The Durango Celtic Festival is celebrating its 11th season March 28 and 29, offering up a weekend full of music and workshops.
"If COVID hadn’t swept through, we would have been on our 14th season, I think," said CJ Alderton, president of the festival. “This will be our third year of resetting things up at Fort Lewis College, at the Community Concert Hall. We’re trying to piece back a little of the old magic with the new magic.”
As with past festivals, this year’s offers not only two solid nights of music at the Concert Hall, but audience members can also check in at late night shows Friday and Saturday and music workshops. There are even school assemblies and to close, Alderton said there’s a pretty good chance you can catch more music Sunday afternoon at the regular Irish music session at Durango Beer and Ice Co. (Check the festival’s website for the most current schedule.)
This year’s music lineup has canted toward Scotland, with the three international bands: Old Blind Dogs, Dàimh (pronounced dive) and heron Valley coming from there. Local band Westwind Pipes & Drums rounds out the performers.
“The way things worked, with visas and whatnot, we ended up with all Scottish bands this year. So it’s gonna be the Scottish invasion,” Alderton said. "They’re all award-winning bands. Old Blind Dog, four-time winner of the Trad Awards, which is akin to our Grammys, and Dàimh has won it twice. Heron Valley was named by the Scottish Conservatory of Music, the up and coming band of Scotland. So they are so much fun, young band, lot of energy.“
Making sure bands’ visas are complete is a challenge the festival faces every year; in fact, Alderton said, the process can take anywhere from a year to a year and a half to complete, which means planning is pretty much ongoing.
If you go
WHAT: Durango Celtic Festival.
WHEN: March 28-29.
WHERE: Community Concert Hall at Fort Lewis College, 1000 Rim Drive.
TICKETS: Various pricing available: Visit durangocelticfestival.com/tickets.
MORE INFORMATION: Visit durangocelticfestival.com.
“We’ve had to learn all the way,” he said. “The biggest thing is making sure all of our ducks are in a row on our end, and they have all that work they have to do on their end. So it’s constant. We get a lot more participation with the Irish consulate than we do with the other countries. Ireland actually has a program called Culture Ireland, which sometimes we’ve been lucky enough for them to pay for the plane tickets to get over here. Scotland doesn’t have that. So, it’s always a game.”
Getting to share Celtic music performed by award-winning Celtic musicians at the top of their game with Durango is not only fun – it’s a bargain, Alderton said.
“It’s incredible. If you decided to take a trip to the Celtic regions, it would cost you thousands of dollars to jump around to hear all these bands, and we’re bringing them here for pre-COVID pricing,” he said. “We’re 85 bucks for the entire weekend. That gets you into all the workshops, all the venues, all the late night and if you bring five or more, that gets you another discount as well. So friends, fools, family, the foes you know, surely, you can put together five people, whether you like them or not.”
And despite the challenges of getting artists here from other countries, “making sure everyone’s fed” and all of the other million details that have to be attended to in order to have a successful festival, it’s the fun and the celebration of all things Irish that makes it worthwhile, Alderton said.
“We just love it and the cool thing about it over time has been – just one example, Dennon Jones teaches at Escalante. He was named teacher of the year a couple of years ago in 9-R, and a lot of what he does with the little popup bands that he creates over there is Irish music now,” he said. “We’re getting into the schools, and Irish culture is just so fun. Durango and Ouray have such great Irish history that helped build out this town in this area.“
katie@durangoherald.com
