All of us with the Colorado Dulcimer Festival crew send our greetings to our friends, and also our hopes that you have been able to stay well and healthy during these difficult times. Our memories of the 2020 Festival are still warm, and they keep our spirits up by reminding us of the great music and community we shared in February.
At our first crew meeting after the 2020 Festival (held on Zoom, like most all meetings these days), we considered what we ought to do about the 2021 Festival. After long discussion and with great disappointment, we concluded that our wisest course would be to take a sabbatical from mounting our annual Festival, and devote our efforts to (1) planning the 2022 event, and (2) inventing new ways to keep our community together and serve our mission between now and then.
The uncertainties created by the Covid-19 outbreak were the largest factor in our decision, of course. We simply don’t know what the future may hold after the planet recovers from this event, and we were unwilling to go forward with making commitments to our artists, our venue, and our attendees in the face of all the unknowns. Two other factors figured into our thinking as well. Our volunteer corps (the Festival has no paid or full-time staff) is significantly depleted after some very loyal and senior members of the committee needed to move on to other commitments; it’s urgent that we recruit some fresh members in order to b e able to continue producing a Festival of the quality we expect of ourselves. Also, the size of the Festival has grown steadily over the last few years, and we may be on the brink of needing a new venue. St. James Episcopal Church has been a great home for the Festival, and it may be that we won’t be able to find another that suits us as well. But we all felt this was something we ought to investigate; as our classrooms become more crowded, eventually the learning experience will be adversely affected.
In the meantime, we hope to explore ways to make online lessons and performances available through the Festival, as a way of preserving our community and providing some income to the many excellent teachers and performers who belong to it. We will keep you informed as these plans go forward, and hope that many of you will want to stay connected to us in this way until we can be together again face-to-face.
Please take care of ourselves and each other. We would be happy to hear from you: Contact Us.
Our warmest best wishes,
The Colorado Dulcimer Festival Crew
You can be involved, too! We all know it takes many hands to complete the work and many more to lighten the load. Want to help? Send us a Contact email.
One of our Festival Jams—with all kinds of instruments! . . .
(Click on photo to enlarge.)
