Today's featured event: A mandolin wind blows through Boettcher Concert Hall

It'll be an early-season crossover spectacular this weekend at Boettcher Concert Hall, when the Colorado Symphony Orchestra hosts an American Festival with newgrass mandolinist (and founding member of Nickel Creek) Chris Thile, as part of its CSO Masterworks series. Thile, who seems to stray into as many musical genres as...

By Susan Froyd

September 17, 2009

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It'll be an early-season crossover spectacular this weekend at Boettcher Concert Hall, when the Colorado Symphony Orchestra hosts an American Festival with newgrass mandolinist (and founding member of Nickel Creek) Chris Thile, as part of its CSO Masterworks series. Thile, who seems to stray into as many musical genres as his instrument will allow, plans to premiere his new Mandolin Concerto, a serious orchestral work that comes on the heels of a four-movement chamber work, The Blind Leaving the Blind, written for and performed by his band the Punch Brothers on their 2008 Nonesuch recording. And the rest of the program's not so shabby, either. Music director and pianist Jeffrey Kahane will perform Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue and conduct CSO principal timpanist William Hill's Four Moments Musical and Aaron Copland's Billy the Kid suite, tonight and Saturday at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday at 2:30 p.m.

Boettcher Hall is located in the Denver Performing Arts Complex; to purchase tickets, ranging from $15 to $75, visit the CSO website or call 303-623-7876.

For more ways to rock the night and kill the day, go to westword.com/calendar.

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Susan Froyd started writing for Westword as the "Thrills" editor in 1992 and never quite left the fold. These days she still freelances for the paper in addition to walking her dogs, enjoying cheap ethnic food and reading voraciously. Sometimes she writes poetry.

Contact: Susan Froyd

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