(KUSA/NBC News) Masked musicians sat six feet apart and began tuning their violins and cellos, as Colorado's Boulder Symphony and conductor Devin Patrick Hughes prepared Monday for their first performance in months.
“Breaking down barriers between the orchestra and its audience through children’s programs and school engagements,” Hughes hopes to “foster this generation’s love for classical music, sharing the transformative power of music’s emotional resonance.”
Whether he is conducting his version of the Three B’s, Beethoven, Brahms, & Brittany, Hughes substitutes contemporary American composer Brittany Green for Bach, or Epic Love: From Shakespeare to Superheroes, which includes Verdi’s La Traviata alongside Rogers & Hammerstein’s Oklahoma, Hughes is ever innovating to bring his beloved symphonic music to the masses.
Watching a flower bloom on Sesame Street to the strains of Vivaldi is how Devin Patrick Hughes recalls his first musical epiphany, at age three. His affinity for the symphonic model blossomed in college where he organized his first orchestra while studying music and pre-med. He would go on to co-found the Boulder Symphony—one among a cadre of young conductors carrying their craft forward in new, innovative ways. He spoke with us about the resonance of music, and its power to uplift a community and transform lives.
Conductor Devin Patrick Hughes and musicians from the Boulder Symphony perform Conni Ellisor’s Tres Danzas de Video on 9News’s Colorado & Company. Hughes discusses the upcoming Fidget Concert for a neurodiverse audience including those with developmental and intellectual disabilities, along with the upcoming West Side Story performance, Boulder Symphony Music Academy, and the upcoming July 4 Spectacular.
