.
Moberg says she draws inspiration from acoustic roots, folk, Americana, and country. Her original songs speak to reunion, awakening, and social consciousness; she says she’s especially partial to musical stories that tug at feelings of melancholy, heartbreak, and healing.
It was seeing her sister cope with breast cancer that convinced Moberg she could overcome her fear of performing before a live audience. She organized five community concerts to raise money for her sister’s treatment, convincing herself to “keep doing it and fight through the fear.”
“The music community here is incredibly supportive of each other,” Moberg emphasizes.
The open mics at Centerville Library draw about an 80:20 ratio of music to spoken word performances, she adds.
"We welcome all genres, all levels, all ages. Some nights it’s eight people; others, it’s 38. At the first one last year, we had an eight and an 80-year-old.”