For 45 years Swallow Hill Music has welcomed music lovers into its concert halls to create memories and community centered around the enjoyment of live music.
That tradition continues as the venerable music nonprofit announces its Fall 2024 concert schedule. This season’s lineup features nearly 100 concerts and live events, drawing musical talent from Colorado’s Front Range and beyond.
Longtime favorites like Ruthie Foster (September 8), The Tannahill Weavers (October 5), and Chris Smither (October 12), will grace Swallow Hill stages once more. Meanwhile, acts who are building national and international names for themselves like Caleb Caudle and The Sweet Critters (September 26), S. Carey (of Bon Iver) & John Raymond performing songs from their album Shadowlands (September 27), and Mama’s Broke (October 13), will make their Swallow Hill Music debuts.
COMPLETE CONCERT LISTING: See the full lineup and get tickets
Of particular interest are artists who cut their teeth in Colorado’s live music scene who are now pushing themselves out into national musical conversations. Among them are Shanna in a Dress, the Nashville-based former Boulderite who won the Rocky Mountain Folks Fest Songwriters Competition at Planet Bluegrass in 2022. Shanna is now touring nationally, and that includes a stop at Swallow Hill on Saturday, November 16.
Alexa Wildish is teaming up with former Front Ranger, virtuoso instrumentalist, and songwriter Courtney Hartman for a concert on Friday, October 4. Now based in Lyons, Alexa entered the national spotlight last year when her refined Americana vocals made audiences sit up and take notice as she competed deep into a season of NBC’s The Voice.
The fall lineup also features plenty of Front Range-based up-and-coming artists who are establishing themselves in Denver. On Friday, September 20, Chariots & Charioteers and Caleb Schwing team up for a night of indie-pop and Americana. On September 22, critically acclaimed singer-songwriters Carolyn Shulman and Shauna Sweeney perform, with Carolyn celebrating the release of her latest album, Heart on a Wire.
The multi-faceted High Lonesome was recently named one of Denver Westword’s “Ten of the Top Colorado Bluegrass Bands,” and they’ll show audiences why at their album release party with opener David Lawrence on Saturday, November 2.
See below for details about select concerts, and the full listing. Please note that more shows will be added, especially in December. Thank you for supporting live music in Denver and Colorado with Swallow Hill Music!
SELECT CONCERT DETAILS
Sunday, September 8 at 8 pm
Ruthie Foster’s ninth studio album represents a new high water mark for the veteran blues artist—a collection of songs possessing pure power, like a tidal wave of musical generosity. Healing Time finds Foster pushing her boundaries as a singer and songwriter more than ever before, creating a truly live-sounding atmosphere with the help of her band, who sound refreshingly loose and lived-in throughout these 12 songs. We’ve all been in need of some healing in recent times, and Foster’s latest provides a guide for how to move through the world with equal parts compassion and resolve.
Thursday, September 12 at 8 pm
Recorded over the course of a 4,000-mile cross-country roadtrip, Taylor Ashton’s gorgeous new album, Stranger To The Feeling, is a sonic odyssey through the heart of America, one that works its way chronologically and geographically from coast to coast as it meditates on the meaning of closeness and connection in an age of increasing isolation. The performances here are warm and inviting, anchored by Ashton’s deft guitar and banjo work and rich, easygoing melodicism, and the recordings—helmed by producer Jacob Blumberg and captured with a mix of old friends and new collaborators including Courtney Hartman, Big Thief’s Buck Meek, Lake Street Dive’s Rachael Price, Vulfpeck’s Theo Katzman, and more—are alternately sparse and lush, with arrangements often serving as aural reflections of their physical environments.
Saturday, October 12 at 8 pm
Chris Smither has gone from up-and-comer to journeyman to veteran to icon, and yet the whole time his path has more closely resembled Joseph Campbell’s “Hero with a Thousand Faces” – an unblinking, fearless trek into the depths of struggle and revelation, and a return back to the land of the living, to share the hard-won treasures found along the way. His restlessness is long gone, and his eyes are fixed “where the moonlight falls on some never-to-be-seen horizon” (“Still Believe in You”). The light given off from his music casts our own lives into a sublime and welcome clarity.
Thursday, October 24 at 8 pm
A collaborator with artists such as Ani DiFranco, Dan Mangan, Tanya Tagaq, and others, Koyczan has elevated the art form of Spoken Word from its humble beginnings in after-hour cafes to stages both grand and distant. Shane brings an authenticity to his work that connects with audiences, as evidenced by his fiercely honest TED Talk, which highlights the kind of humanity he brings to each performance. Not just a poet moving on from one subject to the next, Shane weaves his pieces together in a spellbinding narrative that shows audiences themes that stretch over our lives.
High Lonesome Album Release Show w/ David Lawrence
Saturday, November 2 at 7:30 pm
Combining a pleasing mash of mandolin, dobro, fiddle, guitar, and bass, High Lonesome seeks to put a new spin on good old hard-driving bluegrass by way of tight harmonies, melodic original material, and an expansive reach that takes in music from various realms, including jazz and jam influences as well as traditional bluegrass. This year, High Lonesome was named in Denver Westword’s “Ten of the Top Colorado Bluegrass Bands” list along with some of their musical influences Hot Rize and Infamous Stringdusters. They will be releasing their long anticipated debut album at this show!
Thursday, November 14 at 7 pm
Dar Williams’ lyrics contain bouquets of optimism, delivered on melodies alternating between beguiling lightness and understated gravity. Williams strongly believes that all of us possess our own power and ability to achieve, and she rejects the exceptionalism that encourages us to “admire that yonder star,” while making us feel small and insignificant; unworthy of shining on our own but hoping to catch enough distant light to inspire some tiny accomplishment. Williams has always been very interested in how to control our future and this album has to do with the fact that at some point, you just can’t.
COMPLETE CONCERT LISTING: See the full lineup and get tickets