Martin Gilmore Music - December 2025

Martin Gilmore Music - December 2025

Happy holiday season to you all! I can’t believe it’s already the end of the year, but here we are. I have a lot of stuff to talk about in this newsletter, so sorry for the length, but that’s the way it goes when there’s so much great stuff going on!What a month November was! 

I was excited to attend and help organize the Western Colorado Roots Music Summit with Kyle Harvey for the Southwest Regional Folk Alliance (I serve on the board of SWRFA). We had a great day talking about the DIY music industry sharing ideas and songs. If you are interested to know more about this organization please reach out!

I went on tour with the winners of the Kerrville Folk Festival New Folk Competition. The tour included Madeleine Roger, Abigayle Oakley, Cindy Kalmenson, Katie Dahl, & Sara Beth Go. We spent ten days touring Texas playing house concerts, venues and the Old Folk New Folk Festival in the transcendent Fischer Hall. We made a lot of new friends along the way and made a lot of great music and memories together. I want to take a moment to publicly thank Thomas and Gail Chapmond for all their work organizing the tour and keeping us on track, as well as the Kerrville Folk Festival crew, Paul and Randy, Stan & Chris Berkefelt, and all the other hosts, house concerts, and venues. It was a truly wonderful experience being in Texas with all of you and I want to encourage all the folks reading this to check out the other New Folk winners and their music. I’ve been singing their songs ever since getting home and I can’t recommend their music enough. Wonderful times and wonderful people. 

Unfortunately, I had to miss some of the Texas shows to come back to Colorado. But the reason was good. I had to return to play another day of concerts with the Colorado Symphony for their Youth Concerts Program. It has been an amazing experience playing with such a prestigious and excellent musical institution, and their orchestration and performance of my song “Dry & Dusty West” has been so wonderful. Hopefully you all received the notification that I will be releasing a version of the song featuring the bluegrass band. It will be available on Bandcamp on December 13th and everywhere else on January 10th! 

The concerts with the symphony resume in February and at least one day will be livestreamed in case you all are interested in seeing the program!

I had a great time playing with my new bluegrass band The Otherners at the Gold Hill Inn. This band is a great reason to get together and hang out with some of my favorite bluegrass musicians and friends. The band includes Justin Hoffenberg on fiddle, Eric Thorin on bass, Chris “Cbob” Elliott on banjo, Jordan Ramsey on mandolin, Dave Richey on Dobro, and myself on guitar. We have all played music together in different arrangements over the years and it’s great to get to hang out with these guys. We will be playing at the Midwinter Bluegrass Festival in Northglenn, Colorado in February!

In between all of that I have been teaching classes at Swallow Hill and led a class at the University of Denver Enrichment Program on the history and culture of bluegrass music. Life is busy, but it’s busy with a lot of really great stuff. As always, I’m very grateful to live this musical life.December is a little less busy with travel, but there’s a lot of great stuff happening this month. 

December 5th I will be at Swallow Hill Music Association playing with my trio. My good friend, and master musician and songwriter, John Depew will be playing as well with his trio. There are still tickets left and I’m hoping to sell out this show. Please come and tell your friends! The John Depew Trio is amazing and I’m very excited to be playing a show with them.

December 9th I will be in Nashville at the Inglewood Lounge playing their Songwriter’s Night round which is hosted by Melody Walker. If you’re around Nashville, come say howdy. I would love to see you. (I’ll be running around music city Dec. 7-10 doing various things. If you’re around let me know and I’ll tell you what I’m up to.)

December 18th My students at Swallow Hill will be playing a showcase in the Quinlan Cafe. They will be showing off all the things they have been working on during their classes this semester. The three featured groups will be my Progressions: Bluegrass Guitar class showing off their picking and strumming skills, my Progressions: Songwriting Class showing off their melodic wordsmithing, and the Swallow Hill Bluegrass Band which will play a full set of music. I have asked a couple of alumni to come play as well and I’ll play a few songs at the end. It is open to the public and it’s free! I usually ask folks to bring some food to share potluck style.

December 20th I will be at the Dairy Arts Center in Boulder, Colorado playing a songwriters round with Ingrid Avison, Holly Lovell, and Monica Marie LaBonte. It’s a program called “Songs and Stories for the Longest Night”. I played it last year, and it’s a wonderful way to spend a cold dark December evening. Come and join us if you can, tickets are available now!

I don’t have any new classes starting in December, but auditions for the Spring 2026 Swallow Hill Bluegrass Band are open. This group meets for sixteen weeks and we prepare a full set of bluegrass music to play in a performance at the end of the semester. It’s an auditioned group so there won’t be any duplicate instruments in the group. This is a great ensemble for folks who want a challenge and to work on the skills it takes to actually play in a band. If you’re interested, reach out and let me know and I’ll tell you how to audition!

The progressions classes will start again in February 2026. I’ll be leading one on bluegrass guitar for people who want to develop their skills so they can play in an advanced jam or a band. We work on playing solid and dynamic rhythm guitar, developing solos, improvising, and much more. Progressions: Songwriting focuses on developing your craft and keeping you accountable to actually get things written each week. THey have been some of my most rewarding teaching experiences and the student cohorts are always wonderful. They are a big commitment, but you will definitely get better! There’s still time before those classes get going, but I wanted to put it all on your radar now!

A couple of other things to put on your radar for January!

I will be playing a small tour in Texas Jan 8-12. I’ll be playing a couple of places around the Houston Area including Kojacks on Jan 8th, and I’ll be playing at the Arhaven House Concert Series on Jan 11 near Austin. These folks were nice enough to reschedule me since our original dates conflicted with the New Folk Tour. I’ll be touring with podcaster and travel-master Traveler Tattooed of Instagram fame.

Oh yeah, I’ll also be at Folk Alliance International in New Orleans from January 21-26 in case anyone will be there!Whew, what a lot of stuff.

I hope you have a festive and productive end of the year and I’m looking forward to 2026 and all the opportunities the new year will bring.

Don’t forget to pre-save “The Dry and Dusty West” on Spotify, or listen and download it on Bandcamp on December 13th!Happy winter!

Martin