Wu-Tang Clan, Nathaniel Rateliff will lead Colorado Symphony’s new collaborative series

Colorado Symphony on Monday revealed a new program called the Imagination Artist Series that will feature ground-up collaborations with musical luminaries Wu-Tang Clan, Nathaniel Rateliff and Broadway’s Mary-Mitchell Campbell.

The series, scheduled to take place during the 2022-2023 artistic season, is looking to showcase diverse styles in its trio of performances. The artists will curate orchestral programs for the show and get “unparalleled creative access to the entire orchestra, offering a blank canvas to innovate, imagine and curate orchestral programs” that will have their world premieres in Denver, organizers wrote in a press statement.

“When you get a chance to hear your music translated by an orchestra, it’s so fulfilling,” Wu-Tang icon RZA said in the statement. “The vibration of it, the feel of it. As musicians, we strive to inspire and give inspiration. If you can move somebody and let their imagination explore and explode, I think that’s what we have the chance to do here.”

RZA made his Colorado Symphony debut with Wu-Tang Clan in a pair of sold-out shows at Red Rocks Amphitheatre and Denver’s Mission Ballroom, Aug. 13 and 14, 2021, officials said. He’ll return to Denver on May 21, 2022, performing at the Colorado Symphony’s Imagination Gala — the nonprofit’s biggest fundraiser — at Mission Ballroom.