Allen Young saw and heard thousands of ballets, plays and concerts in his life and he never seemed to forget any of them.
Young, former music critic at The Denver Post, died Monday at a care facility. He was 89.
A memorial is planned at 2 p.m. Jan. 4 at St. John’s Episcopal Cathedral, 1350 Washington St.
“Instead of ridiculous baseball trivia, he could tell you who performed in what role in which production of a certain opera at the Metropolitan Opera,” said his son David Young, of Petaluma, Calif.
Allen Young also saved things. The family has a huge box of programs, it seems from every performance he attended, scores of newspaper clippings and old Life magazines, said his daughter Betsy Sweeney, of Aurora.
He had about 2,000 vinyl records, as well as tapes and CDs, David Young said.
Young was so enamored of things he heard he would come home from a performance and play the music on the piano, by ear, his son said.
Young, who also wrote for Variety magazine, loved every kind of performance — movie musicals, Marx brothers movies, ballets, plays and Red Rocks concerts.
He wrote two books about opera — one dealing with the history of the Central City Opera.
An outgoing man, Young rarely forgot a name or face and generally “got a kick out of life,” said his son. “He was calm and gentle and always interesting.”
“He had a colorful life,” said his wife, Barbara Young.
Allen Young worked for The Post from 1948 to 1957.
Once he wrote a “less than stellar review” of a Denver Symphony Orchestra, now Colorado Symphony, performance and that cut his Post career short, his daughter said. Post owner Helen Bonfils wasn’t pleased, Allen Young’s children said.
Young wrote for Variety until a few years ago, and attended musical performances until the last few weeks of his life, said Ron Sweeney, his son-in-law.
Young also wrote for Opera News in New York City and was arts columnist for Cervi’s Journal (now the Denver Business Journal).
He played tennis, ran and skied well into his 70s. Fittingly, he ran in the Denver Symphony marathons in the 1980s.
Allen Young was born in Washington, D.C., on July 4, 1918.
He saw a lot of the world while growing up, because his father, Arthur Young, was an economist and traveled widely.
Young like to tell his children that he and his siblings roamed the streets of Paris while their father was in meetings.
He attended Occidental College in Los Angeles and the University of Chicago. College was interrupted by World War II, most of which he spent in the Aleutian Islands.
“He told me once that the only thing he really accomplished while in the Aleutian Islands was getting all the way through ‘Remembrance of Things Past,’ a seven-part fictional work by Marcel Proust,” said David Young.
In 1950 Allen Young married Barbara Stroup, who is a landscape architect and watercolorist.
In addition to her and his son and daughter, Young is survived by another daughter, Sarah Young, of San Francisco; another son, Andy Young, of Oakland, Calif.; four grandchildren; his brother, Bill Young, of San Jose, Calif.; and his sister, Elizabeth Roulac, of Orcas Island, Wash.
Virginia Culver: 303-954-1223 or vculver@denverpost.com
