The Ent Center for the Arts is a huge step forward for UCCS and our city! A culmination of years of planning, this incredible new facility, which broke ground in the summer of 2015, is nearly finished and will be open to the public early next year. An invitation-only unveiling took place on Tuesday night. Since my brother Chuck was a donor, he was invited, and he took me along as his guest. There are still a few finishing touches to go, but we could see that this complex is going to be a very important arts venue in Colorado Springs. There are performance spaces large and small (with exquisite, perfectly engineered acoustics), a fantastic looking art gallery, rehearsal rooms, gathering spots... they thought of everything. And there's a magnificent view to boot!
Right out of the gate, the Ent Center will be offering a program called the Artist Series, which will bring the best of music, dance, and live performance to our city. Upcoming events include the Alvin Ailey II Dancers, Branford Marsalis, the Aspen Santa Fe Ballet, Celtic Nights, the Harlem Quartet, and a re-imagined, modern production of South Pacific (I can hardly wait for that!).
On Tuesday, the big fun was that the Colorado Springs Philharmonic was giving the new Shockley-Zalabak Theater a test drive by rehearsing there, and we were all invited to listen in. So officially, Chuck and I were among the first to hear a performance in this brand spanking new space! By the way, we have a crackerjack philharmonic in this city and they sounded wonderful in there, of course.
I'm excited about this fantastic new facility -- it's a huge boon to our community and I can't wait to attend events there!
The Murray and Betty Ross Lobby -- seeing that sign gave me such a pang! Murray Ross was one of my favorite professors at UCCS, and he passed away suddenly a few months ago. He was an enormously popular and beloved figure in our city's theater scene, and his widow Betty is an equally beloved and respected local artist. Murray had been so excited about the Ent Center. I can only imagine how happy he would have been to be there as part of the unveiling on Tuesday night. His legacy endures!
They had literally just taken delivery of their new Steinway performance grand that afternoon and installed it on the stage in the Shockley-Zalabak Theater. I was in awe. This piano is magnificent.
A view from the stage in one of the performance spaces (I believe this one's called the Chapman Foundations Recital Hall). That's my brother Chuck on the left. By the way, all the seats have cup holders. How awesome is that?!? It's the little things, people!
Our wonderful Philharmonic rehearsing the music that they'll be performing at the grand opening of the Ent Center early next year (by the way that's my old friend Dave on the cello). They sounded great in there!
3 comments:
Above is from Katie
What a beautiful space! Well worth having it built.
As an out of towner who had her roots in Murray's theatre, I just want to say THANK YOU for these photos.... what a stunning building. Can't wait to see it in person.
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