The Planning Team for the Colorado Dulcimer Festival had been looking forward to putting on a live festival next February, catching up with friends, making some new ones, and playing and enjoying lots of live dulcimer music. Events of the last months caused us to reassess our plans, and think about how we might do that within the current, evolving guidance to preserve health and safety at group events. We have regretfully reached the decision that we can’t provide the live festival experience we all want in this uncertain COVID reality. We are cancelling the February 2022 live festival.
We know this is a disappointment to many of you, as it is to us. It certainly wasn’t an easy decision. We ask for your patience (if you have any left) and we’ll be back in 2023, stronger than ever. We want to thank our artists, who had graciously accepted our invitation to come teach us and perform; we expect to be asking you again because we really want to take those workshops and hear those concerts! And we want to thank everyone who has attended past festivals and especially those of you who have volunteered and helped us out. We want to see you again in 2023.
In the meanwhile, you are probably aware that a number of other festivals have gone virtual, allowing us all to take workshops and listen to concerts from our homes, and at very reasonable prices. We urge you to try out some of those offerings. You can learn about these virtual festivals in several ways.
- Get on the email lists of your favorite teachers, or follow them on social media.
- Join Facebook groups dedicated to mountain or hammered dulcimer music and musicians.
- Subscribe to Dulcimer Player News. Many festivals advertise there, and it’s a good publication with a variety of articles and music from skilled hammered and mountain dulcimer players.
- Sign up for emails from virtualdulcimerfest.com (aka Quarantunes). This was the first virtual festival focused on mountain and hammered dulcimer players (with workshops on a few other instruments thrown in). A core team has gotten very good at putting on these festivals and they have delivered thousands and thousands of good workshops and bunches of hours of concerts. The Colorado Dulcimer Festival continues to support and sponsor this group because they’re doing such good work.
The most important thing, for all of us, is to keep growing musically. Confucius said, “Music produces a kind of pleasure which human nature cannot do without.” Never truer.
Thanks for your continuing supportl
The Colorado Dulcimer Festival Planning Team