![\"People](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/260131-COLORADO-SYMPHONY-GREGORY-ALAN-ISAKOV-RADIO-CITY-MUSIC-HALL-NEW-YORK-CITY-ARTS-CAITLYNKIM-01..jpeg\"\/)
Caitlyn Kim\/CPR NewsThe Colorado Symphony plays with Gregory Alan Isakov at New York City’s Radio City Music Hall. Jan. 31, 2026.<\/p>\nUpdated at 8:31 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 2, 2026<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a cacophony of sound as individual musicians from the Colorado Symphony take their seats on the stage of Carnegie Hall\u2019s Stern Auditorium on Sunday morning.<\/p>\n
The deep baritone of a trombone tuning up, string instruments playing bits of melody, the high pitch of a flute running up and down a scale.<\/p>\n
This is the last stop of the Colorado Symphony\u2019s debut tour in New York City, where they are about to perform with world-renowned violist Itzhak Perlman. The program includes American composer John Adams\u2019 \u201cFrenzy,\u201d which has never been performed in the city.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m a little nervous to perform,\u201d said Seoyoen Min, principal cellist.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She\u2019s from South Korea and grew up watching performances from the iconic hall online. But she had never played there herself until Sunday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s very much of a dream come true.\u201d<\/p>\n
Not only for her. Principal violinist Yumi Hwang-Williams has played Carnegie before. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe all tend to be a little bit cool about it. We are like, \u2018Yeah, we’re going to Carnegie.\u2019 But I know deep down, we’re all just incredibly thrilled,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Caitlyn Kim\/CPR NewsThe Colorado Symphony plays with Gregory Alan Isakov at New York City’s Radio City Music Hall. Jan. 31, 2026.<\/p>\n
Hwang-Williams has been with the symphony for over 25 years, and this is the first time she\u2019s toured with \u201cour Colorado Symphony.\u201d\u00a0The last time the symphony traveled to New York was in 1974, when it was then known as the Denver Symphony.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can call it the Super Bowl,\u201d she said. \u201cI mean, it really feels like something that big.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s big because it\u2019s not just a stop at Carnegie Hall. The orchestra also played with Boulder-based indie singer-songwriter Gregory Alan Isakov for two sold-out shows at another venerable music venue less than 10 blocks away: Radio City Music Hall. In 2016, Isakov released an album with the symphony.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt just feels so good to be here with the Colorado Symphony,\u201d Isakov told the crowd on Saturday. \u201cIt feels really like home in New York.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
At the end of the last show, resident conductor Christopher Dragon threw his baton into the crowd after taking a bow with Isakov and the rest of his band.<\/p>\n
This tour showcased the range and skill of the Colorado Symphony as well as how far the orchestra, which has a strong professional reputation, has come in the broader musical world.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don’t get to go to these venues unless you’re starting to gain really large recognition as one of the premier performing ensembles,\u201d explained Michael Thornton, principal horn player.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He had never played in Radio City, a 6,000-seat venue, which is more than twice as large as the symphony\u2019s home at Boettcher Concert Hall in Denver. \u201cAnd so this is a very big step for the orchestra in terms of the way that we’re perceived in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
Music director and conductor Peter Oundjian added that, if you look at any internationally regarded orchestra, \u201cIt’s the fact that they go out and are acknowledged in other cities, in other countries that really gives the community this sense of confidence and pride in their home orchestra.\u201d<\/p>\n
Orchestral music as a team sport<\/p>\n
Oundjian said the musicians care a lot about all kinds of music, and these concerts reflect that.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’ve entered a stage now in the 21st century where we have to be relevant to everybody. If we just want to play from Bach to John Adams and only in the sort of art music repertoire, then how can we expect to have a large audience?\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n
Orchestral music can be a lot of different things, from movie scores to collaborations with rock and pop artists. And this tour had both. The Carnegie set included John Williams\u2019 theme for “Schindler’s List,\u201d which Perlman actually performed on for the original movie score. On the other hand, the symphony lent a richness and depth to the sound of Isakov\u2019s folk music. And this diversity of range helps the symphony reach new audiences, both inside and outside of Colorado.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThey’ll come along, and then they get very excited by just the sight of seeing a hundred people in complete coordination,\u201d Oundjian said. \u201cIt is the greatest example of human cooperation that you could ever imagine, that a hundred people play with one expression in one rhythm. And I think that’s sensational.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"An](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Music-Director-Peter-Oundjian-conducting-the-Colorado-Symphony-with-Itzhak-Perlman-Violin_Amanda-Tip.jpeg\"\/)
Courtesy of Image by Amanda Tipton PhotographyMusic Director Peter Oundjian conducting the Colorado Symphony with Itzhak Perlman.<\/p>\n
Daniel Wachter, president and CEO of the Colorado Symphony, is a business guy. He called it diversifying the audience.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cClassical music has a little bit of a stigma, a bit of a barrier. And I like the idea that this takes barriers down,\u201d he explained. \u201cThey think they don’t like classical music, but then they watch a ‘Star Wars’ movie, or they see Gregory Alan Isakov on stage and say, \u2018Oh, that’s not classical music. It’s beautiful.\u2019 But there is a symphony orchestra, and that makes people curious to probably come to classical music. So we see a migration.\u201d<\/p>\n
Oundjian said the idea for doing a New York City tour came from artistic director Tony Pierce. <\/p>\n
\u201cTony saw this opportunity. Carnegie happened to be free on Feb. 1 in the afternoon, and Radio City was free on Friday night. And Greg Alan Isakov is somebody we’ve worked with a lot,\u201d Oundjian said.<\/p>\n
And Oundjian\u2019s own mentor, Perlman, was also available. That show sold out.<\/p>\n
As for the concert with Isakov, it sold out in a matter of minutes. So a second night was added.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis tour is not a money maker for us,\u201d Wachter said. \u201cI look at it as an investment, as an investment into the motivation and the morale building of the orchestra and the team, as an investment into our reputation as a symphony orchestra.\u201d<\/p>\n
And like with Colorado sports teams, some fans traveled for this \u201caway game.\u201d<\/p>\n
Joan Disler of Littleton attended shows at both venues. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey should have been playing here long ago,\u201d she said. “They are as good, if not better, than any musicians that I know here in New York.\u201d<\/p>\n
There may be more touring in the symphony\u2019s future, too. Their home stage in Denver is expected to undergo renovations in a few years, and the Colorado Symphony may hit the road again during that time.<\/p>\n
Editor’s note: A previous version of this story misstated Peter Oundjian’s title.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Updated at 8:31 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 2, 2026 There\u2019s a cacophony of sound as individual musicians from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":122943,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2947,53739,53740,53741,2538,9,11,10,49,51,50],"class_list":{"0":"post-122942","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-classical-music","9":"tag-colorado-symphony","10":"tag-gregory-alan-isakov","11":"tag-itzhak-perlman","12":"tag-music","13":"tag-new-york","14":"tag-new-york-headlines","15":"tag-new-york-news","16":"tag-new-york-state","17":"tag-new-york-state-headlines","18":"tag-new-york-state-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122942"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122942\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/122943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}