| Robert and Judi Newman Center for the Performing Arts | |
|---|---|
| Established | 2003 |
| Location | 2344 East Iliff Avenue, Denver, CO 80208 |
| Website | http://www.newmancenterpresents.com/ |
The Robert and Judi Newman Center for the Performing Arts is located on the University of Denver campus in Denver, Colorado at the southwest corner of Iliff and University. Robert and Judi Newman were asked by former Chancellor Daniel L. Ritchie to spearhead the fundraising effort for the building. They also made a substantial donation to the Center’s fundraising efforts. The Newman Center officially opened in the fall of 2002 and the three main performance venues officially opened in spring 2003.
The Center is divided into many academic and rehearsal spaces as well as multiple performance venues, including Virginia E. Trevorrow Hall on the north end of the building, which houses the Lamont School of Music, and includes other various academic and rehearsal facilities. The three main performance venues are located on the main floor of the Center and include June Swaner Gates Concert Hall, an opera house with nearly 1,000 seats, Frederic C. Hamilton Family Recital Hall, an intimate recital space of 222 seats, and Elizabeth Eriksen Byron Theatre, a black box theater seating up to 350. The Galen and Ada Belle Spencer Foundation Meet-the-Artist Room serves as a reception room for many events.
The Newman Center hosts over 400 performances each season, including theatre, dance, jazz, world and classical music. Over 150,000 people each season attend events in the Newman Center for the Performing Arts. Performers include international touring artists, local performing arts organizations, as well as the award-winning musicians, singers and thespians of the University of Denver. The University's own "Newman Center Presents" series is a multi-disciplinary, multi-cultural offering of renowned artists. It was inaugurated in the fall of 2003. Newman Center Presents mixes well-known performers with rising stars from around the world and artists who have not otherwise had the chance to perform in Denver. Over half of the artists presented by NCP have never appeared in Denver before. NCP regularly commissions new works and provides educational residency activities for students of the University and pre-college students. Nearly all performances in the Newman Center are open to the general public as well as University faculty and students.
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This venue is the most widely used performance space in the Newman Center. It is known for its great acoustics, which were designed by Kirkegaard Associates. Gates Concert Hall has a large performing stage, an orchestra pit, a Wenger orchestra shell used for full symphony and chamber orchestras, and tiered seating for the audience. Gates Concert Hall is used for operatic, musical and dance shows as well as jazz, classical music, corporate presentations, memorial services, and other events. It seats from 849 to 971 people, depending on the configuration of the pits.
This is the main artery of the Newman Center and serves as a lounge and study area for staff and students during the day and as a lobby for performances that take place during the evenings. The Plaza is elegant with a high vaulted ceiling, large clerestory windows, tall columns, alabaster chandeliers, Italian travertine floors and custom-made furniture by Daniel Strawn. The M Allan Frank Family Box Office is located in the Plaza, which is where tickets for performances may be purchased.
This hall is used for recital performances by the students and faculty members of the Lamont School of Music, but is also available for public rental. Hamilton Hall includes a 9-foot Steinway Hamburg concert grand piano and the William K. Coors organ, a 2,850-pipe tracker action organ designed and built by Karl Schuke Berliner Orgelbauwerkstatt in Berlin, Germany. It seats 222 people.
Also known as the “Byron Flexible Theatre,” or just "the Flex," this space is used for students with theatre majors to learn the practice of theatre production. The theatre is capable of making more than 40 different seating and staging arrangements and has an adjacent rehearsal room. There are some professional performances shown in this theatre, especially during the University of Denver's winter and summer breaks. It seats up to 350 people.
This is the north wing of the Newman Center and its facilities are mainly used by the Lamont School of Music faculty, staff and music majors. The Lamont School of Music has more than three hundred music majors as well as non-music majors who use the facilities throughout the year. The following facilities are included in this hall.
The academic spaces include Lamont offices (Main Administrative Office, PR Office and Lamont Admissions), state-of-the-art classrooms, 42 faculty studies, 35 student practice rooms on the Morey C. Ballantiine Student Floor, the Wolf Conference Room (22-seat boardroom style meeting space), a recording studio which contains a drum booth (with walls lined with river rocks for acoustical reasons), an electronic piano lab, the Bonfils-Stanton Foundation Music Library, and a student lounge. The student lounge located on the 5th floor has a custom-made west-facing window in the shape of a rose, made from Indiana limestone. Dick Sanders donated funding for this space.
There are various rehearsal and practice rooms that are available to both faculty and students on a regular basis. The Carol L. Moore Vocal Rehearsal Room is the main rehearsal space for the Lamont School of Music Opera and Choral programs. The Instrumental Rehearsal Room is the main rehearsal space for the Lamont Symphony Orchestra, the Lamont Wind Ensemble and the Pioneer Pep Band. There is also a Jazz Rehearsal Room, which is used by the jazz and commercial music programs at the school. Virtual Practice Rooms are also available that are equipped with Virtual Room Acoustic Systems, which electronically create reverberations in a small space so the acoustics in the rooms can sound like a variety of spaces, from a large concert hall or cathedral to a small, acoustically "dead" club. On the Morey C. Ballantine 5th floor, there are various Student Practice Rooms, which are available for student use on a first-come, first-serve basis and are each equipped with a Steinway piano. The Lamont School of Music was the 27th "All Steinway" music school in the U.S.
This room is used for solo recitals, chamber music recitals and rehearsals, and a large lecture classroom. It is the venue used for Flo’s Underground, a free, live jazz performance on Fridays during the academic year from 5:00pm to 7:00pm given by current Lamont jazz students. It seats 80 people.
Newman Center Presents
University of Denver