Going the Telluride Bluegrass Festival always feels like more than just going to a music festival. Walking through the gates to Town park, it feels like you’re coming home. It’s obvious that this feeling of welcome extends beyond the camaraderie of the “festivarians.” The Telluride Bluegrass Festival encourages many on-stage collaborations between artists.

Consider Thursday morning’s opening set with Chris Thile and Béla Fleck. In one corner, you have a banjo virtuoso that has had a successful music career between the bands New Grass Revival, Béla Fleck and the Flecktones, and his own solo projects. In the other, Chris Thile has entertained festivarians in Telluride on the “big stage” in Town Park since he was a teenager with his former band, Nickel Creek. This sort of pairing is uniquely Telluride.

Full recap and photo gallery of Day 2, Day 3 and Day 4.

A surprise ‘tweener set saw singer-songwriter Jonathan Edwards accompanied by Sam Bush and Jerry Douglas. The story was that Edwards had been wandering around backstage, ran into Sam Bush and Jerry, and then promoter Craig Ferguson told him he could play a short set between Greensky Bluegrass and Laura Marling.

Alison Krauss and Union Station ended the first day of the festival with a predictably wonderful set. Leaving the park and hearing the music reverberate off of the box canyon walls, one is left with a simple thought: “It’s good to be home.”

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Nathan Rist is a freelance photographer and a regular Reverb contributor. He hails from the mountains of Telluride, but he’s currently studying at the University of Colorado at Boulder.