Boettcher Concert Hall is a

concert hall A concert hall is a cultural building with a stage (theatre), stage that serves as a performance venue and an auditorium filled with seats. This list does not include other venues such as sports stadia, dramatic theatres or convention ...

Denver Denver ( ) is a List of municipalities in Colorado#Consolidated city and county, consolidated city and county, the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Colorado, most populous city of the U.S. state of ...

Colorado Colorado is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States. It is one of the Mountain states, sharing the Four Corners region with Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. It is also bordered by Wyoming to the north, Nebraska to the northeast, Kansas ...

and is home to the Colorado Symphony. It is named after Colorado native and philanthropist Claude K. Boettcher.

History

Boettcher was the first symphony hall in the round in the United States. Built in 1978 by

Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates' (HHPA) was an internationally recognized American architecture firm with offices in New York and Los Angeles. Established by Hugh Hardy, Malcolm Holzman and Norman Pfeiffer in 1967 in New York, HHPA was noted ...

, as a home for the Denver Symphony Orchestra, the hall is part of the Denver Performing Arts Complex, which is the second largest performing arts complex in the United States after

Lincoln Center Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (also simply known as Lincoln Center) is a complex of buildings in the Lincoln Square neighborhood on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It has thirty indoor and outdoor facilities and is host to 5 ...

in New York City. Boettcher originally opened to mixed reviews. Due to its size in relation to the size of the community it serves, its 2,362 seats are often not completely filled. Tuned acoustically with a full house in mind, Boettcher originally suffered from hot and cold spots when the theater was only partially filled.

Design

In 1993, the theater underwent a major acoustical renovation. The height of the seat backs was adjusted, additional acoustic reflectors were added, and acoustic curtains were installed which allow the theater to be tuned for specific performances—even during a performance.

Tenants

The Colorado Symphony is the primary occupant of the Boettcher Concert Hall. Established in 1989 as the successor to the Denver Symphony Orchestra, the Colorado Symphony rehearses and performs primarily in Boettcher Concert Hall, but also throughout the Front Range. The orchestra draws 150,000 patrons to 90 performances every year to the concert hall. Its current president and CEO is Jerome Kern, and its current music director is Andrew Litton.

Potential closure

In mid-2014, ''

The Denver Post ''The Denver Post'' is a daily newspaper and website published in the Denver metropolitan area. it has an average print circulation of 57,265. In 2016, its website received roughly six million monthly unique visitors generating more than 13 mil ...

'' reported that the city of Denver was considering a plan to demolish Boettcher Concert Hall and build an outdoor amphitheater in its place at the Denver Performing Arts Complex. This was in tandem with a planned temporary move out at the end of the 2014-15 concert season to accommodate $17 million in upgrades of the facility. The city had also considered building a smaller venue owing to the attendance of the hall's primary occupant (Colorado Symphony) routinely filling only about half of the existing capacity. The city explored building a venue with reconfigurable seating, allowing shows with as few as 500 attendees, to better accommodate a wider variety of performances and reach a broader audience. Denver Mayor Michael Hancock appointed a team to begin working on October 1, 2014 on the future of Boettcher Concert Hall. The debate was both about accessibility as well as the cost of making extensive repairs and renovations. Potential plans included renovating and managing Boettcher as a multi-use facility that could host concerts and provide educational space. Making the space usable as a concert hall at night and a space for small classrooms. There was also discussion of adding an outdoor amphitheater. This option proved controversial, not only due to demolishing the Boettcher but also due to competition with Denver's

Red Rocks Amphitheatre Red Rocks Amphitheatre (also known colloquially as simply Red Rocks) is an open-air amphitheater in the Western United States, western United States near Morrison, Colorado, approximately southwest of Denver. It is owned and operated by the c ...

. This potential move would have also involved constructing a shared box office for the three large facilities in the complex. The Colorado Symphony Orchestra leadership was quick to present many reasons why it was a valuable tenant in the Boettcher.

References

External links