BRENHAM, TX — Brenham took a historic step into the realm of live music on Tuesday, Jan. 12. The city was officially certified by the Texas Music Office as a music-friendly city, opening up a new world of possibilities both for musicians and local businesses in the area.
"We are greatly appreciative to all the venues that have live music for us," said Jennifer Phillips, tourism partner and visitor experience manager for the city of Brenham. "It allows the tourists, the day-trippers and the overnight weekenders to have something to do while they’re here in the evening, besides just going out to dinner or visiting our wineries and brewery.”
When a city is certified by the Texas Music Office as music-friendly, the path is paved for that city to receive special resources from the state, such as financial assistance and access to a statewide network that assists musicians in booking gigs as needed.
"We hope that it helps to grow the Brenham music scene," Phillips said. "We try to have live music at, at least one of our venues every weekend, and we hope that it encourages more artists to come visit.”
The city of Brenham has since established a music-friendly committee to work as a liaison for venues and artists to work with the state music office. The committee is made up of area residents such as musician Rob Moorman, frontman for the band Rob Moorman & Company.
“What we’re hoping is that folks come in to have a venue, have a restaurant or bar, or pub, something like that," Moorman said. "They’ll come to the committee and say, ‘okay, what do y’all recommend?’ - To get the benefit of a lot of years, because a lot of people on the committee have a lot of years of experience in the music business.”
Live music events are happening right now in Brenham, such as Moorman’s band performing at Nathan’s Barbecue restaurant, starting at 6 p.m. Friday night.
For more information on the Brenham music scene, check out visitbrenhamtexas.com.