Spanish Peaks International Celtic Music Festival

Shortcuts

• Address
• Alerts
• Contact The Business
• Claim ownership or report listing

• 

  Want your business to be the top-listed Event Planning Service in La Veta?

Our Story

Started and lovingly sustained by Barbara and Jack Yule of Gardner, Colorado, the Festival views itself as an important community asset. Jack Yule is a world-renowned, Scottish harp maker. Barbara is a well known folklorist and storyteller, having earned her Ph.D. in Folklore from the University of Edinburgh. They envisioned a gathering of Celtic musicians in rural Colorado for a weekend of music, fun and craic. From a single-afternoon event, the festival rapidly grew, becoming a two day event, then three, and now four.

Drawing of the support of four Huerfano County communities (Gardner, La Veta, Walsenburg, and Cuchara), the Festival draws artists, educators and visitors from all over the world. We’ve had everyone from local home-grown musicans to some of the top Celtic musicans in the world today come perform on our stages and teach our workshops. Story-telling, dancing, workshops for beginners through professionals, special instrument retreats, demonstrations, talks, mini concerts, and four big performances, scattered around the county, make for a packed weekend of Celtic culture.

The SPICMF is set against a stunning mountainous backdrop, with the Spanish Peaks, Greenhorn, the Sheep Mountains, and the Sangre de Cristo range rising up above high Colorado grass prairies. Blue skies arc over trees that are just beginning to show their bright autumn colors. All that together is incredible enough, but what truly makes us so special and unique however is the fact that despite being located in the heart of the USA, the festival is very European. Most American Celtic events are mega-festivals, with stages scattered around large fields covered in beer tents and souvenir stands selling tartan everything. While those are certainly fun in their own way, our approach is very different. We focus on education in addition to entertainment, having our performers go into our local schools to work with students. The performers also spend days on the weekend teaching classes and leading the workshops for our festival attendees. Here, you have only to pop into the local coffee shop to share breakfast with the internationally renowned artists who will be performing that night. This close relationship and interaction between performers and attendees is part of why we’re such a sought-after gig for many of our musicans- those who come once always want to come back.

Come see what all the fuss is about and experience it for yourself!