ARTSblog

Jeff Hawthorne, director of community affairs for the Regional Arts & Culture Council in Portland, OR, passed along a link to an excellent video featuring Grammy Award-winning jazz artist Esperanza Spalding.

In the video, posted by Portland Center Stage, Spalding stresses the need for all forms of the arts in the lives of children as they help kids become better citizens in their community and in the world at-large.

Esperanza Spalding and CAN from Portland Center Stage on Vimeo.

How have the arts made you a better citizen? Tell us in the comments.

Jamie Foxx here, writing you to share the good news about Thunder Soul – a very special film that is close to my heart. This film is a rare gem – more than just a “must-see” it’s a “must-experience” for all ages.

I am so inspired by this movie – the true story of how one person makes a profound difference in the lives of others – that I am asking for your help to make it as successful as it is special. Most people know me as an actor, singer and comedian, but few know that none of that would’ve been possible had it not been for my Granny, Estelle Talley, who gave me the gift of music at a very young age.

It was important to Granny that I received an excellent education–which thankfully always included music. Studying instrumental music gave me discipline, skill, and creative expression. But far beyond that, having mentors, like Granny and great music teachers, believe in me from a young age laid the foundation for my success as an entertainer and, more importantly, as a person. That is the indomitable spirit at the heart of this powerful movie—and why I know you will love it. Read the rest of this entry »

Christy Farnbauch

The Jazz Arts Group (JAG) in Columbus, OH, along with its national research partners recently completed a two-year study focused on the attitudes of current and potential jazz ticket buyers throughout the U.S. and in Central Ohio.

The research process involved a variety of research methods, including a music listening study, electronic and print surveys, and a literature review. The Jazz Audiences Initiative (JAI), launched in November 2009, was designed to study fundamental questions about how and why people engage with jazz. The main goal was to learn new ways for engaging audiences, and infusing the art form with new energy.

Once all the data was distilled, the following key findings emerged:

1.    Tastes in music are socially transmitted.
2.    Across western-based art forms, jazz still draws a relatively diverse audience.
3.    Consumption of jazz is artist-driven.
4.    Music preferences are shaped by local programming.
5.    Younger buyers have categorically more eclectic tastes in music.
6.    There are many musical pathways into jazz.
7.    Jazz buyers strongly prefer informal settings. Read the rest of this entry »

Sally Gaskill

In his post, Ron Jones takes on the topic of career development for art and design students. I thought I would check in with Angela Myles Beeching, author of Beyond Talent: Creating a Successful Career in Music, for her perspective on the performing arts. As she says, “It takes more than talent to succeed in music.”

Beeching, who has a DMA in cello performance, is the former director of the Career Services Center at New England Conservatory. She currently directs the Center for Music Entrepreneurship at Manhattan School of Music and maintains a thriving private consulting practice.

Q (Sally): I once heard the dean of a prominent school of music say that typical undergraduate music students do not start thinking about what they might do after graduation until the spring semester of their junior year. Then they panic. What’s your response to that scenario?

A (Angela): Part of it is a developmental process: undergrads are so busy fulfilling their degree requirements and figuring out how to become adults, that the reality of graduation does not start to get real until junior year. However, students at every stage have entrepreneurial project ideas. So, the earlier you can engage students in developing leadership and entrepreneurial skills, the easier it is for them to think about longer-term career goals and the action steps needed to fulfill their dreams. Read the rest of this entry »

Brad Hull

I grew up in a small conservative town in Pennsylvania. As a budding piano player, my entire focus was on the great hymns of the faith, playing in church every Sunday.

The first time I had ever memorized a piece of classical music was in preparation for my college entrance auditions.

With this small bit of information about me, you can well imagine the sight of me as a very green, frightened, and shy freshman, entering the halls of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music as a piano major, walking around the three floors of practice rooms hearing incredible music emanating from almost every one. On top of that, due to a lack of attention to technique, I had developed tendonitis the summer before.

My piano teacher was phenomenal and we studied the Chopin Nocturne in D-Flat, op. 27 no. 2 for the entire year. Little did I know that these were lessons not only about Chopin, but also about living and working. Here are a few things that I learned:

1. The best things in life require attention, presence, and care. Don’t take anything for granted. Chopin ended the phrase on the half beat for a reason. Turning this descending melody line upwards creates a very specific effect. Modulating to the subdominant here prepares the listener for the return of the A section. Honor these elements with your attention. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the "100 Faces of War" portraits by Matthew Mitchell

On September 11, 2001, the Animating Democracy team was on a conference call with New York-based colleagues when a faint newscast on one of their TVs emitted something about a plane crashing into the World Trade Center.

What started out as a call to fine tune preparations for a national convening of Animating Democracy grantees slated to be held two days later morphed inevitably into cancellation plans, then into disbelief and mourning with the rest of the country.

Two months later, we reconstituted our plan. More than 100 grantees and guests gathered in Chicago to resume our intended work of exploring the role of the arts in fostering meaningful and productive civic dialogue.

With 9/11’s still raw emotions beating in our hearts, we asked artists Marty Pottenger and Terry Dame to help us make sense of it all, particularly the questions that had begun to infiltrate the American psyche: What does it mean to be an American? What is your relationship to America right now? What course should the U.S. take?

Terry’s slow, distorted, eerie, yet beautiful rendition of “America the Beautiful,” played on a homemade gamelon, created a different kind of space in which we moved ourselves physically, psychologically, and intellectually, guided by Marty’s creative facilitation around these questions.

This arts-based dialogue exemplified the potency of arts and culture to create a space, an invitation, and a spark for meaningful dialogue.

It was just what was needed as this collection of arts practitioners, leaders, and their community partners considered how they too could and would animate and strengthen democracy in their own communities around issues affecting people’s daily lives. Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday, Google UK unveiled a new homepage Doodle that was so great that it was added to our version today.

A little “Yellow Submarine”-esque animation combines with the Google logo to pay tribute to legendary Queen frontman Freddie Mercury, who would be celebrating his 65th birthday.

You can check out the YouTube version below or visit Google.com for the true experience.

Ian David Moss

In the spirit of the recent conversation on ArtsBlog, Emerging Ideas: Seeking and Celebrating the Spark of Innovation, I thought it would be interesting to talk to a curator about how he makes room for the unfamiliar in his work.

Douglas Laustsen is a music educator and trombonist based in New Jersey who runs a radio program called “Endless Possibilities” on WRSU, Rutgers University’s college radio station. We decided to continue a discussion we began on Twitter a few months ago about curatorship and new music.

Our discussion was published in two parts here on ARTSblog:

You mentioned that the recordings people send you tend to be more polished than you expected. On the one hand, that perhaps makes for a better listening experience, but on the other, it perhaps gets away a little bit from the original vision for Explorations. How do you negotiate that tension in your curation process?

It is interesting, to me at least, that I’ve had to be more concerned with creating a ceiling for the segment than a floor. Luckily, I have space during the rest of my show to feature music I don’t find appropriate for Explorations, and I have played submissions outside of Explorations as a way to promote a piece and maintain the spirit of the segment. Clearly there is a lot gray area in making this determination, but over time my familiarity with the new music world has made this judgement a lot easier. Read the rest of this entry »

Ian David Moss

In the spirit of the recent conversation on ArtsBlog, Emerging Ideas: Seeking and Celebrating the Spark of Innovation, I thought it would be interesting to talk to a curator about how he makes room for the unfamiliar in his work.

Douglas Laustsen is a music educator and trombonist based in New Jersey who runs a radio program called “Endless Possibilities” on WRSU, Rutgers University’s college radio station. We decided to continue a discussion we began on Twitter a few months ago about curatorship and new music.

Our discussion will be published in two parts here on ARTSblog:

Tell us a little bit about your radio show – what is it? How did it come to be, and how did you get involved?

“Endless Possibilities” is a weekly radio program I have hosted since 2008 on WRSU, the college radio station of Rutgers University. I began hosting shows on WRSU in 2005 with a wildly free form show called ‘Trivial Pursuits.”

My initial motivation was to interact with music in a very non-academic way because I was beginning to feel some conservatory burn out. As fun as it was to segue Pierrot Lunaire into London Calling into Hauschka, I eventually limited the format of my show and renamed it “Endless Possibilities.” While I don’t restrict myself from playing any specific genres, the core of each show is decidedly contemporary art music. Read the rest of this entry »

Rubble in a Minot neighborhood.

My community, Minot, ND, has been devastated by flood waters.

As I drove home from work last night I observed streets lined with waterlogged piles of rubble.

These sad remnants of people’s lives looked more like a war zone than a residential district. The images combined with the smell were overwhelming. So many have lost so much.

At the Minot Area Council of the Arts, we wondered what we should and could do. We wanted to lift spirits.

Our free summer concert series had been stopped when our park venues were under water. Even indoor venues are unavailable because they are being used as shelters or as space to store belongings. To find an available space we contacted the local Scandinavian Heritage Society that maintains a heritage park unaffected by flood waters and received permission to continue our summer concerts at their location instead.

Local media helped us get the word out. Not knowing if folks would show up, we decided to move ahead with the concerts, trekking sound equipment, popcorn machine, and wagons across town to the new location. Read the rest of this entry »

Christina Wolfgram

A choka is a type of Japanese poem that is cousin to the haiku, using some of the same syllable restrictions.

Because of its short verses, the choka is easy to turn into a group poem. One person writes the first verse (with the syllable count of 5-7-5) and then each person after that writes two lines, the first with seven syllables, the second with five syllables. There is no limit to how long a choka can be – they can go on forever!

This summer, I’ve had an awesome experience interning with Americans for the Arts. At first, I was surprised at how dire the arts’ situation is – I felt ashamed that I had spent so many years in school growing with arts at hand and never taking the time to appreciate it.

I was inspired by the passion and dedication shown by those who spend every day working for arts advocacy.

So, I’ve decided to start a choka about the arts (who doesn’t love art about art, right?), and hope that you will take a minute out of your day to add a verse to it. Read the rest of this entry »

Stage Center in Oklahoma City

I remember as a teenager vowing to never return to this place. Oklahoma City was by no means ‘cool,’ and the record-breaking, triple degree summer heat doesn’t help. But thanks to the Thunder, a recession-resistant economy, low cost of living, and a booming energy industry, Oklahoma City has become a bonafide destination spot. And its arts sector is responding. What’s even more surprising is that I’m starting to think this place isn’t SO bad.

Local art walks have gained a lot of attention as economic activators and community redevelopment tools, see: downtown Los Angeles. In fact, in researching for this blog post, I read that Columbus, OH, is using art walks as public health stimulators! Oklahoma City’s Plaza District employs a similar model.

Though not as large as downtown Los Angeles and without the express interest of improving people’s heart rates, the art galleries and small, independently owned businesses along NW 16th Street have banded together to breathe new life into the once blighted area. Second Fridays are always LIVE on the Plaza, featuring music, rotating exhibitions, special events, and local shopping. Read the rest of this entry »

June Rogers

I was born in Fairbanks, AK, at St. Joseph’s Hospital, now Denali State Bank. Our town has gone through many changes, but we remain the same spirited people that I remember as I was growing up. People from all walks of life choose to live here and there’s a special thread that weaves us all together, creating a rich and wonderful tapestry.

For those of us who make our home in Fairbanks, the arts scene provides challenging and rewarding paths. With nothing more than a desire to participate, I’ve danced and sung in light opera productions, coordinated operations for a professional theatre company, enjoyed a career in singing, and currently direct the operations of Fairbanks Arts Association (FAA).

Living in Alaska requires innovation. My innovative ties go back generations, to my grandparents who made do with whatever was at hand and always managed to make it look and feel or taste quite grand.

Innovating, or making change through new ideas, doesn’t necessarily require a totally new direction, only that the direction be new to the moment. Working with what you have is coming full circle as a concept, now that people are returning to the idea of supporting local farms and industries. Read the rest of this entry »

Robert L. Lynch

On July 19, I attended a productive meeting at the White House Executive Office Building. The event, coordinated by the President’ Committee on the Arts and Humanities and the White House Office of Public Engagement, was called Champions for Change: Winning the Future Across America.

Some dozen Champions were on hand to react and provide good local examples of how arts interventions made positive change and could contribute to making the case for advancing arts education in America.

Amy Rasmussen, executive director of Chicago Arts Partnerships in Education observed that there was a faster rate of acceleration and improvement in all areas for children when they had the arts as a key part of their learning experience.

Ramon Gonzalez, the founding principal of Middle School 223-The Laboratory School of Finance and Technology in the South Bronx, discussed how the arts engaged students in his school.

His school recognizes and engages all the students as artists and makes the arts a core part of their everyday school life even though the focus of the school is on finance and technology. The result was a 93 percent increase in attendance and a greatly improved learning environment. In this school, which was started in one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in New York City when it was created, there has been not even a single fight in the last two years. Read the rest of this entry »

David Seals

In the height of the 2007 football season, shortly after the Audience Experience Initiative project began talking about a new vision for audience engagement, I found myself on my Monday bus commute after a Steelers defeat.

“What if these people felt as opinionated about what happened at the ballet this weekend as they do about the Steelers?”, I thought. Be careful what you wish for.

Last week, Squonk Opera had the moxie to place their critically-acclaimed work in front of an incredibly unforgiving audience: three judges and millions of viewers on NBC’s America’s Got Talent.

The initial responses (which, in the long run may be the least important result of this experience for Squonk) seemed to be abject confusion—both from the judges and the Twitterati. The comments were not exactly the sort you’d find in a theatre review, but the gist was a lot of strong opinions ranging from visceral reaction to technical critique. Read the rest of this entry »