American city, capital of Colorado. It was founded in 1858, and the immense wealth that soon flowed from the Rocky Mountain gold and silver mines made possible the creation of a musical oasis in the isolated American west. During its early development Denver's music was dependent on the military band of a nearby army post, touring ensembles and the organists and choirs of churches in the area. A local builder, Charles Anderson, placed a one-manual pipe organ in the H Street Presbyterian church in 1872. The Rev. H. Martyn Hart, dean of St John's Episcopal Cathedral, brought to Denver a series of English organists whose influence was lasting: the first was Arthur W. Marchant, who arrived in 1880 and installed a Hook & Hastings organ in the cathedral; he was followed by Walter E. Hall in 1882, John H. Gower in 1887 and Henry Houseley in 1892. Houseley, an organist, teacher, composer and choral and orchestral conductor, led and developed many areas of Denver music during the next 30 years. In 1888 the musician and philanthropist Isaac E. Blake gave an 82-rank Roosevelt organ to Trinity Methodist Church, where Wilberforce Whiteman produced oratorio performances at the turn of the century.
Travelling opera companies visited Denver frequently from 1864; but there was no purpose-built theatre in the city until 1881, when the Grand Opera House, financed by H.A.W. Tabor, opened with Emma Abbott heading her own company in Wallace's Maritana. Up to 1900 the Tabor Opera House and the Broadway Theatre were hosts to such opera personalities as Patti, Gerster, Nordica, Tamagno, Melba, Juch and Gadski. Touring companies also performed in the Denver Auditorium Theatre from its opening in 1908 until World War I. The Rev. Joseph J. Bosetti produced opera locally from 1915. Productions of his Denver Grand Opera Company continued until 1951. The Greater Denver Opera Company (19558) and the Denver Lyric Opera (195871) continued a sporadic opera programme. Summer musicals were sponsored by the Denver Post from 1933 to 1972. In 1983 a new opera company, Opera Colorado, was launched, with Nathaniel Merrill as director, using the new Boettcher Concert Hall, home of the Denver SO since 1978.
Mary Elitch Long's desire for good music in her summer gardens generated orchestral interest in the 1890s and in 1900 the Denver SO was founded by Houseley. Raffaelo Cavallo became conductor in 1903 and Horace Tureman in 1911. With his own orchestra, Cavallo offered competition, and the Denver SO faltered during World War I. Tureman reorganized it as the Denver Civic SO in 1921 and conducted it until 1944. In 1935 the Denver SO was revived under Tureman, using out-of-work theatre musicians and union members of the Civic SO. Later conductors of the Denver SO were Saul Caston (194564), Vladimir Golschmann (196470), Brian Priestman (197078), Gaetano Delogu (197987) and Philippe Entremont (19869). The orchestra officially declared bankruptcy in 1989, and was subsequently re-formed, under the musicians' own management, as the Colorado SO.
Denver's choral societies began with a Musical Union, formed in 1867, just nine years after the first crude cabins were built; a German Maennerchor appeared in 1870. Frank Damrosch, Denver's first public school music supervisor, organized a highly successful choral society in 1882 but returned to New York three years later. I.E. Blake started the Denver Choral Society in 1890; in 1894 its directorship went to Houseley, who gained for the ensemble a national reputation, winning awards at the Salt Lake City Welsh Eisteddfod in 1895 and the St Louis World's Fair in 1905. David McK. Williams, later organist at St Bartholomew's, New York (192047), accompanied. Denver's strong choral heritage has continued with groups including the Colorado Children's Choir, founded in 1974 by Duain Wolfe, the Classic Chorale (1972), containing a mixture of amateur and professional singers, and the choir of the Civic SO, founded by Wolfe in 1984.
Through the efforts of Fritz Thies, chamber music interest developed in the 1880s. The Lehman Quartet with the viola player Paul Stoλving followed in 1892 and the Baker Quartet in 1901. Henry Ginsburg's Denver String Quartet (formed 1921) was the city's most popular and lasting chamber ensemble, playing for over 20 years. The Friends of Chamber Music was founded after World War II by Jean Chappell Cranmer, who also founded the Applied Arts Society in 1920. The Denver Early Music Consort was founded in 1976.
Important private music schools in Denver have included the Denver University School of Music (founded 1879), the Denver Conservatory (1887), the Liszt School (founded by James M. Tracey, 1906), Blanche Dingley Matthews School (1911), the Wolcott Conservatory (1920) and its offshoot under Edwin J. Stringham, the Denver College of Music (1925), and the Lamont School, now part of Denver University, founded in 1922 by Florence Lamont Hinman.
GroveO (G. Griffin)
F.H. Johnson: Denver's Old Theater Row: the Story of Curtis Street and its Glamorous Show Business (Denver, 1970)
S.A. Linscome: A History of Musical Development in Denver, Colorado, 18581908 (diss., U. of Texas, Austin, 1970)
G. Giffin: The Pride of Gregory Gulch, ON, xl (19756), 2022
50 Years (Denver, 1983) [Anniversary pubn of the Denver SO]
C.B. Fowler: The Colorado Philharmonic, High Fidelity/Musical America, xxxvi/2 (1986), 9
J.M. Bailey: Notes of Turmoil: Sixty Years of Denver's Symphony Orchestras, Colorado Heritage (1992), aut., 3347
M. Kroeger: The Federal Music Project in Denver: 19351941, American Music Research Center Journal, iii (1993), 5064
A. Prendergast: The Brico Requiem, Westword (17 Nov 1995)
SANFORD A. LINSCOME/GLENN GIFFIN