With the rattle of U2, the splash of Katy Perry and the buzz of Bruno Mars, the season promises to pop 04/29/2011 05:08 PM MDT As concert promoter Live Nation bleeds executives and its competitor AEG Live questions the future of festivals — including the Mile High Music Festival, which is taking this summer off — a couple of Colorado companies are seeing better-than-ever success in their music endeavors.
Taylor Swift to shut down CMA Music Fest 05/02/2011 12:06 PM MDT - NASHVILLE, Tenn.—Taylor Swift will bring the curtain down on this year's CMA Music Fest. Swift has been added to the Sunday lineup of the Nightly Concerts at LP Field for the June 9-12 festival in Nashville, Tenn.
CSO changes its tune and enjoys sound of success 04/29/2011 11:22 AM MDT - The buzz surrounding conductor Jeffrey Kahane's ascension to music director of the Colorado Symphony six years ago took the orchestra to record attendance heights.
Jazz: Gas up the family van, and head to the hills 04/29/2011 10:00 AM MDT - It's time to start thinking about road trips again, and I've always found the Colorado mountain jazz festivals the best excuse to spend — what are they predicting? Five bucks a gallon? Six? Hey, it's for art, right?
No, not that royal couple...Opera Colorado's "Cinderella" 04/28/2011 03:44 PM MDT - The timing could hardly be better. A day after Prince William and Kate Middleton profess their vows with much of the rest of the world looking on, Opera Colorado will offer its musical take on an even more famous, albeit fictional, royal couple
Hot Tix: Kings of Leon, Tony Bennett, Death Cab for Cutie and more 04/28/2011 01:49 PM MDT - Kings of Leon arguably completed their transformation from next-big-things to mainstream pop-rockers years ago, but it's still impressive to watch the Tennessee family band announcing back-to-back dates at Red Rocks Amphitheatre.
Clubs: Stretch out your Denver Cinco de Mayo celebration 04/28/2011 02:55 PM MDT - Sometimes it's hard to know when to party for Cinco de Mayo. The fifth of May is always appropriate, of course, but May 6 hangovers aren't great for the weekday workplace. The annual Cinco fiesta at Civic Center isn't happening until May 7 and 8. And it's still partially April this weekend. What to do?
When the teenage killing machine played so marvelously by Saoirse Ronan in Joe Wright's stylish action movie "Hanna" asks her rogue CIA agent father what music is he consults the dictionary and tells her that "it's a combination of sounds with a view to beauty of form and expression of emotion."
Throughout the '80s, Canadian singer/composer k.d. lang crafted an aesthetic of boisterous camp and countrypolitan cool, artful but never artificial. Onto that melodic hum, lang applied vibrato-laden, pitch-perfect vocals whose impressionistic lyrics gave her brand of luxurious C&W a distingue elegance.
It's been 20 years since Paul Simon, now 69, made an album of note. That would be 1990's "Rhythm of the Saints, the Brazilian-flavored follow-up to 1986's South-African-rooted "Graceland."
The Kills, "Blood Pressures"(Domino) Approaching today's release of "Blood Pressures," it seems like the Kills are facing the greatest challenge of their career. Not only are they coming off the career-defining "Midnight Boom"the 2008 record that solidified the duo as gritty rock royalty — but the album also follows singer Alison Mosshart's lauded time in the Dead Weather.
Nothing like a mega-hit to keep you busy. Cee Lo Green, who flew back to Los Angeles last week to redo "Forget You" as a benefit song for the nation's volunteer firefighters, will return to Europe next week to resume a concert tour and then will tour this summer with Rihanna.
When I phoned Wanda Jackson earlier this week at her Oklahoma City home, she lacked the growl that has been her trademark as "the Queen of Rock 'n' Roll" for more than five decades.
There's no denying the recent change in Linkin Park's music. What once was a cacophonous alt-rock crossover with hip-hop and electronic leanings is now a different creation entirely — something that is mellow, measured and matured, even.
When someone dies young, cultural norms tell us to celebrate the life that was, rather than mourn the death that is all too present. It can sometimes feel like a bromide against emotions that may feel too disturbing, too raw and real.
Ask an opera singer about the state of his or her career and the usual response is an enthusiastic if generic statement of how well things are going. But the recent answer of soprano Kelly Kaduce, who is singing the lead role in Opera Colorado's production of Antonín Dvorák's "Rusalka," was surprising in its candor.
Thursday evening's Friends of Chamber Music concert was originally supposed to feature the wonderful St. Lawrence String Quartet, but the group had to cancel its appearance several months ago.
The buzz surrounding conductor Jeffrey Kahane's ascension to music director of the Colorado Symphony six years ago took the orchestra to record attendance heights.
Naming the most important painter at work in Colorado is a tricky task at best, but Clark Richert is as strong a candidate as any for the title. The veteran artist bridges abstraction and mathematics in his often complex works.
Winter is the hottest time of year on Denver Center Theatre Company stages, when the new plays that provide its lifeblood take center stage. This year brings the space odyssey "When Tang Met Laika" (opening Jan. 28), and "Eventide" (Feb. 4).
He once commanded an area of 12 million square miles, four times the size of the Roman empire, and was named Time magazine's "most influential person of the millennium."
That's the major issue that 4,000 artists and administrators will take on when they gather in Denver for the National Performing Arts Convention, which runs from Tuesday through Saturday at the Colorado Convention Center.
