Under the stars and warm by the fire, attendees of the third annual Fireside Jazz event, hosted by Radiant Beer Co. Brewery in Anaheim, were treated to a relaxing night of original jazz arrangements of holiday classics alongside a local community vendor market on Saturday night.
The event was aimed to showcase local artistic talent and mimic a comfy backyard setting on the patio of the brewery, complete with fire pits and chocolate-mousse s’mores.
The brewery was established in 2020 with the mission statement to “Celebrate a love of the incredible, to build an experience worthy of an impassioned audience, and to lead a culture focused on openness and connection.” Nothing supports their mission more than the various local events that are consistently hosted by the brewery including book clubs, live music, “Mario Kart” nights and Disney music nights.
The market portion of the event was set up around the outdoor patio of the brewery and started an hour before the band, featuring handmade crochet plushies, custom pins, hand-painted jackets, dark fantasy art prints and locally grown coffee.
The event was serenaded by local Fullerton jazz band the Full House Ensemble, who played a variety of holiday music with original arrangement by their music director Adam Kormondy.
Among the vendors was Vicki Gallagher, a local vendor who owns Infinitely Knotted, a small business that specializes in handmade crochet plushies and accessories. This was her second year vending at the Fireside Jazz event. For her, selling to the local community is why she does it, as she only participates in pop-up events at Radiant Beer Co.
“Everybody is wonderful, and it’s so fun to see the little kids really enjoyed all the things and just the joy that people get from seeing my stuff,” Gallagher said.
The brewery hosts a number of different events throughout the year including Emo Night, an event where another artist, Michelle Vorachack, has been to.
Vorachack owns My Collateral Darkness, selling art prints in her self-described “eerie and whimsical” style. She was recommended to submit her artwork to the brewery to be featured in their showroom. After being featured, the brewery started reaching out to her to see if she was interested in selling her prints at their events.
“It’s strange because I recently started getting into jazz,” Voracheck said. “When I reached out to see if they have anything, this was one of the events. I was like, ‘It’s a sign.’”
Jonas Nemura, president of the Radiant Beer Co, heads the day-to-day operations at the brewery and helped serve drinks throughout the night to attendees. When deciding which vendors will be at their events, there’s no shortage to choose from.
“Some of the vendors that we work with are people that we’ve known for years in different contexts. Some of them are customers here who then we find out they have this little hobby that they do on the side,” Nemura said. “I’ve definitely found if you just do a band or if you just do a market where you just do whatever, you’ll create something, but when you merge all those different things together, that’s really where the events prosper.”
Prosper it did according to attendees Jasmine Seldivar and Manuela Aguilar, who said they saw the event advertised on Instagram and decided to attend because of their love of live jazz music.
“I loved it, it was beautiful,” Aguilar said.
Providing events with various options for people is key to fostering community with events like Fireside Jazz for Radiant Beer Co.
“People didn’t want to come here for the sake of listening to music, they wanted to come here because they liked the idea of the community events, or they knew the people in the band,” Nemura said.