CSO GUEST STARS MAKE CLASSICAL HIP, BRING IN CROWDS
Collaborations with The Flaming Lips, Tenacious D and more making a night with Colorado Symphony one of Denver’s most sought-after tickets
hristopher Dragon didn’t turn around much at work on Feb. 22, and that’s probably a good thing.
“I had no idea about all the stuff going on behind me,” Dragon, the associate conductor of the Colorado Symphony, said of the sold-out show at Boettcher Concert Hall. ”It was funny seeing Instagrams later and realizing (Wayne Coyne) was twirling a light around his head and throwing confetti. And nobody told me about the giant, pink inflatable robot.”
In front of Dragon that night was the 80-piece Colorado Symphony and 65-person Colorado Symphony Chorus. Behind him was Coyne, singer for the acclaimed, art-damaged rock band The Flaming Lips — plus a few thousand of the Lips’ costumed, screaming fans.
Coyne and his group had taken over Boettcher on a snowy night
last month to perform their album “The Soft Bulletin,” with a grand flourish befitting the album’s cosmic themes and 20year anniversary: full orchestral and choral backing.
It’s something they had only done once before — at Red Rocks Amphitheatre in 2016, a show that will be released as a concert video later this year.
That was with the Colorado Symphony, too.
“I have never heard an audience so loud in Boettcher,” Dragon said of the Feb. 22 concert. “I felt like I needed earplugs just for the cheering.”
It didn’t hurt that Coyne repeatedly encouraged the crowd to clap and scream so loudly that the orchestra would need to stop playing (it never happened, but they tried) or that there was nearly as much marijuana smoke wafting through the air as at any Red Rocks concert.
These aren’t your typical symphony experiences — or at least they didn’t used to be. But that’s the point, Colorado Symphony leaders say, not only because pop collaborations are shaking up staid traditions, but because they’re also so successful they’re commanding an increasing chunk of rehearsal and performance time. And that only broadens the symphony’s typically older, more classically oriented audience.
That’s true for most major U.S. orchestras, but the Colorado Symphony has been ahead of the curve with collaborations over the past decade ranging from Sting, Sarah McLachlan and Seal to electronic and funk artists Bonobo, Lettuce and Pretty Lights.
“There’s no question we are one of the busiest orchestras in the country right now,” said Anthony Pierce, chief artistic officer for the Colorado Symphony. “We haven’t reduced our volume of purely classical content or sacrificed our core mission as curators of symphonic music. We’ve just diversified.”
This year, the nonprofit symphony will continue building on its years-long run of attention-getting, revenue-generating collaborations with pop artists “Weird” Al Yankovic (Aug. 1) and Tenacious D (July 25), folkies such as John Prine (July 28) and Mary Chapin Carpenter (July 14), and more traditional collaborators Josh Groban (Aug. 28) and Andrea Bocelli (June 21).
These shows take them out of downtown Denver’s roughly 2,700-seat Boettcher into metro-area with four to five times that capacity, such as Red Rocks, the Pepsi Center and the FirstBank Center.
In the meantime, not only is symphony still performing robust classical fare, they’ve also added film scores — paired with screenings of movies like “The Empire Strikes Back” (March 23-24 at the FirstBank Center) — and other themed events, such as “Beethoven and Brews” at Epic Brewing Company (March 21, and already sold out) and video-game scores.
That diversification comes with a risk, Pierce said, as the symphony spends big on pop artists and rehearsal time for its talented, full-time players.
The symphony declined to share specific revenue or attendance figures for its pop collaborations, citing concern over apples-to-oranges comparisons across different venues and audiences. But it has reported an increasing number of sold-out shows that parallels its programming shift.
“We earn less than half of what it costs to run the orchestra through ticket sales and subscriptions,” Pierce said of the symphony, which has seen three consecutive years of financial stability. “We’re dependent on SCFD (the seven-country metro area’s Scientific and Cultural Facilities tax district) and individual philanthropy. So we consider the (collaborations) as audience development.”
In the 2017 fiscal year, the Colorado Symphony Association had an operatvenues ing surplus of nearly $200,000, on $12.8 million in revenue. Other income recorded outside its operating budget resulted in a net positive balance of $2.4 million, according to a financial summary provided by the symphony.
In its quest to attract younger, more diverse audiences, the symphony has benefited from a close relationship with promoter AEG Presents Rocky Mountains — the region’s dominant player, and one that has an official ticketselling partnership with the city of Denver. That helps smooth the process of booking shows at attractive, city-owned venues such as Red Rocks.
Pierce is on the phone weekly with AEG’s top promoters such as Chuck Morris, Don Strasberg and Brent Fedrizzi, leading to connections with artists and their management he might not otherwise get.
“You’ve got to have effective relationships,” Pierce said. “I talk to those (AEG) guys all the time about who’s trying to get routed around, and I talk to agencies like William Morris and CAA all the time. It’s a business.”
Pierce pointed to the upcoming John Prine collaboration as a show that came about thanks to Morris’ and Strasberg’s relationship with Prine, who just played the Buell Theatre in November. Vocalist Groban also was looking for a Red Rocks “play” this summer, which was a nobrainer for the symphony, Pierce said.
“Tenacious D is another one,” Pierce said of Jack Black’s bombastic hardrock band, a show that nearly sold out in its presale period and is now completely sold out. “They needed a date and we were into the collaboration, so the stars just kind of aligned. But it’s definitely not going to be a kidfriendly show.”
Some collaborations truly won’t work, he added, citing the sheer volume of certain bands against the delicate, acoustically mic’d instruments of the symphony. In past rock collaborations, guitar amplifiers have been placed on stage for cosmetic purposes, while the real (plugged-in) things were off-stage in order to prevent noise-bleed into the orchestra section.
Plexiglass dividers prevent boisterous drummers from drowning out the symphony, as do experienced soundboard mixers.
“We’ve been working to consciously build a reputation as an orchestra where a non-symphonic artist has their great first experience with an orchestra,” associate conductor Dragon said. “We can still do traditional programming while we’re bringing in artists, even Colorado artists, like Gregory Alan Isakov and Elephant Revival. When you find the right formula and connection, it just creates something uniquely beautiful. You can’t recreate that anywhere else.”