After being inducted into the Colorado Music Hall of Fame in February, Harry Tuft and the Denver Folklore Center celebrate 50 years of bringing folk music to the Mile High city. A full weekend of concerts presented at The Newman Center, The L2 Arts & Culture Center and Four Mile Historic Park will commemorate the golden anniversary.
WHAT: Denver Folklore Center’s 50th Anniversary Celebration
WHEN: May 25-27, 2012
WHERE: The Newman Center, 2344 East Iliff Ave., Denver 80208; L2 Arts & Culture Center, 1477 Columbine St. Denver, 80206; Four Mile Historic Park, 715 South Forest St., Denver, 80246
TICKETS: Prices vary by show; see show details below
INFO & BOX OFFICE: http://swallowhillmusic.org/, (303) 777-1003 x2
MEDIA & PHOTO CONTACT: Lindsay Taylor, (303) 643-5818, lindsay@swallowhillmusic.org; Gwen Burak, (303) 643-5816, gwen@swallowhillmusic.org
RSS: http://swallowhillmusic.org/news
DENVER – The Denver Folklore Center has been supporting folk music in Denver since 1962. This May, the Folklore Center will be celebrating its 50th Anniversary with a weekend full of concerts. Some of folk music’s best artists including Otis Taylor, Hot Rize and Tim O’Brien, Dakota Blonde, Mollie O’Brien & Rich Moore, and Michael Cooney, will join founder Harry Tuft and the Denver Folklore Center to say, “Happy Birthday.”
In the early 1960′s, Harry Tuft ventured to Colorado in hopes of finding fresh powder. Instead, he found (and founded) a community rich with music and a need for a venue. The Denver Folklore Center was established in 1962 and provided space for folk music lessons, supplies, a place to jam or form a pick-up band. Now, it is the center of the folk community in Denver, and some say, Colorado. Harry, who was just inducted into the Colorado Music Hall of Fame in February, is thrilled that the Center has thrived for 50 years. He says, “When I came to Denver many years ago, I realized that Denver was a city made up of lots of different communities. I found here among those communities, a group of folks who really liked the kind of music that I like. We came together, magically, to build this influential organization. I’ve very proud.”
The weekend-long celebration will begin on Friday, May 25, at the Newman Center, with Hot Rize, Otis Taylor and the man who started it all, Harry Tuft, playing with Dick Lamm. Saturday’s events will be held at the L2 Arts & Culture Center and feature Tim O’Brien and Dakota Blonde. On Sunday afternoon, the festivities will move outside to Four Mile Historic Park. The party will close at Swallow Hill Music Sunday evening, for a semi-private VIP party.
Full show details are below. Thank you for supporting live music at Swallow Hill Music!
Event Details – On-Sale 3/9 @ 10am
Denver Folklore Center – 50th Anniversary Celebration
Friday, May 25 at the Newman Center – 8pm
Hot Rize, Otis Taylor, and Harry Tuft and former Colorado Governor Dick Lamm
Saturday, May 26 at L2 Arts and Culture – 8pm
Tim O’Brien, Dakota Blonde, Nick & Helen Forster and Dick Weissman
Sunday, May 27 at Four Mile Historic Park – 1-4pm
Jim Kweskin & Geoff Muldaur; Mollie O’Brien & Rich Moore; Pete & Joan Wernick; Michael Cooney; Harry Tuft, Jack Stanesco, & Steve Abbot; with Martin Gilmore
Ticket Prices
VIP Weekend Pass – $175 includes a semi-private party Sunday evening at Swallow Hill Music!
Standard Weekend Pass – $98
Friday Concert at the Newman Center – $28-$103 day of show, reserved seating
Saturday Concert at L2 Arts and Culture Center – $25 advance, $30 day of show
Sunday Concert at Four Mile Historic Park – $25 advance, $30 day of show
About the Denver Folklore Center
Well, the address has changed and the lighting’s better now, but that’s about all that’s different … because, after all, it’s not about a store; it’s about a community. Utah Phillips describes it well:
“…I had stumbled into a family that was in fact transcontinental. I found great numbers of people who, as part of their pattern of social responsibility, were committed to the task of making sure that folk music existed in their communities. I found singer-circles, camp-outs, picnics, concert programs, festivals great and small, celebrating a common heritage of song. And I found my community, singers and makers of songs, … from San Diego Folk Heritage to the Denver Folklore Center to the Ark in Ann Arbor to Lena’s and beyond, eking out a bare living sharing what we had together, but, most of all, in each other’s company … a community of sentiment in which people substantially cared for each other.”
With encouragement from Hal Neustaedter – owner of “The Exodus,” a folk club in Denver – and Izzy Young, owner of the first and (then) only Folklore Center, in New York’s Greenwich Village, Harry Tuft opened the Denver Folklore Center on March 13, 1962. Harry’s first employee was Bart Clark, now a librarian in the mid-west. The second – and youngest – employee of the Denver Folklore Center was Julie Davis. At age 14, she agreed to teach a beginner guitar class at the store in exchange for Harry teaching her intermediate guitar. Since that time, Julie has taken a leadership role in the Swallow Hill Music and continues her work as a teacher, leader, musician and storyteller today.
In 1965, Harry, working with Phyllis Wagner (now Phyllis Jane Rose), produced “The Denver Folklore Center Catalogue and Almanac of Folk Music,” a mail-order catalogue with information about the developing folk music movement. 1000 copies of the catalogue were printed. The catalogue served as an inspiration and a reference for Stan Werbin (owner of Elderly Instruments) in starting up his catalog business, which is a flourishing operation today.
The store has become a center for the growing folk music community in Denver and celebrates its 50th Anniversary in 2012.
About Swallow Hill Music
Swallow Hill Music has been helping people make and enjoy music since 1979. As it celebrates its 33rd year, it is proud to be known as one of the largest non-profit organizations in the United States to serve as a source for roots, folk and acoustic music.
Swallow Hill Music serves more than 100,000 people through its concert, school and outreach programming.
Three concert venues at our facility on 71 E. Yale Ave. offer more than 200 performances a year, featuring local, national and international talent. In addition, Swallow Hill Music presents and produces its annual Rootsfest celebration, concerts at the L2 Arts & Culture Center in Capitol Hill, at Four Mile Historic Park, at the Old South Pearl St. summer street fairs, and at the Denver Botanic Gardens for its long-running and esteemed Summer Concert Series.
A faculty of 60+ instructors provides music education to over 5,000 students who participated in hundreds of classes, workshops and private lessons for instruments and interests of all kinds. In addition, the Swallow Hill Music School reaches over 15,000 students through educational K-12 outreach programs in schools across the Front Range.
Swallow Hill Music is proud to be one of the 26 local nonprofits that are recognized as an SCFD Tier II Arts and Cultural organization. In addition to funding from SCFD and program revenue from concerts and classes, Swallow Hill Music relies on foundation grants, corporate sponsorships, and the generosity of individual donors and the 2,300 dedicated members of our unique musical community. This support allows Swallow Hill Music to continue connecting people to the power of music by providing a place to celebrate and enjoy music in both the classroom and on stage.
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