Durango Bluegrass Meltdown returns after two years away

Bruce Molsky and Tony Trischka will play traditional and original songs at this year’s Durango Bluegrass Meltdown. (Courtesy)

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Bruce Molsky and Tony Trischka will play traditional and original songs at this year’s Durango Bluegrass Meltdown. (Courtesy)

The time when having a meltdown is good – and totally encouraged – is back this weekend with the return of the Durango Bluegrass Meltdown.

Now in its 26th year, the Meltdown, like just about everything else fun and social, was off for two years thanks to the pandemic. But now it’s back and ready to take over the town starting today (Friday).

And there are some new additions to the festival – starting with a new president of the board ... sort of.

Jenny Hirt took the reins three years ago, just in time for the cancellations. She said that there is a little bit of nervousness heading into this weekend with trying to keep the festival as safe as possible healthwise, but the excitement of getting back to it more than makes up for nerves. And finding musicians to commit to the weekend was a breeze.

“The artists are just chomping at the bit to get back on the road – all of them are very, very excited to play festivals and just play live music in front of real audiences again,” she said. “We have a couple of artists, like AJ Lee & Blue Summit, for example, they were in Pagosa last fall, but they were one of the artists that were playing a lot of virtual concerts and stuff during the pandemic; everybody was just trying to keep up their fan base.”

Something Meltdown regulars will notice is the change in some of the festival’s venues. The Henry Strater Theatre, which was the longtime base for the Meltdown, closed in 2020. Now, events will be held at Durango Arts Center (where there where also be livestreaming available), Animas City Theatre, Wild Horse Saloon and the Elks Lodge will host the Old Time Barn Dance on Saturday night. There will also be a free Meltdown Kickoff tonight (Friday) at 11th Street Station. And the Strater isn’t completely out of the loop, Hirt said, adding that the hotel is where the weekend’s music workshops will be held as in past years.

Along with the weekend Meltdown, the organization has a long history of encouraging the area’s kids to get into bluegrass with its Bluegrass in the Schools program. Hirt said this year is the first time since 2019 the Meltdown has been allowed back in the schools.

Also new for children this year is the KidsPick program, Hirt said in a news release. The first event was held in October 2021 as a way to reach bluegrass-interested kids without going into schools because of the pandemic.

“KidsPick’s mission is to expose as many children to bluegrass as possible with free live music events, encouraging them to play instruments, and learn how to ‘jam’ with professional musicians,” Hirt said in the release. “North Carolina-based organization Can’d Aid provided free instruments to Animas High School back in 2019, and this year, they have awarded a grant to the Meltdown’s Bluegrass in the Schools KidsPick program to purchase our own instruments (to give) free loans to children in our community who wish to learn to play bluegrass.”

There will be another KidsPick in the Park from 5 to 7 p.m. May 3 in Rotary Park. Along with live music and a kids’ pickin’ circle, there will be several instruments available from the Can’d Aid grant for any kid to check out for up to three months at no cost.

“We have multiple sizes of fiddles, mandolins, banjos and guitars. We will also have drawings for free music lessons provided by local instructors,” Hirt said in the release. “We are just so thrilled about this program and this opportunity for our community’s kids!”

And as Hirt hurtles toward her first in-person Meltdown, there’s no meltdown on her part, thanks to the team of volunteers helping to make the weekend go smoothly.

“I think I came to terms with how big it was about a month ago, and since then it’s just been breathing and moving forward. It’s a great team of people that help put on the Meltdown; they’ve been doing it for years – these people, people on the board have been there since the beginning some of them, some of them have been on the board for 20 years or more,” she said. “It’s a lot of tribal knowledge, and my biggest challenge has been to capture that so we can make sure it keeps going forward. The groups of volunteers – the whole thing is volunteer-run, none of us gets paid to do this – it’s a huge undertaking of people that love bluegrass and they love the community and they want to make sure this stays strong and keeps going forward.”

katie@durangoherald.com