A Celtic Christmas

Saturday, December 6, 2025
Sunday, December 7, 2025

4:00 p.m.

An afternoon of warmth, community, and holiday nostalgia

Allison Hampton, harp | Linn Barnes, guitar & lute
Joseph Cunliffe, flutes & recorders | Steve Bloom, percussion
Robert Aubry Davis, narrator

It’s truly the most wonderful time of the year at Dumbarton Concerts in December. We may not have marshmallows for toasting, but “tales of the glories of Christmases long, long ago” defines our annual holiday fête, A Celtic Christmas. This forty-year tradition brings the warmth and intimacy of the Christmas season to Georgetown every year. Featuring, as ever, the Barnes and Hampton Celtic Consort, and narrated by Robert Aubry Davis, our Celtic holiday celebration returns for another year of nostalgic poetry and music. Book well in advance for this perennially sold-out festive occasion!

$48 live in-person | $14 livestream

(livestream on Sunday only)

About the Artists

Linn Barnes and Allison Hampton began making music together playing and recording as duo lutenists, first bringing to life the court music of 16th-century Renaissance Europe, soon also finding inspiration in the 18th-century Irish composer Turlough O’Carolan, nourishing the living tradition of Celtic music in the 21st century. In addition to A Celtic Christmas at Dumbarton, they have appeared at the Kennedy Center, the Folger Shakespeare Library, and the Smithsonian Institution, as well as in several European tours including the prestigious Inter-Celtic Festival in Lorient, France, where the French press noted that “they proved it is possible to be both American and Celt by way of historical understanding and the heart.”

The Celtic Consort’s internationally acclaimed flutist Joseph Cunliffe is a woodwind specialist, composer, distinguished recording artist, and music educator. From his Celtic Christmas at Dumbarton and concert stages such as the Kennedy Center and an amphitheater in a remote Mayan archeological site, his music aims to transcend cultural boundaries and blends classical, ethnic, folk and jazz styles. Cunliffe is co-founder of the world music duo, Flutar. He is a faculty member at the Landon School.

Since 1969, Steve Bloom has performed and/or recorded in over a dozen countries. His work in Afro-Cuban folklore, Celtic music, and in Persian percussion has taken him to over a dozen countries including Cuba, Nigeria, Brazil, and Ecuador, and to the Lincoln Center, to top-tier folk festivals around the U.S. He is currently a freelance drummer for many playing and recording projects, and serves as the "house drummer," and also an instructor at Common Ground on the Hill, a renowned hub where world-class performing artists teach and perform.

Robert Aubry Davis has been a beloved friend of Dumbarton Concerts for decades, and his justly acclaimed interpretation of Dylan Thomas’ poem “A Child’s Christmas in Wales” is one of the brightest threads in the fabric of the holidays in the nation’s capital. An eighth-generation Washingtonian, Davis is a tireless advocate of the arts. He is a regular lecturer at a variety of area performances including concerts with the Folger Consort, the Baltimore Consort, the Early Music Series at the University of Maryland, the Smithsonian Early Music Series, and of course Dumbarton Concerts. “If the city ever appointed a minister of culture, someone who represents what is to be a Washingtonian to the world,” declared The Georgetowner magazine, “Davis would be perfect for the job.”