The , one of the oldest classical-music ensembles in Colorado, is passing its baton on to a new conductor.
Starting next season, Lawrence Golan will become the orchestra’s fifth music director since it began performing in 1948.
He replaces Adam Flatt, who held the post from 2010 through the current performance year. Flatt, also , will continue as a guest conductor with the DPO, starting with its holiday concert in December.
Golan is known to local audiences as conductor of the University of Denver’s Lamont Symphony Orchestra and Opera Theatre where he has worked for 12 years. A press release from the Phil points out his many accomplishments: “nine ASCAP Awards, five Global Music Awards, two Prestige Music Awards and two DownBeat Magazine Awards. In 2012, Golan was named Grand Prize Winner of The American Prize for Orchestral Programming.”
These days conductors tend to hold down multiple jobs, and Golan will as well. He concurrently will be music director for the Yakima Symphony Orchestra, in Washington, and will guest-conduct for other orchestras, operas and ballet companies.
The DPO is a mostly volunteer community orchestra that performs at the KPOF Concert Hall in Capitol Hill. Tickets to their concerts cost just $20 and kids are free.
Award for Denver play
about a dangerously obese man that got its start in Denver, won the coveted outstanding-play nod at Sunday night’s Lucille Lortel Awards in New York.
The work was developed, in part, at the in 2011. The company presented its successful world premiere in the Ricketson Theatre in January 2012.
The Lortel awards, which recognize major Off Broadway projects, honored a new production of the play by the Playwrights Horizons theater. The production also won an outstanding costume-design award for Jessica Pabst and outstanding lead actor for Shuler Hensley.
The lead in “The Whale” is a big role, in every way. The main character, Charlie, is 500 pounds. He spends the play wheezing toward death. Along the way, he works to reconcile with his estranged 17-year-old daughter.
Actor Tom Alan Robbins played the part in the DCTC production. He wore a special body suit that weighed 50 pounds so he could fill out the role. The piece is set in the West, somewhere in Mormon country, and the religion’s rigid rules are part of its dramatic twists and turns.
Hunter last year credited the New Play Summit workshop for helping him finish a project years in the making. In particular, the workshop helped him edit the work to two hours in length.
These items first appeared on Artmosphere, the Denver Post’s fine arts blog. Visit blogs.denverpost.com/artmosphere for more.
