Sphere Ensemble’s “Forever Young” — 15th Anniversary Season Opener

What do Mozart, Lady Gaga, Josef Suk and Otis Redding have in common? For Denver’s Sphere Ensemble, the answer is youth, experimentation, fearlessness and a willingness to break the rules.
The 14-member professional string ensemble launches its 15th anniversary 2026–2027 season with “Forever Young,” a program that places music written by composers early in their careers alongside Sphere’s rhythmically driven, genre-crossing arrangements of contemporary pop and soul.
The concert will be presented Friday, October 2, at First Universalist Church of Denver and Saturday, October 3, at Stewart Auditorium at the Longmont Museum.
At the center of the program is Czech composer Josef Suk’s lush Serenade for Strings, written when he was just 18 years old. Sphere pairs Suk’s youthful masterpiece with early works by Mozart, Schubert, Mendelssohn and Brahms, as well as music by contemporary composer and child prodigy Alma Deutscher.
The ensemble then turns toward the popular music that has become a hallmark of its programming, performing custom string arrangements of music by Lady Gaga, soul legend Otis Redding, and folk hero Bob Dylan.
For Sphere, the juxtaposition reveals a common thread between seemingly different musical worlds: young artists taking risks, finding their voices and pushing against expectations.
More Information: sphereensemble.org