Karen’s In the Moment: A NOT Concert takes place every Tuesday evening at 7:00 ET / 6:00 CT on Facebook Live. If you are on Facebook you can find Karen at karen.axelrod.9.
Karen Axelrod’s “In the Moment” Series
The Beginning
Karen, along with Anna Patton and Daron Douglas, was scheduled to play the Set for Spring English Country Dance weekend in Houston in March of 2020. Due to the emerging COVID-19 pandemic, SFS was cancelled nine days before it was to start.
Shameless plug: Karen, Anna, and Daron, along with Joanna Reiner, are re-scheduled for March 2022. Details at setforspring.org.
On the evening of March 21, 2020, which would have been the Saturday evening ball, Karen live-streamed a set of tunes in honor of and in place of Set for Spring.
Inspired by the response from her Set for Spring live stream, and hating to play solo, Karen started the “In the Moment” series on March 31, 2020.
What are these not
concerts?
Karen receives recordings of tunes from fellow ECD musicians such as Anna Patton, Daron Douglas, Eric Martin, Jeff Spero, Rachel Bell, and several more. Although Karen knows what the tunes are in advance, she usually doesn’t listen to the recordings ahead of time and has no idea what the other musician is going to do with the tune.
Playing either piano or accordion, she plays along with each recording while streaming on Facebook.
Not only is it musically spontaneous, but anything can and does happen. That only adds to the fun and the in-the-moment and not-a-concert aspects. Power has gone out, a smoke alarm has gone off, extra and totally unexpected musicians have turned up on recordings and in person outside her window, and there is the occasional technical glitch. Karen has to react to each of these and her reactions are often priceless.
Tips Appreciated!
Here is 
Karen’s Tip Jar on PayPal.me (PayPal account required). Karen shares these tips with the core musicians who send her recordings. Please donate if you can.
The Videos
In the video list below, clicking on the date will take you to the full Facebook page of the video. You may or may not need a Facebook account to view the video there. The DL link next to the date is a direct link to the video file where you should not need an account to view the video.
The DL links expire after a period of months. If a link has expired and you'd like to see or download the video, you can do this:
- Copy the link from the date, the one that goes to the full Facebook page. You can do that by right-clicking on the date and choosing Copy link location or by simply following the link to the Facebook page and copying the link from the address bar.
- Go to a site that finds the direct link to the video. Here is one of several: Getfvid
- Paste the URL you copied into the video downloader's search bar and click Download.
- You may have to click on another button to see the video. In Getfvid, click on Download in Normal Quality. The video will open in a new tab where you may view it and/or download it.
The first video is Karen’s concert in honor of Set for Spring. Because the original video was mirrored, we’re hosting a corrected and edited version of it here.
Each not-concert is about an hour long—unless the power goes out.
2020
- Mar 21 Set for Spring
- Mar 31 | DL
- Apr 7 | DL
- Apr 14 | DL
- Apr 21 | DL
- Apr 28 | DL
- May 5 | DL
- May 12 | DL
- May 19 | DL
- May 26 | DL
- Jun 3 | DL Wheee!
- Jun 9 | DL
- Jun 16 | DL
- Jun 23 | DL
- Jun 30 | DL Move to Brattleboro
- Jul 7 | DL
- Jul 14 | DL
- Jul 21 | DL
- Jul 28 | DL
- Aug 4 | DL
- Aug 11 | DL
- Aug 18 | DL
- Aug 25 | DL
- Sep 8 | DL
- Sep 15 | DL with Alchemy!
- Sep 22 | DL Who’s outside?
- Sep 29 | DL
- Oct 6 | DL
- Oct 13 | DL
- Oct 20 | DL
- Oct 27 | DL
- Nov 3 | DL
- Nov 10 | DL
- Nov 17 | DL
- Dec 1 | DL
- Dec 8 | DL
- Dec 15 | DL
- Dec 22 | DL Ding Dong!
- Dec 29 | DL Karen plays banjo!
Nov 7 | DL Requests Concert with Alchemy
2021
- Jan 5 | DL
- Jan 12 | DL Dueling Pianos
- Jan 19 | DL
- Jan 26 | DL
- Feb 2 | DL
- Feb 9 | DL RIP Philippe
- Feb 16 | DL
- Feb 23 | DL
- Mar 2 | DL Gary Roodman’s 80th
- Mar 9 | DL
- Mar 16 | DL
- Mar 23 | DL
- Mar 30 | DL ITM 1st Anniversary!
- April 6 | DL
- April 13 | DL
02/23/2021 Karen’s "5 Things" chat on YouTube