You can’t walk into Chautauqua Auditorium without feeling the grand sweep of history thrumming within its walls, according to local musician Nick Forster.
“Just seeing the wooden bones of the hall and the daylight coming in through the sides reminds you of all the people who’ve played at Chautauqua and attended events [here] for over a century and a quarter,” he says.
A diverse who’s-who of speakers, preachers, dancers and musicians from William Jennings Bryan to Lyle Lovett have stepped onto that stage. Forster himself has been a recurring performer at the auditorium since the 1970s, initially as a member of the Boulder band Hot Rize, opening shows for bluegrass legends John Hartford, Bill Monroe and Ralph Stanley. Hot Rize started headlining annual shows there in the 1980s.
Forster may be best known as the co-founder and host of the nationally distributed eTown radio show which has been taped in Boulder since 1991. His shows at Chautauqua over the years have included artists like Earl Scruggs, Doc Watson, Joan Baez and more.
“I was always proud to do shows [here] knowing that our guests would feel part of the shared history that Chautauqua embodies,” he says.
That legacy began on July 4, 1898, when 13,000 attendees came to Boulder for the grand opening of Chautauqua Auditorium. Early performers in the space ranged from magicians, jugglers and animal acts to cultural institutions like the Kansas City Orchestra, opera and folk singers, African American acapella vocalists and more.
The anniversary will be celebrated July 8 with a daylong festival at Chautauqua Park, featuring local food vendors and outdoor live music by Dead Floyd, Banshee Tree, Chain Station and more — capped off with a ticketed auditorium concert that evening with Los Lobos and Ozomatli. The 125th birthday gathering is the first time a large, free summer event has been held on the site in decades.
Back from the dead
Chautauqua Auditorium and other adjacent historic structures may be revered now as icons, but in the 1970s they had fallen into disrepair. The city of Boulder once actually considered tearing them down to put up a resort and convention center with a great Flatirons view.
“For close to 30 years before all that happened at the auditorium, every year [there] were a few movies and an annual barbershop quartet concert,” says Kate Gerard, a Boulder native and Chautauqua’s resident archivist.
A major community effort to landmark and preserve the property was undertaken, but the single biggest thing that saved Chautauqua from the wrecking ball was the sound of music in the resonant wooden hall, she says.
In 1978, the Colorado Music Festival — returning this summer with violinist and artist-in-residence Joshua Bell — started performing orchestral and chamber works in concerts that brought thousands of locals to the auditorium for the first time. Then, Gerard says, a series of primarily acoustic shows by international artists introduced the venue to many more concertgoers. Funds to rebuild the hall started flowing and along with community support to preserve the remarkable cultural institution.
Boulder may have still been somewhat rural in 1898, but when Chautauqua opened, it was a technological wonder. “The auditorium was constructed with electric wiring in place for lighting and to showcase a new form of entertainment: motion pictures,” Gerard says. Some of the very earliest movies shown in Colorado were screened there.”
Since 1986, Chautauqua has continued the tradition with Silent Film Festival screenings featuring live musical accompaniment. And besides the parade of national acts, the auditorium has been the Boulder venue where locally launched bands have found the spotlight — ranging from Leftover Salmon, the Takács Quartet and Dead Kennedys frontman Jello Biafra to The Wood Brothers, who played a sold-out show on the hallowed local stage in 2022.
“Oliver and Chris Wood were born and raised here, but they didn’t find music success until after they left Boulder,” says Danny Cohen, Chautauqua’s general manager and a longtime fan of the band, ahead of the duo’s slated return to the auditorium on July 22. “They finally found themselves on this stage in their hometown, a place where they had seen events, but never performed. … They were so happy. They were freaking out. That was really special.”
‘A sacred space’
As it has been for multiple generations of Boulder residents, Forster’s connection to Chautauqua runs deep. He and his wife, eTown producer Helen Forster, were married at Chautauqua Community House. His daughters worked at the dining hall back when it was only open in the summertime.
Thanks to efforts spearheaded by Forster, a tribute to his late friend and Hot Rize guitarist, Charles Sawtelle, is installed outside the auditorium’s north end. A bench is inscribed with a pithy Sawtelle saying — “Never turn anything all the way up” — with oversized bronze guitar flat-picks embedded in the concrete base.
“I had brunch there with my family last week and I went to see Mary Chapin Carpenter,” Forster says. “I was running across the green with our youngest granddaughter and playing on the swings just like I did with her mom.”
For Forster and others whose lives have been touched by this Boulder institution over the last century-plus, it all adds up to something much greater than the sum of its parts.
“Chautauqua is more than just a concert hall or a restaurant,” he says. “It’s a touchstone for me, a sacred space.”
ON THE BILL: Chautauqua 125th Birthday Bash. 1-6 p.m. Saturday, July 8, Chautauqua Park, 900 Baseline Road and 9th Street. Details here.
