Performance Studio sets KUVO apart
It was a big, empty, hollow room but it was a dream come true for Carlos Lando, Program and Music Director of KUVO.
Carlos knew that broadcasting live performances by local musicians was necessary for KUVO to be a true community-based station. In KUVO’s previous two studios, Federal and Morrison Road, Carols had “make do “ by stuffing guest artists into the on-air master control rooms. Sometimes musicians played out among the volunteers that were trying to answer membership pledge phones.
In 1994 when KUVO moved into the Five Points Media Center, a performance studio was all planned out, but there were no funds to soundproof it, equip it, and make it an actual functioning room that could broadcast live performances.
Fundraising for the performance studio became its own capital campaign. We tried everything but a bake sale – although we thought of it – to raise the money for the dream created by Carlos’s vision and the design teams of Russ Berger, Colorado Sound and our in-house engineers led by Mike Pappas. We sold tiles for cash or donated services that named our benefactors, we had on-air fund drives, wrote grants and hoped a lot.
The first performance happened even before the studio was completely built out, courtesy of volunteer DJ Scotty. He was a schoolteacher at nearby Gilpin Elementary. Another volunteer host Jim Robnett (formerly of KADX) gave the anxious schoolchildren a tour, and they were herded into the bare performance space. The songs they sang were not broadcast, but the sounds of hope and possibility emanated from that cavernous space. Fundraising efforts paid off when, in 1996, KUVO’s Performance Studio was inaugurated with a performance by Brazilian pianist Manfredo Fest , Phil Fest (guitar), and Vanderlei Pereira (drums), with special guest Hendrick Muerkins (vibraphone, harmonica) and– of course, in KUVO’s tradition – a big community party.
In 2007, former KUVO Director, volunteer and Morning Beat book reviewer, Dr. Robert Greer, M.D. contributed a generous donation to KUVO to ensure that the performance studio would continue to broadcast the music that enlightened and entertained his beloved, late wife. KUVO dedicated the space The Phyllis A. Greer Performance Studio on April 24, 2008. Station Manager Gene Craven hosted then-Mayor John Hickenlooper for the ceremony.
The COVID-19 pandemic effectively closed the Phyllis A. Greer Performance Studio just months before KUVO was to move to new studios on Arapahoe Street. The last performance in the space was by Miguel Espinosa Flamenco Fusion on February 28, 2020.
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