Tech entrepreneur and investor Dan Caruso was presented the 2026 John Madden Jr. Leadership Award on Tuesday by the Colorado Business Committee for the Arts (CBCA) for his work in establishing meaningful local partnerships with the Roots Music Project and Sundance Film Festival.

“The arts and culture is more important now than perhaps ever,” said Caruso, managing director of Caruso Ventures in Boulder. His business ambition is to make Colorado the No. 1 place for tech and innovation between the West Coast and the Northeast, he said.  

“When I discovered that Sundance was pretty close to picking a new location, I was asked to get involved, and my wife and I did,” he said. His task was to use his tech savvy to help showcase Boulder to Sundance during the final selection round.

“That process gave me a greater appreciation for how we could combine tech innovation with cultural innovation in a creative environment that attracts the best talent and brings the best out of people,” said Caruso, who then applied that same thinking to leveling up the Roots Music Festival.

The CBCA’s annual Business for the Arts Awards honored eight organizations and four individuals in the Seawell Ballroom at the Denver Performing Arts Complex.

Among those honored with an “Arts and Business Partnership Award” was the Fort Greene Bar, a funky little gem at 321 E. 45th Ave. in Denver’s Globeville neighborhood. It’s a bar, but it’s also a meeting space where art and music intersect. The Fort hosts art exhibits, literary readings, film screenings, DJ nights and experimental performances.

“First and foremost, Fort Greene is a community creative driven space that’s rooted in the arts,” said co-owner Eleanor Cheetham. “My purpose with doing events and gatherings is to always pair it with a community or mutual-aid effort. So it might be a dance class up, and in the back there’s a drawing class going on, and part of the bar sales go to an aid organization. I think combining these different energies at once brings different folks together and creates a solidarity through creative expression.”

The event, attended by about 640, was co-emceed for the third time by journalist Michelle Griego of CBS Colorado, and Betty Hart, President of the Colorado Theatre Guild and co-artistic director of Boulder’s Local Theater Company.

“It is inspiring to learn of the many ways that arts and business connect and collaborate throughout Colorado,” said CBCA executive director Christin Crampton Day.

The program included live performances by Colorado Springs singer-songwriter Edie Carey, Denver soul and jazz singer Dzirae Gold, the Kalama Polynesian Dancers, the Rocky Mountain Rhythm tap dancers, and the cast of the touring Broadway Alicia Keys musical “Hell’s Kitchen.”

The other individual honorees, with descriptions provided by the CBCA:

• Next Wave Leadership Award: Lisa Branner led the creation of Silverton’s new state-certified creative district in a high-elevation mountain town of 700 people.

• Cultural Leadership Award (given to an outstanding graduate of the CBCA’s Leadership Arts program): Bala Thiagarajan, who launched the Colorado South Asian Artists Group in 2025.

• Volunteer Attorney Impact Award: Attorney and visual artist Morgan English has an art studio in the RiNo Art District and provides pro-bono legal representation and education to local artists.

Other companies honored

• The Benson Hotel and Faculty Club on the CU Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora features an extensive Colorado-centric art collection, collaborates with local cultural organizations, and embodies a commitment to health and wellness through arts integration.

• DAR Chocolate Art Bars, an artisan chocolate company based in Thornton, showcases visual art on every chocolate bar, selling prints of featured artwork and partners with local nonprofits like Art from Ashes.

• MATTER is a graphic-design consultancy, printing press, manufactory and retail bookstore for

designers and creative thinkers.

• Nocturne is a modern jazz and supper club in Denver’s RiNo Art District that supports Colorado’s live music scene through community engagement, artist development and youth education.

• Our Lady of Perpetual Motion, based in Fruita, is a renovated church turned art hotel, with a permanent art collection, music performances, community events and an annual artist residency program.

• Semple Brown has been the primary architecture and design firm in arts-related construction and renovation in Colorado for more than 40 years, most recently designing a permanent home for the Colorado Photographic Arts Center.

• Vermilion, based in Boulder, has supported arts and culture clients for more than 40 years.

The original hand-crafted awards were commissioned by Denver sculptor Gina Vernon, based on a former Colorado Ballet dancer.

The nonprofit CBCA, founded in 1985, exists to advance Colorado’s creative economy by connecting business and the arts through arts engagement, advocacy, training, research and volunteerism.

John Moore is the Denver Gazette’s Senior Arts Journalist. Email him at [email protected].