When the clawhammer sessions and the bluegrass breakouts wind down on Saturday afternoon at Banjo Weekend, something shifts. Paul Rosenberg of Homespun Occasions steps to the front of the Esopus Lodge Performance Hall and the room reorganizes itself — not into rows of attentive listeners, but into sets of dancers ready to move through contras and squares at 7:30 p.m. while the weekend’s instructors play behind him.
About the Show
The barn dance is the Saturday evening centerpiece of Banjo Weekend 2026, a three-day gathering running November 6 through 8 at the Ashokan Center in Olivebridge. The weekend brings together players and enthusiasts of all levels for daytime workshops, evening jam sessions, and an opening-night staff concert. The Saturday barn dance is where those two days of playing converge into something collective: people who have spent the weekend in the deep grammar of a single instrument, finally dancing to it together.
Rosenberg calls the dancing (contras, squares, and more), while the music comes from a band of 11 staff instructors. Among them: Greg Cahill, co-founder of The Special Consensus (active since 1975), who has been playing bluegrass banjo since the early 1970s and holds both the IBMA Distinguished Achievement Award and a 2020 induction into the SPBGMA Hall of Greats; and Ken Perlman, who pioneered what he calls “melodic” clawhammer, a technique that transformed frailing banjo from an accompaniment style into a full solo voice, and who is regarded as one of the leading clawhammer players working today. Also on the bandstand: Brad Kolodner, Gretchen Bowder, Janie Rothfield, Maggie Shar, Peter Davis, Melissa Bragdon Caron, Jeff Wasbes, and Scott Hopkins, who coordinates the weekend, joined by banjo campers and jambassadors from the workshops.
Venue & Logistics
The Ashokan Center is an independent music and nature nonprofit established in 2008, set on a 385-acre campus in the Catskill Mountains near Olivebridge in the Hudson Valley. The property is designated a Historic District on both the National and State Registers of Historic Places. The barn dance takes place in the Esopus Lodge Performance Hall. For those who want to settle in before the dancing begins, an optional community dinner is available at 6:00 p.m. as an add-on.
Tickets
Tickets are priced on a sliding scale: $10 Economy, $20 Standard, and $30 Supporter. Advance tickets have sold out; day-of tickets will be available at the door while space allows. Dinner for adults and teens can be added for $25. Buy tickets