Amy Poppinga

At 7 p.m. on Friday, SDSU junior Elisabeth Hunstad will take the stage at the Mission Coffeehouse, which is located behind the First Lutheran Church.

Although the concert is free, the quality will still be great according to the event’s organizer John Schomberg. “If you want to hear good music, Elisabeth is one of the best in town,” he said.

Schomberg first heard Hunstad sing about a year ago at the University Lutheran Center. He and a couple of friends were sitting around when they heard some amazing music that they thought was coming from a CD, but it actually sounded better.They sought out the music, and found Hunstad singing and playing piano. The group was certainly impressed with Hunstad’s talent. Schomberg said, “When we walked into the room, all we could do was listen.”

Schomberg then asked Hunstad if she played anywhere, and at the time, the answer was no. “To me that was insanity, that a person that good wasn’t playing somewhere,” he said.

Later Schomberg told Hunstad that she would have to play at the Mission Coffehouse someday. Now, a year later, both their dreams have become a reality.

The concert will be featuring many of Hunstad’s original songs with sophomore Annie Morgan playing the violin as a special guest. According to Hunstad, she does not like to limit herself to a genre, but she is influenced by the many different types of music that she listens to such as jazz, gospel, rock, country and classical.

Schomberg thinks people should attend this concert in support of a local and talented artist as well as the mission. The Mission Coffeehouse is a non-profit organization that donates all the money over expenses to local and national groups such as the Boys and Girls Club and Habitat for Humanity.

Morgan encourages people to come to “hear some really cool music” and take part in “a unique musical experience.”

“I like to share music with people,” Hunstad said, “and it’s an opportunity for people to come to see what I’m about.”

Music did not just recently appear in Hunstad’s life but has been a part of her for as long as she can remember.

On the jacket of her CD, Hunstad wrote, “Some of my earliest memories are that of my dad and me on the bike trail. He would ride for miles and miles and I sat in my little child seat and provided the entertainment. I never seemed to run out of songs to sing no matter how far we traveled.”

In second grade, Hunstad started playing piano, which she believed would be “her musical focus,” but during her freshman year of high school, she tried out for a solo and discovered her love of singing as well.

Now her overall love of music has become an integral part of her life.

“To me, music is a language,” Hunstad wrote. “It is the truest way for me to express myself, and it is my method for connecting with people, whatever the situation or circumstance… Thus, music has become another part of me, and it is in all that I do and all that I am.”