Donations and sponsorships make this free concert series possible. 

The OYOU is committed to paying its teachers, artists, and performers. We are also committed to outreach within our community, celebrating diversity, and providing an artistic outlet to those with disabilities. 

The entire industry of the performing and visual arts has been turned upside down due to advances in technology and a massive shift in how people consume music and view the arts. We provide a source of income to artists by giving them an audience in which to perform and or teach. 

The OYOU creates and atmosphere where those that create and make their living in the arts can not only survive, but thrive, in both education and performance. 

Our classes are small. We also provide scholarships for those who would otherwise be unable to attend, and we also work with those with disabilities — often one on one.

Please considering donating to the OYOU so that we can pay our teachers and performers a reasonable wage for their hard work and creative efforts. 

December 6th 2018 Stringtown Texas 

January 3rd 2019 Tish Hinojosa 

February 7th 2019 Georgia Parker  

March 7th 2019 Alan Munde & Billy Bright 

This is a free and family friendly event. Saint Mark's Episcopal Church is also 100% accessible for those with mobility issues. 

It's a donation ran series! There is no cover charge. 

We open the doors at 5:30 We serve complimentary munchies at 6:00. We have yummy queso, chips, snacks, and more! The show starts promptly at 7:00. There's a Q & A between the artist and the audience at 8:00 and the entire event usually wrap up at 8:15 

“I’m gonna find me a new song to sing,” declares Tish Hinojosa on the title track of her new album, West, the first since 2013’s After the Fair.  Since returning to Austin, TX, from a nearly decade-long sojourn in Germany five years ago, Hinojosa has had to heal, both emotionally and physically from a shattered marriage and a pair of serious surgeries. That rebirth comes through in this classic country-flavored collection, co-produced by longtime collaborators Marvin Dykhuis and Chip Dolan at Fire Station Studios in San Marcos, TX.

“Music flows through cracks and scars,” she sings on a tribute to “My Good Guitar,” which tells the story of how Tish repaired a prized acoustic guitar, handmade by noted luthier John Dillon, which she purchased back in 1992.  “Though we are weathered, we’ve both pulled through,” read the song’s lyrics, artfully comparing artist and instrument.

“She sat broken in my closet for the last seven years,” explains Tish.  “I couldn’t face looking at her.  I decided to buy some wood clamps and gorilla glue at Home Depot, and repair it, just like I’d seen on the DIY Network. We’ve both been through a lot, and now we’re back in action.”

Both guitar and owner sound as good as new and vibrant as ever, given the evidence on West, its title song inspired by an epiphany experienced by Tish during a road trip through Tucson, AZ, where she viewed a dazzling sunset followed by the rumbles of an incoming thunderstorm.

“This album is definitely about renewal,” she says. “Getting back on my feet, regaining my health, and creativity.”

After a fallow period of four years, Hinojosa was suddenly revitalized, writing a number of new songs, playing them for guitarist Dykhuis and piano/accordionist Dolan, then enlisting the rest of her crack band -- fiddler Gene Elders and pedal steel player Marty Muse, who bring that classic country sound, along with bassist Glenn Kawamoto and drummer Rick Richards, to record them.

The result reminds us that Tish Hinojosa was Americana long before the term took hold, recording her debut 1989 album, Homeland, for the A&M imprint by that very name (Americana), which also boasted folk singer/songwriter/guitarist David Wilcox and Cajun poet Zachary Richard.

One of 13 children born to Mexican immigrant parents in San Antonio, Hinojosa has dedicated her career to playing music from the southwest, starting out in Tejano before moving on to singer/songwriter folk, border music and country.

Hinojosa’s new originals are at the heart of the collection, from the romantic tribute to the missions in her hometown (“Church of the Mission Bell”) to channeling Patsy Cline in a bittersweet country shuffle (“Can’t Say It Matters Anymore”) and even a co-write with son Adam Hinojosa-Barker (“I Can Be the Wind”), one of two children from her 20-year marriage to entertainment lawyer Craig Barker.

There are also covers of songs by some of her favorite southwestern musicians. Her version of the late Tim Henderson’s “Maria Consuelo Arroyo” takes on the song’s single immigrant mother raising a family of “dreamers,” and makes it immediately relevant to today’s headlines.  She originally performed Jimmy LaFave’s “Only One Angel,” for a memorial concert at Austin’s Paramount Theatre, turning this recorded take into a remembrance of a dear friend. Tish turns the Mexican standard “Perfidia,” covered by everyone from Desi Arnaz, Nat King Cole and Charlie Parker to Linda Ronstadt, Freddy Fender and Andrea Bocelli, into a country number, thanks to the plaintive pedal steel, fiddle and accordion.  She joins her self-described “mentor” Michael Martin Murphey for his “What Am I Doing Hangin’ Round?” a hit for the Monkees when he offered it to fellow Screen Gems songwriter – and San Antonio/Austin pal -- Michael Nesmith.  Hinojosa originally started out in New Mexico as a back-up singer in Murphey’s band, where he took her under his wing and encouraged the young performer to pursue her singer/songwriter muse.

Tish’s personal style means West has plenty of blood – and raw emotion -- on its tracks, and a number of wounds, too, but Tish Hinojosa prefers to dwell on the positive. On the album’s final track, “Color It Blue,” for which she wrote lyrics over music by co-producers Dykhuis and Dolan, she ends on a typical note of uplift. “Lose yourself to the moon,” she declares, still the wanderlust spirit, ready to move forward to the next stage of an already-impressive career.

“This album happened in such an organic, beautiful way,” she declares.

West is a welcome addition to a resume which features releases on A&M, Warner Bros., Rounder, Watermelon and Lone Star, a command performance for President Bill Clinton and Hillary at the White House with Robert Redford, and numerous prestigious honors, including the NAIRD Indie Folk Album of the Year for 1992’s Culture Swing.  Tish Hinojosa’s trip continues its long and winding road.

“The journey hasn’t always been easy,” she says. “These are our life’s adventures. Sometimes we hit it good; sometimes we hit it bad."

On West, Tish Hinojosa has turned that pain to pleasure with music which allows those scars to gradually fade away.

Tish Hinojosa is a singer-songwriter from Austin, Texas. Hinojosa’s blend of folk, country, Latino, and pop has an undeniable far reaching appeal, garnering her accolades such as a White House concert at the invitation of President and Mrs. Clinton and teaming up with artists such as Joan Baez, Booker T. Jones, Flaco Jimenez, Pete Seeger, and Dwight Yoakam.

She has recorded as an independent artist as well as for A&M, Warner Bros, and Rounder Records and has been a featured artist on Austin City Limits, A Prairie Home Companion and other NPR programs.

With seventeen CDs to her name, Tish’s distinct sound has gained her much critical acclaim. Tish has toured extensively throughout the U.S. and Europe and continues to draw a loyal and growing audience.

"Big Cedar Fever is a string swing band out of central Texas that specializes in classic western swing and jazz. Three part harmonies and tight musical arrangements draw listeners in, only to be taken away by the classic style and lyrics that relic another time and place."