Denver Celtic Night

05/13/2026

Ok, so yeah, the glorious dream of being on top of these with magic automation is gone. You’re regularly scheduled “if I can remember” standard updates are back! Yay consistency! I’d hate to mess up all your expectations…

Suffice to say, May is a crazy month. My youngest graduates Highschool this Saturday, so John Hammer has graciously offered to lead the slow session through Calliope House (good jig!) and I’ll try to show up for a bit and will be around but will be running about for family stuff as well. Please do come out and play with us though!

Slow session at 6:30pm, regular at 7:30pm, and since I haven’t been able to get any firm commitments from a band for June, we’ll just plan regular summer sessions for the rest of the time. I am doing a concert series at The Bug Theater on June 17th and July 15th that I’ve tentatively titled “HumpFest” because it’s on Wednesdays, but that’s more Ren Faire themed. I’ll keep you posted regardless, and yeah, that’s probably all I should be taking on right now.

Thank you all for supporting live music, coming out to play, and tolerating my randomness in newsletters!

04/08/2026

2 Weeks out! I'm almost ahead of things! Join us for Denver Celtic Night at Fiction Beer Company (fictionbeer.com), 6532 E. Colfax Ave, Denver CO.

So I just spent 4 hours trying to get this stuff automated, and I'm almost there! It saves me like 10 minutes every time! This means that it will only be... Wait a sec... Uh, well, I'm sure it's worth it. Probably. In anycase, maybe next month I'll even send this out like on the FIRST of the month. So amaze! And now it turns out all the stuff I made is completely borked so I'm redoing it all manually. Weee! Maybe I should just practice learning new tunes instead. YES THAT IS THE ANSWER!

But there's other news! 2nd Saturday's have a new session at Old 121 Brewery in Lakewood! That's way to the west! I'll try to get more details on that but if Fiction is too far East for ya, this might be a nice alternative. That's THIS Saturday. In anycase, Slow session starts at 6:30 in 2 weeks (not this weekend, dunno what the Old 121 session is geared towards, but may want to check it out and discover). Pretty sure it's this location: https://www.old121brewhouse.com/oak-st-lakewood-co. Oh god, there are 2 locations right next to each other. I'll figure that out and send another update for sure.

In anycase, Uh, yeah. Lets learn, a barndance! Gypsy Princess is a fun one and pretty straight forward. Yeah! Lets do that. I’ll try to remember to post links to dots, but for now, here’s a great recording to listen to for it: https://youtu.be/H0Bfgl7CBic?si=6n6RtVn88HbXhoN-

Regular session at 7:30 per usual, so, stick around! We’ll do tunes! We’ll do songs! We’ll do socialization and generally have some great craic!

Here's a photo from last month's concert with Dal Riada. It was great! You should come to the next one! I have to like get on a plane in 2 hours and probably shouldn't have rushed this!

03/20/2026

We did it! We made it through the week, and it's time for another concert with Denver Celtic Night. I will see if I manage to pull off this whole "quarterly concert" thing, but we're officially 2 for 4 now! Summer is going to be interesting, but I have plans. It's okay to be afraid. But! Back to the point of the post!

You should come see Dal Riada at Fiction Beer Company this Saturday, March 21st (assuming you're not going to sold out Solas show in Lone Tree, because I guess we can allow that) but come have a pint with us at Fiction and catch a great show otherwise. Session to follow after the show. If you are going to Solas, feel free to invite them to swing by for the sesh...

Doors open at 6:00pm, concert start aiming for 6:30.

Ticket Link in the comments! Or you can buy at the door but we're doing that thing were it's $20 day of and $15 online pre-door. I really hate how much we have to add to tickets for processing fee ridiculousness, so I'm trying to figure out a whole, "Buy a ticket for $0 and pay cash at door for $15" type thing.

Eh, you know what, heck with it, tickets $15 if you pay cash at the door, because then we can just give to the band and no one has to worry about fees. We're doing a special for kids too, so $5 for them, because last time we had a bunch and I think early exposure to actual music is good for us all and want to encourage that type of thing.

03/04/2026

Hey All! I’ve recovered somewhat from insane random pirate music directing thing I did (feel free to buy me a beer or five to learn more if you see me in person), and we’re now going back to our regularly scheduled programming. Except, surprise twist, it’s not the regular thing, it’s going to be a concert + session instead of just a session! For this Saturday, March 21st, DCN is happy to present to you:

Ain’t Paddy’s Day Concert
Featuring Dál Riada

Dál Riada is an instrumental, traditional Celtic Music band based in the Denver. Their focus is on Irish and Scottish dance music with an occasional Quebecois tune, with a occasional folk song thrown in for good measure. Tonight's performing members are Susan Newton (fiddle, voice) and Brinton Macomb (guitar, mandolin), and Chris Peck (bodhran, Irish banjo), but often as not, Dál Riada will invite other local Celtic musicians and dear friends to sit in. The band regularly plays local establishments and private parties and its members have traveled together on musical journeys throughout Ireland and Scotland.

The ticket link is here:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/dcn-presents-aint-paddys-day-concert-tickets-1983461590009.
I think I can post a clickable link in comments, will try to remember to do that too.

The timing is going to be doors open at 6:00pm, concert start at 6:30, and regular session to start around 7:30. Get there early as last time we pretty much ran out of seating, but I think we have more spare chairs and will be setting up a bit different to fit more folks in. We’ll be trying to keep up with the quarterly concerts this year and thank you all for your support in keeping this event going.

Also, thank you everyone who contributed to our fundraiser for the Ancient Order of Hibernians. We successfully raised $90 for their fund and every bit helps! If you happen to have any pictures of that night, could you please send them to me? I’m pretty sure you can just reply to this email, but I’m horrible at remembering to actually document the things we’re doing so any help is appreciated!

02/20/2026

Okay! Tomorrow Saturday (February 21) session hup! As a reminder, we're at Fiction Beer Company, and we will be started the learning session at 6:30, with the fast session around 7:30 afterwards.

Some have asked so, yes, songs are welcome at the fast session and we'll work in a couple, but it's mostly tune focused. Also, because some have asked, no, please do not bring amplification for your instruments. If you need to plug in (like, if you have an electric keyboard) you can use house sound and I will manage the volume level :) Also also (because, wow, people seem either much more engaged or I probably should check messages more than once a quarter), but if you want to bring a trumpet/brass instrument, bring a practice or harmon mute because if you are overpowering everyone I'll have to ask you to chill which is just awkward for everyone. Honestly, not sure how that would go over but I'm trying to keep an open mind.

See you all tomorrow!

02/17/2026

Ok, almost a 1 week notice, but This Saturday! February 21st! We’ll be working on the “Maids of Selma” for the learning session tune. Hopefully we can get Willie Crook out again for the second half too as I’m sure you, like myself, are thinking that we definitely need more concertina players at every session!

We will start at 6:30pm with a slow session where we all will learn a tune by ear together followed by a faster paced session afterwards.

Here’s a great version of Maids of Selma, but they are like, playing ABBAABAB or something weird, but the melodies are what I’ll be going for. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UurMFkxJVu8

02/09/2026

Time, it moves ever forward, and we’re looking at another Denver Celtic Night this 3rd Saturday (in 2 weeks, the 21st!) at Fiction Beer Company (Denver, CO)! Hopefully we keep it regularly all through 2026!

As an important side note, we were approached by the Ancient Order of Hibernians about an effort they were putting together to help members of their parish that were recently detained. They are pulling together a fund to help with legal fees for impacted families. As such, we will be doing a brief collection and donating all tips received during the session towards this effort. A statement from them is below:

“The Carrigan Division of the Ancient Order of Hibernians is going to be on hand to let people know how they can assist people detained by ICE. There's a lot of need in Denver and we're trying to make sure that the immigrants of today are not treated as badly as our ancestors when they first arrived here.”

More information can be found about the effort at the St Vincent de Paul Society.

The logistics of the session will otherwise be same as January. We will start at 6:30pm with a slow session where we all will learn a tune by ear together followed by a faster paced session afterwards.

We WILL be having another concert for St. Paddy’s day, and be featuring some local players. More on that next time, and as always, thanks for supporting live music and for getting out there to play!

01/17/2026

Hey All!

We're kicking off the year with a Slow/Reg session in the new space! 6:30pm for the Slow Session, and we'll be learning The Lisnagun (https://thesession.org/tunes/3842/46053) super straight forward and has a fun groove. For extra credit* try playing in other keys! We'll be doing it in G as that's what I've heard most people do in sessions around here. The slow session invites you to practice your individual tunes (don't worry about entire sets) but if you have some stuff strung together this is a good time and place for it.

We'll dive into a faster paces session afterwards, and I'm trying to come up with fun ways to share tunes. A major part of this session, for me, is to hear and learn tunes that other sessions play and get a good grounding for it. I'll be recording them and sharing online if you're open to it, but I'll ask before I do so. Also, singing and poetry, and stories welcome.

I'm also going to try to do a quarterly concert this year, so those will be March, June, September and December. I think that's a workable schedule, and keeps everything pretty easy to follow.
Looking forward to seeing you all there!
* note there is no actual extra credit just the satisfaction of knowing that you actually can do a tune in multiple different keys.

01/10/2026

We're back to our regular session shenanigans, and will be hosting an open session next Saturday, Jan 17 2026, at Fiction Beer Company (Denver, CO)! Should be every 3rd Saturday going forward in 2026 with the occasional concert.

This will be a slow session where we all will learn a tune by ear together followed by a faster paced one afterwards.

Hopefully will get to see some folks that liked the vibe we had going at the Merc!

12/13/2025

Heyo all! Just in case you try to buy tickets online and it says sold out that's just because we are expecting in person (also I didn't want to pay Eventbrite all the cash) so if you're still planning on coming to the Coisir concert there's seats available.

Send a message to learn more