Martin Gilmore Music - June 2026

Happy June everyone!

May was an incredible month of shows and events for me. I played a bunch of wonderful concerts in Alaska with my friend Jackson Emmer. We played in Seward, Haines, Skagway, Valdez, and the distant city of Bethel. I didn’t see night for twelve days, and it was strange to get off the plane to darkness when I got back to Denver. Once I get a chance I will do a long write up about that trip on my Patreon and show off some photos and videos.

I was also at the Kerrville Folk Festival and judged the New Folk Songwriting contest which I was lucky enough to win last year. It was so great to hear so many talented songwriters and it was a real challenge to choose the winners. I taught a couple of workshops as well, but the weather was bad enough that they had to cancel my set on the Threadgill stage. Instead, Katie Dahl and I played an impromptu acoustic songwriters round between downpours. It was a magical moment despite the disappointment. Kerrville is a wonderful festival and a true celebration of musical creativity. Go if you can!

I had a great time playing at the Stone Cottage Studios concert series in Boulder, Colorado with Abbie Gardner and Craig Akin. We had a fun crowd, and they put on such wonderful shows in their beautiful backyard. If you haven’t been to one yet, you should check it out if you can. Abbie is an amazing singer-songwriter and dobro player that you should check out as well. She will not disappoint!

I produced the Colorado Roots Music Summit for the Southwest Regional Folk Alliance again this year. Folk musicians from around Colorado met at Swallow Hill Music Association for a day of networking, educational panels and discussions, and enjoyed performances at the open mic. It was a mini-Folk Alliance conference and it was so great to meet some new people and hear their ideas and concerns. (Lots of talk about AI in music!)

June is busy too!I will be at the Grand Mesa Songwriter’s Festival this upcoming weekend (June 5th-7th) in Cedaredge, Colorado. Rodney Crowell is headlining, but I’m also excited to see my friends Susan Gibson, Andy Sydow, Marcedes Carroll, J Plank, Abigayle Oakley, and so many others. If you want to take a trip to the Western Slope of Colorado, come and join us. It will be an amazing weekend of music!

June 13th I will be playing a house concert in Lakewood, CO with my trio, If you are interested in attending, send me a message and I will get you in touch with the folks in charge!

June 14th my trio will be at the American Legion Hall in Estes Park, CO for the Listening at the Legion series. Music starts at 7pm, and it usually sells out, so don’t wait to get tickets. It would be a good excuse to get up to the mountains for an evening!

June 21st I will be at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival with Jackson Emmer at 11am in Elks Park. That’s the park in town, and it’s free to the public, you don’t have to have a ticket to the festival to see it!

June 24th I will be at the Grand Mesa Arts & Event Center back in Cedaredge, Colorado for a concert with Jackson Emmer to kick of a tour of Western Colorado and Utah.

June 26th Jackson and I will be at the Pitkin County Library in Aspen, and he will be teaching a workshop there earlier in the day.

June 27th we will be at Mountain Arts in Huntsville, Utah.

June 28th Jackson  and I will be in St. George, Utah at Amusement Co Records. 

What a month!I am so busy traveling and performing that I took the month off of regular classes at Swallow Hill, but I will be teaching a workshop on Fiddle Tunes on June 13th at 10am. There is still some space in that class. We will be talking about techniques, phrasing, improvising, and the tradition of flatpicking fiddle tunes and students will leave with five tunes (some standard, some not so standard) to practice. All levels are welcome as long as you are comfortable playing basic chords and feel like your rhythm is pretty good. We won’t be playing anything too fast!  Check it out by clicking here!

The Songsmith Series is taking a little break in June, but there is still a lot of stuff going on over on my Patreon page including songwriting prompts, behind the scenes peeks (at my tours and festival gigs), and don’t forget my monthly podcast featuring interviews with touring musicians about their favorite places to stop on the road! Join at the lowest level for all of those perks (and more at the higher levels).

Happy Summer friends! I hope to see you out there somewhere!

Martin