This October, the Playground String Quartet is excited to celebrate the Mexican holiday Day of the Dead with a program of string quartet pieces featuring Mexican composers, including a Colorado premiere of Gabriela Ortiz’s ceremonial Altar de Muertos.

Learn more and buy tickets.

Welcome to Kids at the Dairy, an innovative arts education initiative that sparks imagination and fosters learning for students in Title I Schools across Boulder County. The Playground will be engaging in a morning of soundpainting and graphic score compositions followed by a performance of Corn Dog, a composition by the 4th graders in our Young Composers Playground program at Creativity Community Challenge (Denver Public Schools).

Returning to Colorado theaters after a highly successful inaugural season, Boulder’s newest ballet company, Artistic Ventures in Dance, invites you to join us for BOUNDLESS, an unforgettable evening marking their debut at the Macky Auditorium. Look forward to an evening of fresh perspective that honors the legacy of classical ballet and features live music by The Playground Ensemble.

Learn more and buy tickets here.

The Playground and Leon Gallery present an annual evening of experimental and improvised electronic music created and performed by Playground Ensemble composers. Interesting sounds in interesting spaces; interactive electronics, manipulated voice, uniquely created instruments, and more.

Learn more and buy tickets here.

The Playground Ensemble’s annual Pride show returns to close out the season in celebration of our artists and our community. Featured in this year’s program are Playground composers Silen Wellington and Nathan Hall, along with other Colorado composers and beloved Playground collaborators.

In a political climate where our mere existence is at stake, we offer up new, visibly queer music, texts, and movement works, supporting voices of all ages from our Rocky Mountain Region. We reaffirm our deep passion for and commitment to those around us, making sure we keep close our families, friends, lovers, youth, and elders. These pieces for Pride 2025 ask us to love harder. 

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In partnership with the Clyfford Still Museum, Friends of Chamber Music Denver presents The Playground Ensemble for a Sunday afternoon concert in the art gallery.

This event will include two identical concerts at noon and 1 pm. Performances are included with museum admission.

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A masterworks concert in which The Playground String Quartet explores humanity’s relationship with the Earth and Sky through some of America’s front-running national composers - Caroline Shaw, John Luther Adams, Raven Chacon, Terry Riley, and Gabriela Smith.

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We invite families to join in creative play hosted by Friends of Chamber Music and featuring The Playground Ensemble!

Make your own kazoos, compose your own musical masterpiece, be a conductor, and more! Look for us in the community area, first floor of the Stanley Marketplace, 2501 Dallas Street, on Saturday April 5. Free to the community; no reservations necessary.

The Playground Ensemble and MCA Denver at the Holiday Theater invite you to create sound and beauty in a common space, to come together in community, support each other, and listen to the reverberations. Featured on the program is a special Playground-commissioned version of Arone Dyer’s Dronechoir, along with other pieces with interactive elements and audience participation.

Find more details and buy tickets here.

For centuries artists have explored, through their own individualized lenses, what it means to be human; through sound, color and texture, they express the intricacies of body and mind, weaving together a personal tapestry of art unique to their own lived experiences and opinions.

In this concert, The Playground will perform works that explore the unique vulnerabilities that come with being human; from the mind and its tendencies to the body and its limits, and how the two intersect and can bring us closer together and to ourselves.

Find more details here.

$20 GA, $10 student tickets. Tickets can be purchased here.

We invite families to join in interactive creative play with us during Denver Arts Week! Join us for this fun, free event presented in collaboration with Friends of Chamber Music.

– Make your own kazoos – we’ll have supplies and show you how.

– Compose your own musical masterpiece using colors and shapes, which our musicians will perform on the spot!

– Be a conductor – lead our musicians using easy “soundpainting” hand-gestures.

Look for us in the community area, first floor of the Stanley Marketplace, 2501 Dallas Street. Free to the community; no reservations necessary.

For more info, visit the Event Page.

Join The Playground at Parker Science Night!

Unleash your curiosity and explore the world of science, technology, and engineering through hands-on activities and exhibits. Enjoy experiential learning with the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, Cave of the Winds, Phoenix Gold Mine, Playground Ensemble, Wings Over the Rockies, and more! Our classroom will feature graphic scores, soundpainting workshops, and lots of interactive music-making!

FREE ENTRY - RSVP's Required

Parker Science Night is a free family event open to the entire community. While designed for all ages, it is especially geared towards elementary-aged children and their families.

AVID Dance, an emerging professional dance company based in Colorado and led by Artistic Director Emily Speed, presents a concert of works by American choreographers past and present, including two newly commissioned works. Be sure to join for an evening of fresh perspective that honors the legacy of classical ballet by continuing to move it forward and features live music by The Playground Ensemble.

Buy Tickets

Interesting sounds in interesting spaces.

The Playground and Leon Gallery present an annual evening of experimental and improvised electronic music created and performed by Playground Ensemble composers including David Farrell, Stacey Fahrion, Conrad Kehn, Loretta Notareschi, and Ryan Fiegl. Works will feature interactive electronics, manipulated voice, guitar, and a piece for Lumatone (Google it!).

Tickets are $20 at the door.

See more info and purchase tickets here.

Celebrate Pride with the Playground Ensemble!

This year’s Pride concert features the words and voices of local trans and non-binary folks telling their stories. Our five newly-commissioned works use acoustic instruments, interview clips, electronics, and live vocals to present compelling and powerful queer messages through music. Familiar themes bear repeating: in response to hate, we love ourselves and each other. In response to lies, we speak and live our truths.

Find more details and tickets here.

Join us at the Denver Botanic Gardens for a Creative Convening on April 25!

This FREE event features activities by local guest artists and community partners alongside open access to the Gardens’ botanic illustration classrooms and an art supply swap to trade gently used art materials.

The Playground will be offering a live graphic scores workshop - create some art and we will play it!

Advance RSVP is required. BYOB wine and beer permitted!

More details and RSVP here: https://www.botanicgardens.org/programs/creative-convening

Join The Playground at [LEAF], the Lafayette Electronic Arts Festival!

LEAF is a showcase of electronic and new media arts that bridges the classical music and traditional art worlds with contemporary electronic and emerging new media, including sonic and visual elements combined in new and novel ways. The Playground will join artists Jestern and Kevin Sweet to present a program of electronic works composed & performed by Playground folks, including Conrad Kehn, David Farrell, and Ryan Fiegl.

This event is FREE, so come to the Lafayette Center for Musical Arts for an evening of great music!

Join us for our second Colorado Collaborators Showcase (CoCoSho) on April 13th!

A retooling of our annual Colorado Composers Concert to diversify our collaborator pool, CoCoSho is an event celebrating the work of Colorado artists - including composers, performers, dancers, and visual artists - following an open call for collaborators and blind selection.

This year’s selected collaborator is Denver-based performance artist MG Bernard, who will work with Playground composer Nathan Hall to create a new, collaborative work. Alongside this premiere we will perform additional works by Colorado-connected composers.

$25 GA, $20 Seniors/Military, $15 Students

Tickets available here: https://ahec.universitytickets.com/w/event.aspx?id=1743

More details on the full program here.

Step into the world of the bizarre and captivating as Sleepy Time Gorilla Museum takes over The Stanley Hotel on March 8 & 9, 2024, for a 'minifest made manifest'!

Located in the eerie and mystic backdrop of The Stanley Hotel, this promises to be a unique and unforgettable experience. It is more than just a concert; it’s a portal to a realm of music, art, and oddities across the Stanley campus that will leave you enchanted and spellbound.

On March 9th, in particular, immerse yourself in the world of Sleepy Time Gorilla Museum with a Playground Ensemble concert featuring music from Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. Playground members will also participate in Aron Dyer’s Dronechoir.

Get your tickets NOW and be a part of this extraordinary journey into the surreal.

Tickets are $50 and can be purchased through the Stanley Hotel here: https://www.stanleylive.com/sgm

In collaboration with Leon Gallery and The Japanese Arts Network, we are excited to present an evening with legendary avant-garde percussionist, Tatsuya Nakatani. The evening will feature Tatsuya's signature solo set, as well as an improvisation featuring The Playground’s Director Conrad Kehn.

Tatsuya Nakatani is an avant-garde percussionist, composer, and artist of sound. Active internationally since the 1990s, Nakatani has released over 80 recordings and tours extensively, performing over 150 concerts a year. Originally from Japan, he makes his home in the desert town of Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. With his activity in new music, improvisation, and experimental music, Nakatani has a long history of collaboration.

Tickets are $20 in advance and $25 at the door.

Join The Playground at Denver Botanic Gardens for some free musical activities during Denver Arts Week!

4-5pm MST — Ticketed Concert — Advance registration required, register here watch ONLINE or
register here to join IN-PERSON (includes entrance to the Gardens)
5-10pm MST — Free Event (no registration required)

Jessi Harvey, Montana-born composer, and the Playground Ensemble String Quartet will come together to perform Harvey’s Shades of Colorado, a 7-movement work based in research on Colorado’s past, present, and future natural world; taking inspiration from the Colorado state butterfly, the Colorado Hairstreak, the Rocky Mountain Locust, Colorado River, and many other iconic Colorado natural features.

Following the artist talk and performance, The Playground String Quartet will explore and reimagine Jessi Harvey’s Stages of Water, in an ambient atrium experience and PG Director Conrad Kehn will present “What does it sound like?”, an interactive sound-making workshop.

Check out the full program here.

Join The Playground for a second redux of our Space Program dome concert!

A multi-media performance at the Gates Planetarium at Denver Museum of Nature and Science will explore how space exploration and discovery influence today’s composers. Featuring Playground commissions for spatialized audio and chamber ensemble with added video components — works by Annie Gosfield, George Crumb, Conrad Kehn, Nathan Hall, and Monica Bolles.

TWO PERFORMANCES — 7pm and 9pm on Friday, October 27th

$20 for DMNS Members and Playground Supporters | $25 for Non-Members

Tickets for 7pm here
Tickets for 9pm here

In this Playground Ensemble program centered around the environment, we perform new music that points to the fragility and resilience of Earth and of ourselves. How can we contain both the grief of forest fires and the hopeful work of climate recovery?

Featuring contributions from the National Center for Atmospheric Research, this concert includes beautiful and resonant compositions using bones from Antarctica as instruments; a work that calls out the plight of deforestation; and a work connecting our region's wind patterns to drum beats.

Funding for this program was provided by Denver Arts & Venues through the Denver Music Advancement Fund.

Purchase Tickets Here: https://playgroundensemble.wellattended.com/events/sustain-presented-by-the-playground-ensemble

The Lived Experience Concert is an Artistic Experience Supporting Reentry & Reducing Recidivism. In this second partnership with Remerg, The Playground will showcase the stories and creative expression of currently and formerly incarcerated people.

In addition to new works inspired by the lived experiences of this community, the concert will also feature three brand new pieces created by pairs of a composer and a returning citizen, each of whom has collaborated in the creation of a new musical work.

There will also be a silent auction of visual art by currently and formerly incarcerated people. Proceeds will benefit Remerg and its reentry programs and resources.

Tickets are $30 and can be purchased here.

Join The Playground for a redux of our Space Program dome concert!

A multi-media performance at the Gates Planetarium at DMNS will explore how space exploration and discovery influences today’s composers. Featuring Playground commissions for spatialized audio and chamber ensemble with added video components — works by Annie Gosfield, George Crumb, Conrad Kehn, Nathan Hall, and Monica Bolles.

TWO PERFORMANCES — 7pm and 9pm on Friday, September 30th

$20 for DMNS Members and Playground Supporters | $25 for Non-Members | $10 for Students/Children

Purchase Tickets for 7pm here

Purchase Tickets for 9pm here

The Playground is joining vertical dance group BANDALOOP for a FREE event (no ticket needed) as part of an afternoon of fun and delight celebrating the Newman Center for the Performing Arts’ 20th Anniversary.

Gliding, dancing, falling with style – the members of BANDALOOP seamlessly weave dynamic physicality with intricate choreography and climbing technology to turn the dance floor on its side. Literally, the outer walls of the Ritchie School of Engineering and Science and the Sie Complex, all within walking distance of the Newman Center!

Food trucks and concessions will be available throughout the experience which will start at 3:30pm. In addition, Fancy Tiger Crafts will provide an interactive loom demonstration and Artist Proof Collective will offer onsite screen printing of event t-shirts ($20) with Newman Center/BANDALOOP artwork. There will also be a table community with representatives from such community partners as the Denver Public Library, Museum of Contemporary Art and others.

Free parking (first come first serve) will be available in the Newman Center parking garage which is off of University and Wesley Ave. Patrons are encouraged to bring portable chairs or lawn blankets to enjoy the performances.

Click here for the official program.

Calling all Educators — You're invited to a FREE night out at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science featuring organizations from the Scientific & Cultural Facilities District!

Enjoy the museum and learn how SCFD organizations can serve you and your students over free appetizers and a cash bar. Plus ones welcomed! Event is for 21+ adults.

FREE for educators + 1 (adults only, please)
Reservations required - RESERVE YOUR SPOT TODAY 
Light appetizers and cash bar

Featuring organizations from the Scientific & Cultural Facilities District (including The Playgorund!)

Join the Playground and other AMEE members for a Music Festival & Resource Fair!

This annual event is be a way for community members to interact with different music organizations and the programs available to them while enjoying great bands, booths and food.

Doors open at 3:30pm, live music begins at 5pm.

FREE ENTRY - RSVP's Required

The Alliance for Music Education Equity (AMEE) is the backbone organization of a collective impact effort of music organizations that are passionate about equity, diversity, and inclusivity, and are committed to cooperatively making systemic change in music education across Denver. The Playground is proud to be a member.