63 Best Performing Arts in Colorado, USA

Focusing on everything from chamber music to jazz, the Aspen Music Festival and School begins on the Thursday before Independence Day and runs for eight weeks. Musicians perform at hundreds of events held at the 2,050-seat Benedict Music Tent, the Victorian Wheeler Opera House, and the Joan and Irving Harris Concert Hall. Tickets are available online. A quarter of the performances are free, and one of the festival's great pleasures is showing up on the free-seating lawn outside the Benedict Music Tent with some friends and a blanket.

The 1930s art deco–style Boulder Theater is a gem of a venue that hosts more than 200 events annually with national, international, and local artists, comedians, speakers, and a range of film events.

Stretching from late June/early July through early August, the annual Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival is a month-and-a-half-long celebration of classical music. Among the performers in residence for a few days or more than a week are the New York Philharmonic, Dallas Symphony Orchestra, and Philadelphia Orchestra. Chamber-music concerts, many performed by the ensemble-in-residence, are popular events. While main orchestral events are held at Vail’s Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater, you can find chamber music events and free concerts at various venues throughout the Vail Valley.

This annual festival runs from early June to mid-August and presents the Bard's comedies and tragedies on the University of Colorado campus in the stunning Mary Rippon Outdoor Theater.

Housed in the beautifully restored 1892 Creede Opera House, this theater stages at least seven plays, plus concerts and other events, every year between May and September. Family events are also on tap throughout the summer.

This huge complex, composed of an impressively high-tech group of theaters, hosts more shows—from classical orchestras to interactive experiences to Hamilton—than any other performing arts center in the world. Spread over a four-block area, the eight theaters are connected by a soaring glass archway to a futuristic symphony hall. The complex anchors are the round Temple Hoyne Buell Theatre, built in 1991, and the ornate Ellie Caulkins Opera House, which occupies the former Auditorium Theatre built in 1908. The other six theaters include the small Garner Galleria Theatre and the midsize Kilstrom Theatre. The symphony, ballet, and opera have their seasons here. The complex has been run by the Denver Center for the Performing Arts since 1972.

In early autumn, the calls of bull elk fill the forest as the animals make their way down the mountains for mating season. Estes Park celebrates with elk bugle contests, live music, and elk educational seminars.

Held each year over Labor Day, the Telluride Film Festival is up there with Sundance as one of the world's leading showcases for foreign and domestic films.

The Avalon Theatre is one of the largest performing arts complexes in western Colorado, offering traveling lectures, dance, theater, and other cultural performances. The popular monthly "Dinner and a Movie" Tuesday nights bring classic and popular old blockbusters to the big screen, with receipts from a meal in town garnering free admission. A $9 million renovation, completed in late 2014, restored and upgraded the 1923 facility, adding seating, reception areas, and a rooftop terrace, while making audio/visual improvements and allowing the theater to expand its cultural offerings.

This old-style-cowboy venue, about 10 miles from Durango, serves steaks, barbecued beef and chicken, and biscuits under the stars every summer evening. After supper, the Bar D Wranglers entertain the crowd with guitar music, singing, and corny comedy. Reservations are required.

Since 1977, BDT Stage has been entertaining Boulder with four Broadway-quality musicals a year; in recent years, the dinner theater has added concerts by local and national musical acts. An in-house chef prepares your dinner, and the stars of the show serve you at your table.

Fort Collins's largest community festival, this music-centered event is a proud showing of the bustling Colorado music community, which has produced the Fray, Tennis, 3OH!3, OneRepublic, Nathaniel Rateliff, and others. Dozens of bands play on multiple stages during the free event on a Saturday in September. Bohemian Nights also hosts Thursday night concerts downtown during the summer.

Held each Memorial Day weekend since 1987, the Boulder Creek Festival converts a stretch along Boulder Creek into a giant party, complete with carnival rides, live music, hundreds of vendors, food, and multiple beer gardens. The free festival (a beer festival for those over 21 is offered concurrently for a fee) runs between Arapahoe Avenue and Canyon Boulevard between 9th and 14th Streets.

Boulder's professional orchestra presents its own concert season, frequently including some of the biggest names in classical music. The "Boulder Phil" also collaborates with the Boulder Ballet Ensemble to present the Nutcracker each holiday season.

This downtown theater company brings three touring Broadway blockbusters to the restored Memorial Hall every year.

Based in Denver's trendy Highland neighborhood, this small nonprofit theater produces cutting-edge, original works.

Opera has been staged at the Central City Opera House, the nation's fifth-oldest opera house, almost every year since opening night in 1878. Lillian Gish has acted, Beverly Sills has sung, and many other greats have performed here. Performances are held in summer only.

Concerts and more take place throughout the summer at this historic auditorium. Performers have included B. B. King, Melissa Etheridge, Lucinda Williams, the Indigo Girls, and Lyle Lovett. Former vice president Al Gore and the Reverend Jesse Jackson are among those who have spoken here.

The University of Colorado's superb College of Music presents hundreds of concerts each year, including chamber music by the internationally renowned Takács String Quartet and performances by a range of large and small orchestral, choral, new music, world music, and jazz ensembles.

September brings the annual Colorado Mountain Winefest.

From July to early August, the Colorado Music Festival brings classical music, chamber music, music by contemporary composers, and more to the historic Chautauqua Auditorium. Since 1976, this long-running festival has hosted a variety of musical talent and has become a popular destination for music lovers. Evening meals are available in the dining hall, or you can picnic on the lawn to take in mountain views before the show.

The small town of Larkspur is home to just a couple hundred residents, but it knows how to throw a heck of a party—and a medieval one at that. On weekends in summer, the Colorado Renaissance Festival annually hosts throngs of families, chain-mail-clad fantasy enthusiasts, and fun-lovers of every other kind. Within about 350 wooded acres there are performers who deliver everything from juggling stunts and fire-eating to hypnotism and comedy. The big event happens three times a day, when knights square off in the arena for a theatrical joust. There are also more than 200 artisans selling their wares, as well as games, rides, and myriad food and drink booths.

From September to June, the orchestra performs in the Boettcher Concert Hall, as well as playing ensemble concerts at venues around the city and a popular summer Symphony on the Rocks series at Red Rocks Park and Amphitheatre near Morrison.

From end of June to mid-August, the Crested Butte Music Festival presents a seven-week concert series featuring opera, gypsy jazz, rock, funk, indie, chamber, and classical music in various venues in town, near the ski area, and down the road in Gunnison.

Such abundant foliage carpets the surrounding mountains that Crested Butte has been nicknamed the "Wildflower Capital of Colorado." For 10 glorious days in mid-July, the town celebrates this bounty with a varied event lineup: guided hikes, wildflower identification and photography workshops, classes on medicinal plants, and four-wheel-drive tours. Check the website, because even if you can't make it on festival week, events run from June through the end of August.

Located in an old dairy building, this center is a hub for the arts community, housing multiple galleries and providing a venue for films as well as locally produced plays, music, and dance performances.

This organization brings Broadway show touring companies to the Ellie and Buell theaters.

Presenting high-caliber repertory theater, including new works by promising playwrights, this company takes over the intimate stages (attendees are never more than 13 rows from the action) at the Bonfils Theatre Complex, part of the Denver Performing Arts Complex.

The University of Colorado Boulder's theater and dance department stages excellent student productions during the academic year.

You can see stage productions as well as visual arts exhibits, concerts, and films at the Durango Arts Center.