Philip “Giomassiv” Giomassis walked on stage and looked out at a sea of masks, with the Collegiate Peaks rising behind. The up-and-coming Denver producer was playing September s Up in the Air music festival at the Thunderbird Spirit Ranch animal sanctuary in Chaffee County, where groovy bass lines billowed across the Buena Vista Valley. The pandemic-friendly performance was Giomassis s third set ever, and his first time playing at a multi-day festival. He was thrilled.
“It was a relief being able to camp near a stage for live music again, and to feel safe about the regulations set in place by the festival hosts and the town of Buena Vista,” he says.
Everything’s weird, says Denver musical polymath Tom Hagerman.
That pretty much sums up, well, everything these days. And in that context, the DeVotchKa multi-instrumentalist and frequent Colorado Symphony collaborator has teamed up with magician and mentalist Professor Phelyx to recruit some of Denver s best artists for A Valentine for the Mercury Cafe, a free-to-watch fundraising livestream at 1 p.m. Sunday, February 14.
Phelyx will emcee, and Hagerman will play music with the Grand Orquesta Navarre; Nathaniel Rateliff, Wesley Schultz of the Lumineers, Nick Urata, comedians Adam Cayton-Holland and Josh Blue, Lannie Garrett and poet Andrea Gibson are also on the bill.
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Colorado Symphony resident conductor Christopher Dragon on stage at Red Rocks Amphitheatre during the symphony’s Vivaldi program in September 2020. Dragon’s contract was extended through the 2024 season. (Amanda Tipton Photography, provided by Colorado Symphony)
Colorado Symphony will be able to pay its employees’ salaries and health insurance through summer 2021 thanks to a $2 million anonymous gift, even as painful shutdowns continue for most nonprofit performing arts companies across the United States.
The gift, which was received last year but disclosed in a press statement in late January, brings Colorado Symphony’s end-of-2020 fundraising to a record $2.5 million. It bolsters the $122,000 that the symphony raised on Colorado Gives Day (Dec. 8, 2020); the completion of a matching, $50,000 grant by The Butler Family Fund of The Denver Foundation; and more than $150,000 in ticket donations “by generous patrons and subscribers from canceled concerts
As Colorado shifts its COVID-19 dial again and the City of Denver moves to Level Yellow, music venues eager to host slightly larger audiences are celebrating the news.and the loosened restrictions, which start today, February 6.
At indoor unseated events, venues can host up to 50 percent capacity but no more than fifty or a hundred people, depending on the size of the space and using the state s Social Distancing Space Calculator. Indoor seated events can have up to a hundred people or 50 percent capacity whichever is smaller. Outdoor events can have up to 175 people or 50 percent capacity again, whichever is smaller. Venues operating as indoor restaurants can have 50 percent capacity or fifty people (or even up to 150, based on the state s calculator).
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