The Glenwood Springs Community Concert Association began presenting concerts for the community in 1947, with four classical concerts.  The concerts were first held in the local elementary school and later in the Hotel Colorado.  In those days, the Hotel Colorado was closed in the winter, but they graciously opened their doors for the concert performances.  The concerts continued through the 1957-58 season, at which time competition from a similar concert series in Rifle lowered both organizations’ memberships so much that both organizations were forced to close.

In 1963, local music enthusiasts reorganized the concert series, with an affiliation to a national community concert organizer, Columbia Artists.  By this time, there were as many as 400 concert associations like ours, scattered in large and small communities throughout the United States. The concert associations operated as membership organizations to ensure their ability to budget and pay for their yearly concert series. 

From 1963 until the present, the Glenwood Springs Community Concert Association has continued to operate as an all-volunteer non-profit membership organization dedicated to bringing quality, affordable professional musical entertainment to the communities of the Roaring Fork Valley and beyond.  Membership is open to everyone, and we encourage everyone to join.  We are especially interested in encouraging parents to share our musical experiences with their children.  In 1974, we branched out from classical music to present a folk concert, The New Christy Minstrels.  The concert received enormous community support, and started us in our current direction of selecting a wide variety of different types of performances for each concert season. 

In an effort to ensure full participation from the community, we have kept our membership fees as low as possible.  In order to keep our membership fees affordable, we ask businesses and citizens to contribute at a higher level if they can.  We thank our large list of friends, donors, patrons and sponsors who contribute beyond the cost of a basic membership each year, making it possible for us to continue to present extremely high quality performances.

We reorganized as a registered Colorado non-profit corporation in 2001, and in 2004, we applied and were recognized by the IRS as a 501-(c)(3) charitable organization.  All donations above the cost of a basic membership are thus tax-deductible.

Our membership campaign begins by mail just before our final concert each spring, and continues until June 30.  We encourage our current members to renew early before we reach out to the community-at-large for new members.  Due to the size limits of our auditorium, we do have to limit the number of memberships we can sell in any season.  We encourage members to participate as campaign workers during our membership drive, to help us reach out to more community members and to earn free tickets for themselves at the same time. (one free ticket for every 10 tickets you sell).  We also encourage members to join our Board of Directors.

We thank Edith Diemoz, long-time Community Concert supporter, for her contribution to this history.