Greeley Philharmonic Orchestra to kick off 2021-22 season with local favorite, The Burroughs — drawing ire from Howard Skinner

By Dan England

Two years ago, Nick Kenny thought of a concert with The Burroughs. When he presented it to the Greeley Philharmonic’s board, he got a tepid response.

He reminded them that their most successful recent concerts were when they collaborated with other artists. Concerts featuring tribute bands to the Beatles and John Denver were hits. 

“So, I said, ‘Let’s do it with the hottest band in Greeley,’” said Kenny. “And then they started getting excited.” 

The philharmonic will open its 2021-22 season with the show on Oct. 23. This collaboration, however, will be different in many ways. The Beatles and Denver both created beloved music for faithful and now nostalgic audiences. The Burroughs are, indeed, still Greeley’s hottest band, but they aren’t at THAT level yet. And while the tribute bands had already prepared orchestrations and performed them with philharmonics around the country, the Burroughs have done nothing like that.  

But all these challenges don’t phase Kenny. They excite him. 

“This is not a stock show you order out of New York,” he said. “These are local artists making an impact in the community. They are a force.” 

The Burroughs pushed for the larger collaboration because of that very fact that it’s something they’ve never done before: That meant they would have to notate their own music: They’re a funk band, remember, so even though most are professional musicians and composers with college degrees, many of their charts were skeletons with ideas and directions, not fully fleshed pieces played by orchestras. And then add strings and other parts to their music. 

“It was going to be a lot of time and energy,” said Briana Harris, the band’s saxophone player and manager. “We wanted to do it all out.” 

The Burroughs know many bands don’t get this opportunity, even those much more established and successful than them, and many bigger bands also don’t get the creative control given by the philharmonic, from lighting to set design to the arrangers crafting the orchestrations. But Harris said the band was careful to make this a collaboration. 

“We didn’t want the orchestra to just be background for us,” she said. “It’s definitely going to be a Burroughs show, but I also think it will feel like a Philharmonic show.” 

The philharmonic’s new artistic director and conductor, Lowell Graham, got the job because he wants to push those boundaries, Kenny said.

“His main focus is to be accessible to an audience,” he said. “The last several years we’ve tried to redefine what the GPO is. This is out of our wheelhouse. It’s unexpected. We don’t want to be in that mindset where an orchestra is a certain type of music for a certain type of audience.”

Still, the philharmonic’s new season drew the ire of Howard Skinner, the orchestra’s musical director from 1970-2007.

Skinner wrote a scathing column torching the bridge between him and the orchestra’s new direction, expressing concern, frustration and even anger with the fact that only one concert featured classical music. The season, he said, goes against what he believes should be the GPO’s mission of playing and preserving symphonic music, even music from 21st century composers. It won’t be heard anywhere else, he said. 

“In my opinion, it is awful,” he wrote. “Where are the overtures, concertos and symphonies? We now have a symphony orchestra that only plays one symphony per season.” 

Skinner was so concerned, in fact, that he requested the board terminate his designation as “Conductor Laureate.” 

Kenny said the philharmonic had no specific response to the letter, but he was willing to defend the season. When he attended a symposium in February, the message delivered by orchestras around the country was traditional seasons don’t work and haven’t for many years. 

“Orchestras continue to struggle,” Kenny said.

Besides, Kenny said, it’s not like the GPO is playing a concert featuring the catalogue of Kajagoogoo. A jazz show features compositions from Duke Ellington, who wrote many well-respected pieces for orchestras in addition to jazz classics such as “Take The A Train.” The concert featuring movie music does have many traditional pieces made famous by cinema. The Brahams show does feature a hall-of-fame composer, and the show is a German requiem that celebrates dead as well as those who are still living. 

“It’s very rare for a requiem to do that,” Kenny said, “but I thought this was perfect for COVID-19.”

Harris knows the philharmonic is taking a chance on its performance, but she said the band is comfortable being included. 

“Good music is universal,” she said. 

How to get tickets

The Burroughs plays with the GPO at its season opener at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 23, at the Union Colony Civic Center, 701 10th Ave., Greeley. Buy tickets at greeleyphil.org or call (970) 356-5000.