Let’s be clear: It’s a good thing that the city-owned Boettcher Concert Hall stands to gain $20 million for long-deferred maintenance projects and improved accessibility should voters approve the mayor’s $950 million Vibrant Denver bond package in November.
It is not the final solution. For the resident Colorado Symphony, the final solution would be a new world-class concert hall built from the ground up. And the next-best solution would be, in the words of President & CEO Daniel Wachter, “a meaningful $120 million renovation addressing essential and functional needs of this iconic music hall.”
But that will have to continue to wait as Denver’s fading jewel gets, well, older. Boettcher is now 50 years old, and it has not undergone a significant upgrade, ever.
“Significant,” for those keeping score at home, is the $550 million that went into renovating the New York Philharmonic’s Geffen Hall in 2022. That’s when you can really focus on improving acoustics, updating the interior design and creating a more welcoming public space.
Twenty million keeps you open and legal.
Boettcher is 50 in a world where Mile High Stadium is considered geriatric at 24. Coors Field, at 30, is already the third-oldest baseball stadium in the National League. In the concert world, with its rapidly advancing advances in acoustics and customer experience, 50, is, well, Wrigley Field.
But it’s a very sensitive subject. When you consider that the Denver Zoo asked for $50 million from Vibrant Denver and stands to get only $3 million out of it, Wachter isn’t going to publicly complain about $20 million. He called it “a timely investment” and “an important milestone” for the Symphony.
“Given the dynamics of this bond process, and the many worthy projects vying for support, we’re especially thankful to Mayor Mike Johnston, Denver City Council, and our partners at Denver Arts & Venues for recognizing Boettcher’s significance to the cultural and civic life of our city,” he said. “This is an important starting point.”
Now the real work begins, as he puts it, “to secure additional public funding and to unlock a potential capital campaign that would together realize” the greater $120 million need.
Boettcher Concert Hall opened in 1978 as the nation’s first in-the-round symphony hall and has served as a cornerstone of the Denver Performing Arts Complex ever since. The Symphony has been navigating a seemingly constant existential crisis since it was established in 1989 as the successor to the Denver Symphony Orchestra.
Boettcher was the cursed beneficiary of $60 million that never materialized from a 2007 bond package. Cursed because the world was on the precipice of global economic collapse, and it never materialized. Fast forward to 2019, and the Symphony was poised to finally receive the $16 million that remained from that package. Then came COVID. Goodbye, funding.
There’s been talk for 20 years that the Symphony might eventually move out of the downtown arts complex and start over somewhere else – perhaps even outside of Denver. But that’s never going to happen. Probably.
“We look forward to continuing work with the city of Denver and our community partners to find additional resources that ensure Boettcher Concert Hall stays open as a welcoming and functional home of the Colorado Symphony in Denver well into the future,” Wachter said.
When Peter Oundjian was elevated to the position of Music Director a year ago, he listed “securing essential renovations to Boettcher Concert Hall” as one of his five critical priorities. “Yes, the Boettcher needs help,” he said at the time. “But, personally, I think it would be irresponsible to simply smash down that massive building and start over. It’s obviously too big, but if you sit in the best seats acoustically, the sound is incredibly beautiful. That, you cannot buy or guarantee in any hall.”
The Colorado Symphony serves more than 250,000 people each season through concerts, education programs and community events at Boettcher.
Landmark tour with Isakov, Perlman
The Colorado Symphony is heading to New York City to perform genre-spanning concerts at two of the most iconic venues in the world:
- With Gregory Alan Isakov at Radio City Music Hall on Jan. 30, 2026
- With Itzhak Perlman at Carnegie Hall on Feb. 1, 2026
“This is a momentous occasion for our orchestra, the city of Denver and the state of Colorado,” said Wachter. “We’re honored to represent our city and state on a national stage, bringing the spirit and sound of the Rockies to the heart of Manhattan, while pioneering the future of live symphonic music.”
OK, sure. Now, what is it going to take for the Symphony to get Boulder’s favorite son (Isakov) to play with Perlman at, say, the Larimer Lounge?
(New York-bound? Tickets for Perlman go on sale at 9 a.m. Thursday; Isakov at 8 a.m.
Friday, at coloradosymphony.org.