FINE ARTS
Arts champ honored by SCFD
Gully Stanford is the recipient of the 2009 Rex Morgan Citizen Volunteer Award, which honors those who work for the benefit of the cultural community. It is administered by the Scientific and Cultural Facilities District.
Stanford, a native of Ireland who became a U.S. citizen in 1985, is a longtime champion of the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, Denver Public Schools and the Colorado Board of Education. He has donated his services to Arts for Colorado, the Colorado Alliance for Arts Education, the Denver Metro Convention and Visitors Bureau, and many more.
His award will be presented Nov. 16 at the Chambers Grant Salon in the Denver Performing Arts Complex. John Moore
CLASSICAL MUSIC
Romance amid the octaves
You never know when or where cupid’s arrow will strike.
Just ask conductor Edward Gardner and trumpeter Alison Balsom, right, who, according to The Times of London, have been going out for about six months.
The fast-rising English classical musicians met in January 2006 in Denver, while making their debuts with the Colorado Symphony.
“To have someone so talented and passionate, who can understand the highs and lows of being a musician, all the irrational thoughts and emotions, that’s amazing,” Balsom said of Gardner in a Sept. 11 interview in The Times.
Relationships between conductors and instrumental soloists are nothing new.
One of this country’s most prominent conductors, David Robertson, is married to pianist Orli Shaham, and veteran maestro Andre Previn was involved in a short-lived, attention-grabbing marriage with the much-younger German violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter.
Gardner returns as a CSO guest conductor in January. No word on whether Balsom will join him. Kyle MacMillan
