Like Tom Scharf before him, Paul Lhevine has seen the nonprofit Swallow Hill Music add bodies and cash under his leadership.
“One of the things I’m proudest of is being able to help steward this creative class of musicians and teachers,” Lhevine said in his typically earnest, high-minded way. “One of the biggest things I’ve learned over the last four and a half years is maybe obvious: that music has an intensely critical role in our community.”
Since taking over for Scharf as CEO of the nonprofit folk-music association in 2015, Lhevine has seen Swallow Hill’s annual reach extend from about 142,000 to 177,000 people.
If you go
Swallow Hill’s 40th anniversary concert and Colorado Hall of Fame induction. With The Mother Folkers reunion. 6:30 p.m. Nov. 9 at Central Presbyterian Church, 1660 Sherman St. Tickets: $40-$150. swallowhillmusic.org
That includes not only the ticketed bluegrass, roots, jazz and Americana shows that Swallow Hill produces — from Denver Botanic Gardens’ summer series to Swallow Hill’s litany of in-house concerts — but also community outreach, which accounts for nearly 30 percent of the total. Revenue has also jumped from $5.3 million to $6 million over the last four years, according to Swallow Hill’s annual report. That’s more than four times what it was a little over a decade ago.
But as folk movements often remind us, Lhevine is just a link in a chain. In this case, it stretches back 40 years to east Denver’s historic Swallow Hill neighborhood, just north of East Colfax Avenue and Ogden Street. There, in 1979, a group of volunteers founded Swallow Hill Music as an offshoot of Harry Tuft’s beloved (but struggling) Denver Folklore Center.
To mark its 40th anniversary, Swallow Hill is holding a reunion concert for the Colorado-rooted band The Mother Folkers at 6:30 p.m. Nov. 9 at Central Presbyterian Church. That same day, the Colorado Music Hall of Fame will induct Swallow Hill as part of its 2019 class.
“It’s a fantastic moment in a storied history,” Lhevine said. “To be included with the likes of Judy Collins, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, John Denver and Dan Fogelberg means the world to us.”
None of this would be possible if Swallow Hill were just a bunch of old hippies fiddling with their bowties. The lifeblood of the organization, as Lhevine noted, is its daily relevance to metro area residents. Currently, Swallow Hill is the second-largest roots music school and concert producer in the United States, with 70 faculty members welcoming 64,000 visits annually at Swallow Hill’s three locations, on South Broadway and in the Highland and Lowry neighborhoods. (The largest in the U.S. is Chicago’s Old Town School.)
A fourth location is currently being considered to meet rising demand for dobro, piano, fiddle, mandolin and bongo lessons, although Lhevine wouldn’t say where.
“All of our teachers are also actively gigging musicians,” he added. “They make up a critical part of the cultural fabric of our Front Range.”
Giving so many folkies a place to work, play and learn is the most conspicuous part of Swallow Hill’s mission. Less visible are its classroom programs, including Little Swallows, which serves 125 schools and 1,800 kids in impoverished communities and school districts. There’s also music therapy with aging populations, K-12 education and concerts, and niche but nationally renowned events such as the ukulele-obsessed Ukefest, which marked its 12th installment in May.
Lhevine acknowledged the challenges in keeping all these plates spinning at once. But the bigger challenge, he said, is getting people out of the house.
“It’s the societal challenge of drawing people out of their comfort zones,” he said. “We’re competing against people taking music lessons on YouTube.”
That wasn’t even a thought two decades ago when Swallow Hill made one of its biggest jumps, from a tiny location at 1905 S. Pearl St. to its current home in a converted church at 71 E. Yale Ave. (essentially Broadway and Yale), where it operates three concert halls and numerous classrooms. In 1998, under the direction of fellow Colorado Music Hall of Fame inductee Chris Daniels (of Chris Daniels & the Kings), the organization began adding more jam sessions, festivals and concerts, cementing its place as the metro area’s brand-name folk-music institution.
Lhevine also noted the wildly popular concert partnership with the Denver Botanic Gardens, which was forged about a decade ago, as “an incredibly big moment for Swallow Hill.” From presenting Steve Martin and Sheryl Crow to local acts, it has allowed Swallow Hill to reach large, mainstream audiences, in turn shoring up support for projects such as doubling the size of its music school — which it did over the same time period.
Every success has been hard-won, Lhevine said, and he’s not taking anything for granted. When the Denver City Council proclaimed Nov. 9 as Swallow Hill Day, it recognized not only Lhevine and past leaders but also “a stalwart staff and cadre of volunteers” that have carried the organization for longer than most of its students have been alive.
“As we look out at the next five to ten years, we’re having conversations about how we continue bringing traditional music experiences and education into even more parts of our community,” Lhevine said. “The key is actually coming out and building this robust community in person.”