The English Concert’s performance Wednesday evening marks the Friends of Chamber Music’s first presentation in the 2,268-seat Ellie Caulkins Opera House, which opened last year in the Denver Performing Arts Complex.
The organization usually presents its concerts in the 977-seat Gates Concert Hall in the University of Denver’s Newman Center for the Performing Arts, but the series is sold out, with more than 500 names on a waiting list.
To accommodate those people and anyone who might like to attend one of the Friends’ performances, the organization decided to offer a concert in the opera house, with its far larger seating capacity.
“This seemed like a nice opportunity to open up a concert for a lot of extra people if they wanted to come,” said Myra Rich, the Friends’ president. “It also seemed like a nice opportunity to try the hall for chamber music.”
In January, the group hired a string quartet and pianist to perform an informal recital in the theater to test whether the acoustics would accommodate chamber music and was satisfied with the results.
Whether the Friends sponsor more concerts in the Caulkins Opera House, Rich said, depends on the artistic and box-office success of this concert. So far, prospects do not look good, given that the organization has sold just 200 single tickets.
