Society Hall Presents Creede's Rivertown Folk with Special Guest Jenni Mansfield Peal!
3/1/26, 2:00 AM
Society Hall, the performance space, concert hall and community gathering place at 400 Ross Ave. in Alamosa, is excited to welcome the popular Creede based group Rivertown Folk to the stage on Saturday February 28th, at 7:00 PM. Opening the show will be Jenni Mansfield Peal, another popular singer-songwriter based in the western San Luis Valley. Doors will open at 6:00 pm. Tickets are $20 and are available at the Green Spot in Alamosa or at the link below. The concert will also stream live on the Society Hall Facebook page and You-Tube channel.
Rivertown Folk has been charming audiences around the San Luis Valley for several years now, playing festivals, events and celebrations around the area, collecting fans everywhere they go. Society Hall board member and Alamosa record producer Don Richmond says, “The Rifters have been fortunate to share the stage with Beth and Janet several times now, and we have certainly fallen in love with them and their music. They make you remember why you started playing music in the first place – there is a great freshness and vitality to what they are doing”
He continues, “We at Society Hall had been talking about inviting them to do a concert for months, but when we heard that they lost everything in a house fire on Christmas Day, we felt that the time to do that is now.” Donation jars will be set out for all those who wish to contribute to helping them recover their lives from this loss.
Rivertown Folk is Beth Morris and Janet Reynolds, both contributing guitar and vocals. They will be joined by their guitarist friend Rod Meecham for the Society Hall show. Their sound? Imagine if the San Juan Mountains picked up a guitar and started reminiscing. It’s folk music, sure, but with enough grit and grace to make your spine straighten a little and your drink taste better. These aren’t just songs; they’re campfire confessions dressed up with harmonies and hometown soul.
Jenni Mansfield Peal is a songwriter and singer, guitarist, accordionist, and mountain dulcimist. Her experience includes two tours of Northern Ireland including The Queens University Festival in Belfast, main stage at the Kerrville Folk Festival, numerous original productions and ensembles, and fiveindependent albums. The Mr. Peppermint Show, a children’s television show produced at WFAA in Dallas, TX, featured Jenni’s songs on multiple episodes that were syndicated world-wide for years starting in 1991. In 1990, Jenni won the Poor David’s Pub B.W. Stevenson Songwriting Contest in Dallas. Jenni was named The Best Folk Song Writer in North Texas by CBS DFW, among four, in October 2010. From October 2012 until February 2014, Jenni created and hosted the broadcast radio show “Everybody’s Folk” for KNON 89.3 FM in Dallas.
Since moving to the San Luis Valley of Southern Colorado in 2015, Jenni has produced events including seven seasons of Ancient Valley Open Mic, the annual campout music event A Jam In The Rockies, and the Together SLV Fundraiser for La Puente. She has performed in ensembles and solo appearances around the SLV and was Artist in Residence for the Rio Grande Scenic Railroad for the 2019 season.
Award-Winning “Shanna in a Dress” Brings Her Quirky Folk to Society Hall!
3/8/26, 2:30 AM
Shanna in a Dress is your quirky best friend who refuses to wear pants. She says what everyone has felt but no one else will say and you'll get an uncensored journey of clever humor and heartbreak, extreme candor, and a hefty side of entertainment at her shows. This witty wordsmith is known for taking you on an emotional roller coaster, sometimes within the same song. Think John Prine mixed with Ingrid Michaelson with a twist of Phoebe Buffay from Friends all wrapped up in a sweet voice accented by guitar, piano, and ukulele. She's as real as it gets, as anyone who follows her on FB or Instagram knows.
Shanna started her career at the University of Virginia, fell in love with Boulder, Colorado, and now keeps her fun music flowing out of Nashville unless she's touring the US or Europe. You can't get the same Shanna in a Dress show twice with her spontaneous banter and playful stage presence. She manages to teeter the line masterfully of taking on complex subject matters with smart, bold, and yet accessible lyrics. Her charisma and boldly honest songs are full of interesting language and wordplay and delight audiences of all ages.
Most recently, Shanna in a Dress was pronounced the winner of the Rocky Mountain Folks Fest Songwriting Contest and she returned to perform on the main stage with a full band at the 2023 Rocky Mountain Folks Fest. In 2020 alone, Shanna was a winner in the Kerrville New Folk competition, winner of the Great River Folk Fest Song Competition, a finalist at Songwriter Serenade, and a Grassy Hill Emerging Artist at the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival.
During the summer of 2021, Shanna bicycled from Seattle to Boston while music-touring on her epic "Tour de Dress," playing over 60 shows from coast to coast and partnering up with the global non-profit Pangaea World Foundation.
In May 2022, her debut record Robot was released after a wildly successful crowdfunded campaign years earlier. She has most recently been seen gracing the stages of Kerrville Folk Festival, Falcon Ridge Folk Festival, Black Bear Americana Fest, Great River Folk Fest, and the Bluebird Cafe in Nashville. Tom Prasada-Rao calls her "Kerrville's fastest rising star" and she's certainly delightfully unique and is one to watch in the future.
Shanna’s second album, Sweet Spot will be released on February 27.
Society Hall Welcomes Back the Arellano Brothers!
3/15/26, 1:30 AM
Chris and his brother Rodney are natives of Costilla, New Mexico, perched right on the Colorado border at the southern end of the San Luis Valley. They both grew up playing in their father’s band, but their musical journey since then has since taken them from the Musician’s Institute in Los Angeles, to major label record deals in Nashville, through performances in New York City to Chris running his own music teaching academy in Oregon.
The Arellano Brothers have a remarkable range of musical influences and expressions, from the Norteno music they grew up playing in their father’s band, to the high desert folk/Americana music they learned to love in Red River, New Mexico, while learning to write songs with Chris's friend and mentor Eddy Lee Bullington, well known to area audiences as a member (with Michael Hearne) of the popular South by Southwest band, and also as a member (with Don Richmond) of the regional favorite Hired Hands. Chris and Rodney are able to blend these different musical streams seamlessly, and delightfully, in their music that they call “Nuevo Americana” (also the title of Chris's 2nd CD), creating a true expression of the beauty, richness and diversity of the musical heritage of this area.
If you add in Chris's superb command of multiple stringed instruments and voice, honed by years of experience as a recording artist, studio musician and producer in Nashville, mixed with Rodney's rock-solid bass work and note-perfect sibling vocal harmony and you have the ingredients of a remarkable performance and an amazing musical evening.
In 2025, Chris was the recipient of a grant from Howlin' Dog Music Group, a non-profit organization based in Alamosa, to help him record a new album, which he and Rodney are working on in Nashville with their old friend and Nashville legend Verlon Thompson. Chris's second CD, released on Alamosa's own Howlin' Dog Records, features several original songs, two of his father's Norteno-styled tunes, as well as songs from his mentors Eddy Lee and Verlon Thompson. The CD has received rave reviews from fans and DJ's alike, and is in heavy rotation on regional radio. Two cuts from Arellano’s previously released self-titled album held #1 positions on New Mexico Radio Charts and Cuentas Que Te Vas and Puno de Tierra were respectively the #6 and #3 most requested songs of the year in 2015. This CD project also received a Los 15 Grandes De Nuevo Mexico Music Award from the New Mexico Latin Music Academy. In 2016 the album received nine separate nominations for New Mexico Hispano Music Association Awards, including Songwriter of the Year, Artist of the Year, and the Rising Star Award.
More Upcoming Shows & Events
April 15 – Lisa Morales
Saturday March 21 – Democratic Party meet the candidates presentation – 2:00 – 6:00 PM
Saturday March 28 – Ruben Dominguez and Rose Vialpando
April 25 – Jim Jones and Randy Palmer
May 23 – Redd and the Paper Flowers
May 28 – Stillhouse Junkies