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News
January 31, 2012
Austin Lyric Opera, music school formally split
The previously announced split between Austin Lyric Opera and its Armstrong Community Music School will be official Feb. 1, opera officials announced today.
In June, ALO announced that it would jettison its music school as a cost-saving measure amid news that the opera was nearly $2 million in debt. At the same time, the opera announced that it would selling its purpose-built facility on Barton Springs Road. ALO sold its building in December for $5.45 million.
“This change allows the Austin Lyric Opera and the Armstrong Community School of Music to focus on their core missions and to expand their services to the community,” said Ernest Auerbach, ALO board president, in an official statement.
Founding school director Margaret Perry will remain as the school’s leader.
Martha Rochelle, who chaired ALO’s task force that worked on a strategic plan for the future of the school, will serve as Armstrong Community Music School’s chair.
The Armstrong chool opened to much celebration in 2000 along with the new building, much of which was devoted to school activities.
Both the opera and the school will maintain their programs and operations at the Barton Springs Road facility through April after which each will establish separate facilities.
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January 25, 2011
AICA-USA awards announced: International art critics association honors U.S. exhibits
The United States section of the International Association of Art Critics/AICA-USA has announced its annual awards to artists, curators, museums, galleries and other cultural institutions in recognition of excellence in the conception and realization of exhibitions.
The winning projects were nominated and voted on by AICA-USA’s 400 active members (which include this reporter). Exhibits were June 2009 to June 2010 were considered.
The 26 winners of first and second places in 12 categories, selected from more than 100 finalists, include exhibitions focusing on contemporary artists such as Marina Abramovic, Tino Seghal and Cai Guo-Qiang, the mid 20th-century artists Arshile Gorky and Yves Klein and the 19th-century and early 20th-century masters Henri Matisse, Otto Dix and Claude Monet, as well as thematic exhibitions dealing with the presence of women artists in pop art, history of performance art, and the Bauhaus.
The AICA Awards will be presented March 14 in New York by a group of distinguished curators, artists and former winners of AICA Awards, among them Chuck Close, Christo and Martin Puryear.
Elizabeth C. Baker, longtime editor of Art in America magazine, will be honored with a special Award for Distinguished Contribution to the Field of Criticism.
To see the full list of AICA-USA awards, follow the jump.
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January 12, 2011
State Theatre to re-open -- sort of
Four years after the State Theatre suffered major damage when a downtown a city water main broke, the historic venue is set to host a show.
Ken Stein, executive director of the Paramount and State theaters, said that all the safety issues with the building had been addressed but that the 300-seat venue is “still just slightly better than a basic auditorium.”
Stein said that after comedian Christopher Titus performs Feb. 1-5, the non-profit organization will assess further improvements needed to restore the State. Stein added that State will likely be used by South By Southwest Film Festival for screenings.
The stage has been rebuilt and a new sprinkler system installed, but acoustical and other technical features have not been brought up-to-date. “The State still really needs a complete re-do in order for it to hold full theatrical productions,” said Stein. He estimated that it would take about $2 million to bring the venue up to current acoustical and technical standards.
Stein said that the several hundred thousands dollars had gone into fixing the basic safety violations damaged by the 2006 flooding.
Portions of the 1930s art deco venue at 719 Congress Ave. were submerged in 2006 when a city water main underneath the alley behind the Congress Avenue theater burst. The State’s stage suffered major damage, a lighting grid was destroyed, and about 25 percent of the seats were damaged along with backstage production areas and dressing rooms.
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December 6, 2010
Liza Minnelli re-schedules Long Center show
Legendary chanteuse Liza Minnelli has re-scheduled her Austin performance at the Long Center for March 3, 2011. Minnelli was originally scheduled to perform Oct. 10, one of several performances the 64-year-old singer canceled last fall.
Tickets for Minnelli’s Long Center performance will go sale Dec. 13 at 10 a.m. Tickets start at $39. See www.thelongcenter.org for updates.
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November 19, 2010
Texas Prize finalists announced
Houston artists Jamal Cyrus and Will Henry along with Jeff Williams of Austin are the three finalists for the $30,000 2011 Arthouse, the Austin contemporary arts center announced today.
The prize celebrates a promising Texas-based artist who has produced a significant body of work in the past two years but has not had a solo show at a major museum in the past three years.
The trio were chosen from 146 nominations made by a group of 64 art world
professionals.
Each finalist receives a stipend to create major new work which will then be included in an exhibit at Arthouse Aug. 25 - Oct. 30, 2011.
Chaired by Arthouse executive director Sue Graze, the prize jury is: Bill Arning, director, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston; Gary Carrion-Murayari, senior curatorial assistant, Whitney Museum of American Art; Philipp Kaiser, senior curator, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; and Katrina Moorhead, 2007 Arthouse Texas Prize recipient.
Arthouse recently re-opened after a major $6.6 million renovation.
Image: “Dust Storm,” 2010 temporary installation at 400 W. Cesar Chavez St., by Jeff Williams.
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Austin Playhouse announces move to Mueller
After nearly ten years at its South Congress Avenue location, Austin Playhouse plans to build a $4 million new theater in the Mueller redevelopment in East Austin, theater officials announced Friday.
Catellus Development Group, the master developer of Mueller, confirmed that it had signed a letter of intent with Austin Playhouse.
The theater would be located in the Mueller town center, roughly north of Mueller’s Lake Park. The town center is planned to be a mix of retail, restaurant and entertainment venues. However, no date has been set to start that phase of the Mueller project.
“We’re excited about the opportunities the Austin Playhouse would bring to Mueller,” said Greg Weaver, managing director for Catellus Development Group, the master developer of Mueller. “The Austin Playhouse will help activate a new area of the Mueller community, draw new visitors to experience other elements of the development and provide another primarily nighttime venue to move Mueller toward a 24/7 community.”
The community theater group plans to build a 17,000-square-foot two-theater complex with classrooms, a gallery, offices and ground-floor space to sublet to a bar or restaurant.
Don Toner, executive director of Austin Playhouse, said he expects construction to begin in 2011. He said the $4 million price tag includes about $2 million for the property and 100 parking spaces and $2 million for construction, fundraising and other project costs.
Toner said that $265,000 in pledges and cash has been raised so far.
Image: Rendering by Scott Ginder of Dick Clark Architecture.
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November 8, 2010
UT's Ransom Center acquires Spalding Gray archive
The University of Texas’ Ransom Center has acquired the archive of writer, monologuist and actor Spalding Gray, the center announced Monday.
Gray is perhaps best known for his monologue “Swimming to Cambodia,” based on his experiences in Southeast Asia while acting in a small part in the 1984 movie “The Killing Fields.” Gray’s quirky story, which he read from a spiral notebook while seated at a simple table on stage, became a critically-acclaimed movie in 1987 and ushered in the popularity of a style of autobiographical storytelling where the line between private life and public performance display is not just erased, but celebrated.
The archive, valued at $595,000, is partially a donation by Gray’s widow, Kathleen Russo, and partially a purchase by the Ransom Center, which paid $250,000. The gift portion of the collection is valued at $345,000.
Included in the material now at the Ransom Center are more than 100 of Gray’s private journals as well as more 90 performance notebooks Gray used as road maps for his live performances.
Like his monologues, which always skidded between philosophical musings and entertaining absurdities, his notebook writings seem to have no apparent self-censorship. “Get it together Spalding,” Gray writes in red capital letters in one performance notebook for “Swimming to Cambodia.” “I cannot get in an honest place unless I am alone” he writes in 1990 notebook.
“He writes about sex, death, drugs and love with honesty and humor,” said Helen Adair, associate curator of performing arts at the Ransom Center. “His voice is clear, and he appears to have no filter. Everything is written down without shame. Like his performances, it is powerful because it is so personal.”
Gray, who had suffered from depression throughout his life, died in 2004 at age 62 of an apparent suicide after his body was discovered in New York’s East River nearly two months after he disappeared. A car crash in 2001 in Ireland left him with a brain injury that exacerbated Gray’s depression — circumstances that he inevitably dealt with publicly.
Also include in the archive are more than 150 audio cassette tapes and 120 VHS tapes of Gray’s performances, interviews and appearances. In one audio tape from a 2001 performance of “Swimming to Cambodia,” Gray opens his performance with a recount of his car accident in his quirky, free-associative style: “And I woke up in the middle of the night and thought I had died in the Civil War. I was on the battlefield, wounded actually, at Antietam, and all these other people around me groaning were corpses. You could hear the magpies outside, squawking, and oh my God, in the morning, in came people with toast and tea.”
Born in Rhode Island to what he always characterized as staunch Christian Science family, Gray settled in New York in the 1960s where he became a co-founder the noted avant-garde theater troupe, the Wooster Group and where he first began to perform his monologues. Although his work garnered attention within the theater community, it was the Jonathan Demme-directed film of “Swimming to Cambodia” that brought Gray — and his more widespread recognition.
Steven Soderbergh’s biopic about Gray “And Everything Is Going Fine” screened at the 2010 SXSW Film Festival.
Image: Cover of Spalding Gray’s performance notebook for “Swimming to Cambodia”. Gray is seen using this notebook in the 1987 film by Jonathan Demme. Courtesy of the Harry Ransom Center.
October 4, 2010
Conspirare plans New York City gigs
Five-time Grammy-nominated Austin professional choir Conspirare is heading to the Big Apple.
In February, an ensemble of 32 Conspirare singers, conducted by artistic director Craig Hella Johnson, will be presented by the Weill Music Institute of Carnegie Hall to perform three concerts as part of the Carnegie Hall Neighborhood Concert series.
Conspirare will headline two “Community Sings” — during which the audience is invited to sing along with the choir — on February 22 and 23 in Queens at the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts and in Harlem at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.
The choir will give a formal concert in the Bronx Jacobi Medical Center on February 24. The program will include a selection of African American spirituals featured on Conspirare’s forthcoming new CD on the Harmonia Mundi label.
It’s the second time Conspirare has sung in New York. In 2003, under the auspices of the American Choral Directors Association, the choir performed at Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage.
The trip to New York augers more travel for the celebrated choir. “National touring is a strategic goal for us,” said Ann Wilson, Conspirare executive directo. “Our CDs, Grammy noms and the PBS telecast last year have put us on a new trajectory and we are beginning to receive more invitations to perform around the country. We are also working on a possible swing through the Midwest in 2012 and I’ve been really pleased at the number of concert series that are interested in hosting us.”
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UT commissions new opera in honor of Sarah and Ernest Butler
University of Texas’ Butler School of Music will announce on Wednesday that has commissioned a new opera by acclaimed Mexican composer Daniel Catan in honor of Austin philanthropists Sarah and Ernest Butler, whose $55 million contribution in 2008 constituted the single largest gift ever made to a public school of music.
The new opera, “Meet John Doe,” will be based on the classic 1941 Frank Capra comic drama and will premiere at UT in the 2012-13 season. Catan’s commission is $300,000.
“I can think of no better way to honor the Butlers for their magnanimous support of this school than to commission a major opera,” said B. Glenn Chandler, director of the Butler School of Music.
A departure from the Latin themes of Catan’s previous operas, “Meet John Doe” is focuses on American musical and theatrical ideas of the early 1940s. The libretto, based on the original screenplay by Richard Connell, Robert Presnell and Robert Riskin tells the story of a grassroots political campaign that is unwittingly started by a newspaper columnist that gains national recognition when a wealthy businessman gets behind it. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Story in 1942.
Catan’s opera “Rappaccini’s Daughter” will be performed at the Butler School Feb. 25 - March 6. The production will be the premier of Catsn’s new orchestration of the work. Previously scored for a large orchestra, the composer has reworked the score for two pianos, harp and percussion.
Catan will be in residence at the Butler School in spring 2011 to complete “Meet John Doe” and workshop select scenes.
Catan’s latest opera “Il Postino,” is based on the much-loved 1994 film by director Michael Radford opened last month at the Los Angeles Opera and starred Placido Domingo.
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September 21, 2010
Paramount Theatre nets grant from National Trust for Historic Preservation
Austin’s Paramount Theatre has won a $25,000 grant from the National Trust for Historic Preservation announced, Paramount officials announced yesterday.
The Paramount came in first the “This Place Matters Community Challenge” grant competition, garnering 14 percent of the 55,000 votes collected nationwide.
The grant from the Trust will go towards helping preserve the Congress Avenue performance venue, built in 1915. The building holds city and state historic landmark designation and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation is, by the way, holding its annual preservation conference in Austin on Oct. 27-30 and will be hosting an event at the Paramount.
The Paramount’s executive director, Ken Stein said in a statement: “It just goes to show once again that with all the new buildings going up around us each year, our community wants to make sure we retain this small and beautiful slice of history that many consider the crown jewel of Congress Avenue.”
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August 26, 2010
Five Austin museums declared a "cultural campus"
Five Austin museums located at or near the University of Texas have joined forces to create single joint profile for marketing purposes.
Dubbing themselves “Austin’s Cultural Campus,” the Blanton Museum of Art, the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum, the Harry Ransom Center, the LBJ Library and Museum, and the Texas Memorial Museum plan to dovetail some promotional efforts such as creating a descriptive brochure and map. Additional plans call for some collaborative programming.
To recognize the group effort, Mayor Lee Leffingwell will proclaim September 2010 as “Austin Cultural Campus Month” at today’s City Council meeting
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August 17, 2010
Chinati Foundation names new director
The Chinati Foundation just announced that it has hired Thomas Kellein as its next director.
Founded by artist Donald Judd in 1986, the Chinati Foundation is located in West Texas desert town of Marfa on the site of the former U. S. Army Fort D. A. Russell. The Chinati features permanent installations of Judd’s work and installations by John Chamberlain, Carl Andre, Dan Flavin, Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, Ilya Kabakov, John Wesley, David Rabinowitch and Roni Horn.
Kellein, an authority on Judd’s work, worked with the artist on a proposed architectural project in Switzerland in 1990. For the past 14 years Kellein has served as director of the Kunsthalle Bielefeld in Bielefeld, Germany.
Kellein takes the job in January 2011 and succeeds Marianne Stockebrand, Judd’s longtime companion, who earlier this year announced her retirement after serving as the museum’s director since 1994. Stockebrand becomes Director Emeritus.
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July 20, 2010
Long Center director Cliff Redd to retire
Cliff Redd, executive director of the Long Center for the Performing Arts since 2004, announced Tuesday that he will retire.
Redd said his decision was mostly related to personal reasons.
“My intention was to get the center well-launched and keep all the promises that we made when we raised the money (to build the Long Center),” Redd said. “And I couldn’t be more pleased that we did that. Now is a good time for me retire.”
Redd added that his partner, Rick Johnson, was seriously ill. “My family requires a great deal of attention right now,” Redd said.
Redd, 59, suffered a mild heart attack in 2008 but said his health is fine and was not an issue in his decision.
Craig Hester, chair of the Long Center board, said that managing director Paul Beutel has been appointed interim executive director effectively immediately. The board will undergo a national search to fill Redd’s position, Hester said.
“It’s been an honor and privilege to work with Cliff,” Hester said. “Cliff’s energy and enthusiasm knows no bounds. There’s no doubt in my mind that the Long Center wouldn’t have been completed without him. The board owes him a great deal of thanks.”
Hester said that in recognition of Redd’s years of service, the board has named him executive director emeritus, a title he will hold in perpetuity.
Redd took the helm in July 2004 — a low point during a campaign to build a civic performing arts center that started in the early 1990s. In January 2004, Long Center officials announced that they planned to downsize the project from the original $125 million four-venue complex and instead build a $77 million two-theater space. At the time only $59.6 million was in place.
Bringing more than 30 years of experience as an arts leader in Dallas, Redd amped up the Long Center’s fundraising record, surpassing the $77 million goal. When the center opened in March 2008, about $82.5 million had been raised.
The primary performance venue for the Austin Lyric Opera, Austin Symphony Orchestra and Ballet Austin and host to other local and traveling shows, the Long Center
June 30, 2010
Austin Lyric Opera reports lay-offs
Citing a continuing downturn in individual and corporate donations, the Austin Lyric Opera has announced that it has laid off three staff positions.
Kevin Patterson, general director of the opera, said that two full-time and one-half time positions were cut in effort to bring the organization’s budget to $4.3 million as it heads into its new fiscal year, down from $4.5 million this year, a four percent decrease. After the layoffs, the opera will have 22 staff members.
The positions are in development, marketing and in the box office.
“This was an extremely difficult decision to make and we examined every angle to see if there was any way around making any of these cuts, but unfortunately there was not,” Patterson said.
Patterson said the opera board voted to adopt the new $4.3 million budget in May.
“We’ve seen some improvement in contributions from individuals and corporations since (the downturn in 2008), but we haven’t seen a full recovery,” Patterson.
Charitable donations to the arts are down around the nation, a June report by the Giving USA Foundation shows. Philanthropic contributions fell 2.4 percent in 2009. In 2008 giving to the arts dropped 6.4 percent, the report shows.
In Austin, the opera isn’t the only arts institutions that has had to make cuts since the economic tumble of 2008. Last year, the Austin Museum of Art made a ten percent budget cut, eliminating five full-time positions and mandating all staff members to take one-week unpaid furloughs.
Patterson said the eliminated positions will not effect the opera’s artistic or educational programs. “We’re still in a process of tightening the budget, but we don’t want to sacrifice our artistic offerings.”
The opera will continue with its 2010-2011 season as planned, presenting four operas.
Last year, the opera cuts its budget to $4.5 million from $5 million in response to declining donations and ticket sales brought on by the recession. The organization currently carries a $600,000 deficit, Patterson said.
Patterson also noted that tickets sales have not returned to pre-2008 levels.
“It’s very much a buyer’s market right now in Austin in terms of entertainment and there’s just less disposable income in people’s pockets,” he said.
But ticket buyers have responded to the opera’s next production, Michael Nyman’s one-act chamber opera “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for A Hat.” Presented in a small-scale production at St. Martin’s Lutheran Church July 9-11, the three-performance run has already sold out.
Tickets, however, were just $25.
June 28, 2010
GFA announces winners to 2010 competition
The Guitar Foundation of America wrapped up its annual convention Sunday night at the Long Center for the Performing Arts with its International Concert Artist Competition concert.
The winner was Johannes Moller of Sweden. Second place was Artyom Dervoed, with Eduardo Costa netting third place and Alexander Milovanov, fourth.
Among the other prizes Moller wins is a 50-concert international tour. Austin audiences take note — that tour will include Austin at some point.
GFA Hall of Fame awards were given to Pepe Romero, Richard Long, Bernard Maillot and John Gilbert.
This year’s convention and competition was hosted by Austin Classical Guitar Society and featured some 60 concerts and events presented in cooperation with several other Austin arts groups including Austin Symphony Orchestra, Austin Lyric Opera and Austin Chamber Music Center.
June 23, 2010
Galen Wixson, former symphony ED, now leading Guitar Foundation of America
Last night at the Long Center, the Guitar Foundation of America’s annual convention and competition kicked off with stunning concert by guitar great, Pepe Romero.
That nearly 1,000 guitarists from around the world have descended on Austin for six days of concerts and competitions is impressive. In bringing the event to town for the first time, Matthew Hinsley, who heads Austin Classical Guitar Society, has crafted a community friendly event, a model of collaboration.
Check out all that’s happening at www.austingoesclassical.org
But perhaps the biggest news last night — for Austin arts audiences, that is — was the introduction of Galen Wixson as the new executive director of the Guitar Foundation of America.
Wixson previously held the post of executive director of the Austin Symphony Orchestra. But in Sept. 2009 — after only a few months on the job — he was suddenly disappeared from the job with no explanation from the orchestra’s board. Symphony musicians protested. The orchestra’s letter to the board of trustees said the musicians found it “hard to imagine” any justification “to force him to leave.”
Read the story here.
Wixson joins GFA as that organization’s first full-time executive director and will stay in Austin with the new job. The GFA’s annual convention and competition is the largest gathering of the classical guitar community in the world.
Last night, Wixson was greeted warmly by the GFA crowd at Long Center.
Previously, Wixson has served as executive director for the Arkansas Symphony, the Symphony of Southeast Texas, the Manhattan Center for the Arts and the American String Teachers Association.
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June 18, 2010
Magnum photos now open to researchers
The $100 million Magnum Photos archive originaly purchased by MSD Capital, the $10 billion private investment firm for the family of computer tycoon Michael Dell, is now open to researchers.
Dell and MSD Capital earlier this year loaned the early 200,000 original press photographs of the famed international agency to University of Texas’ Ransom Center. The Center will house the Magnum archive for five years and will pay for the cataloging, preserving the entire photo archive as well make digital scans of every image.
Magnum and its photographers retain the copyright and licensing rights to the images. Dell’s MSD Capital will retain ownership of the photographs.
Read the full story of the agreement.
While they Ransom Center has yet announce plans for an exhibit of the Magnum photos, an inventory is now available online for researchers.
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May 18, 2010
Austin Symphony announces first student composition contest
The Austin Symphony Orchestra has just announced its first Young Composers Competition for Texas students. The purpose is to encourage young composers — and at 18 and younger, ASO mean young — to try their hand at writing symphonic music. The winning piece will be played next season during the orchestra’s high school concerts in Austin.
Here’s the requirements of the contest:
- ASO invites young composers 18 years and younger to submit full, original (not arrangements) orchestral compositions between five to seven minutes in length. Works should use standard orchestral instrumentation and doublings. Works requiring electronics or special effects are not eligible. Works must not have been previously performed, recorded or published professionally.
- The winning composition will be performed during the Austin Symphony’s High School Concerts Tour, January 18 - 21, 2011. The winning composer and their parents will be offered transportation and hotel accommodations to Austin to attend rehearsals and performances of the work. In addition, an archival recording will be made for the winning composer’s personal use.
See www.austinsymphony.org for more information.
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Conspirare nets Chorus America commissioning award
Five time Frammy-nominated Austin choir Conspirare has received a $5,000 award from Chorus American to support the commission of a new choral work by Seattle composer Eric Banks.
The Dale Warland Singers Commission Award will be presented June 18 at the Chorus America’s annual conference.
Banks will compose a work to be entitled “This delicate universe,” in the form of an a cappella cycle for 16-part chamber chorus, based on five poems by the Greek-Egyptian poet Constantine Cavafy (1863-1933). The piece will be performed in both Greek and English. Many of Banks’s choral compositions are macaronic, i.e., composed in multiple languages.
Banks said: “My plan for This delicate universe is to set Cavafy’s strophes of Greek text in the background of the choral texture, and to declaim the English translations in the foreground, by a combination of soloists and small ensembles. I will utilize the full potential of Conspirare’s forces to create a choral soundscape that employs both the linguistic variety of modern Greek and the musical vocabulary of maqqam - the scalar system known throughout the Arab world for its ornaments and microtonal variation. I hope that by coupling such diverse sounds - Greek syllables and Arabic melodies - with my English translations, that Cavafy’s work will reach a wider appreciation with American audiences.”
Conspirare expects to premiere the new work within two years.
Up next for the choir are performances of Durufle’s Requiem on June 5 and the Bach Mass in B Minor of June 13.
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May 17, 2010
UT appoints new chair for Dept. of Theatre and Dance
The University of Texas has appointed Brant Pope, currently head of the Department of Theatre at The University of Illinois, has been appointed chair of the Department of Theatre and Dance, the College of Fine Arts announced today. Pope has also been appointed as holder of the Z .T. Scott Family Chair in Drama. Pope’s appointment is effective June 1.
Pope succeeds Holly Williams, interim chair of the Department of Theatre and Dance, who will continue in her position as professor and head of the master of fine arts in dance program.
Pope has held academic positions at Pennsylvania State University, Florida State University and Virginia Commonwealth University. He served as director of the Florida State University/Asolo Conservatory for Actor Training and associate artistic director of the Asolo State Theatre, in Sarasota, Florida from 1991-2001.
Pope has been seen Off-Broadway and in regional theater with The Hartford Stage Company, Asolo Theatre Company and Park Square Theatre. He is the author of the play, “Sins of Omission.”
Pope earned a bachelor of arts degree from The University of Minnesota, master of fine arts degrees from The University of Connecticut and Florida State University and a doctorate in American Studies from Michigan State University.
Pope is an active member of The Theatre Communication Group, and serves as
a program accreditation reviewer for the National Association of Schools of
Theatre.
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April 1, 2010
San Antonio's Museo Alameda gets a bailout
Looks like San Antonio’s Museo Alameda — the nation’s largest Latino museum — is getting a bailout.
An affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution, the museum has been open for only three years but has suffered from poor attendance and revenue gathering.
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March 30, 2010
Austin's arts funding changes on hold -- for now
The City of Austin has retracted recently added language from its arts funding guidelines that left many groups wondering whether they were still eligible for city money as the application deadline approaches.
But the issue is far from being permanently resolved.
The language, which stated that arts groups would now have to prove how their programs promote tourism, had been added to the guidelines by city staff members who said they had done so to comply with state law governing the use of hotel occupancy tax dollars.
City officials say they will create a task force to resolve tourism tax issue.
Click here for the entire story.
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March 26, 2010
Beloved folk art Cathedral of Junk threatened with closure
A destination for folk art fans, Vince Hannemann’s Cathedral of Junk in South Austin has been cited by the city as a dangerous structure.
The 33-foot assemblage of mostly metal found objects, which Hanneman has been constructing since 1988, is a structure by code standards, the city says. And as a structure, it needs to meet certain safety requirements. Hanneman has until March 31 to submit plans to bring the assemblage up to code or to get a permit to demolish it.
Read the complete story.
Cathedral of Junk owner Vince Hannemann, left, started creating the attraction behind his South Austin house in 1988. Some of the junk is being moved to solve an easement problem. Photo by Alberto Martinez/Austin American-Statesman.
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UT's Texas Performing Arts co-commissions a new musical
‘Rappahannock County,’ a new musical based on historical documents from the Civil War is headed to Austin thanks to co-commission from the University of Texas’ Texas Performing Arts.
UT partnered with the Modlin Center for the Arts at the University of Richmond, the, Virginia Arts Festival and the Virginia Opera to commission the new musical by composer Ricky Ian Gordon and librettist Mark Campbell
‘Rappahannock County’ will play in Austin Sept. 18-25, 2011. The show premieres at the Virginia Arts Festival, opening April 12, 2011, the same day that Confederate forces attacked Fort Sumter in 1861 signaling the start of the Civil Wars.
From the UT release:
‘Rappahannock County’ is a fictional song cycle inspired by diaries, letters, and personal accounts during the period of the Civil War, and explores the war’s impact, from secession to defeat, on a community of Virginians—black and white, rich and poor, soldiers, nurses, widows and survivors. The production is a multi-media event, enhanced by projections of Civil War photography, illustrations, documents, and other moving visuals and features five principal singers performing more than 30 roles, backed by an ensemble of 15 musicians.
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March 23, 2010
Arts groups rally to oppose changes in city arts funding guideliness
Representatives from several dozen arts groups gathered Tuesday to strategize how to challenge changes in the city’s arts funding guidelines that could leave many cultural organizations ineligible for municipal monies.
At issue is new language that requires groups applying for city arts funding to offer “public activities that directly support tourism,” according to a document produced by the city’s cultural arts funding program. The guidelines also require organizations to keep track of and report on how many out-of-town tourists attend arts events and programs.
The city funds its cultural contracts program principally through monies collected from the nine percent tax on hotel-motel occupancy. Cultural funding receives the smallest share — 12 percent — of the occupancy tax fund. For the current fiscal year, the cultural contracts program distributed $5.2 million to more than 200 arts groups and projects.
Arts groups were notified of the new guideline changes by the city’s cultural funding program office on March 12. The deadline to apply for city funding is May 1.
The Austin Convention Center is allocated 50 percent of the hotel-motel occupancy tax revenue while 16 percent is allocated to the Austin Convention and Visitors Bureau. About 22 percent funds a bond redemption fund used to pay for the Convention Center expansion. And the remaining 12 percent goes to the local arts groups.
According to cultural arts program office, the current cultural contractors have combined cash budgets of nearly $65 million and reached 4.3 million individuals, including more than 1 million tourists in 2009.
At its Monday night meeting the Austin arts commission, which does not have the authority to change funding guidelines, voted unanimously to ask the City Council not to accept the changes.
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March 9, 2010
Arthouse scores the love with micro-giving campaign
Combining recession-era austerity and social media cleverness, Arthouse launched a micro-giving fundraising campaign that was promoted solely through social media such as Facebook and Twitter.
Throughout February, Arthouse used Twiiterverse and Facebookverse — and yes, conventional old email — to seek $5 donations from 2,000 people, or a total of $10,000 . Dubbed ‘I Heart Arthouse’ — ‘I <3 Arthouse’ in Twitter-ese — didn’t quite make its goal, but it did garner the downtown Austin visual arts center a lot of attention for its clever low-overhead approach to fundraising.
Arthouse director of development Jennifer Wijangco reports that the campaign netted a total of $3,560 from 279 donors representing 19 states. Gifts ranged from $5 to $100.
“We’re looking at conferences to present at about our ‘I <3 Arthouse ‘experience, since there seems to be a lot of demand for this idea,” says Wijangco.
See the campaign’s virtual donor wall at www.arthousetexas.org/valentine/donors.html.
Arthouse is currently in the midst of a major $6.6 million renovation to its downtown Austin home. More than $5 million has already been raised. Arthouse is set to re-open in late October.
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February 15, 2010
UT and Long Center to share Broadway shows
Touring Broadway shows will be spread between Austin’s two major venues next season as the University of Texas’ Texas Performing Arts and the Long Center announced Monday that the two organizations have formed a new alliance with Broadway Across America, the national tour promoter and producer.
Though the 2010-2011 Broadway Across America season has not been announced, the Long Center will host one of the five touring productions next season. The other four will play at UT’s Bass Concert, the long-time home for touring Broadway shows in Austin. In the last 25 years, Bass has presented over 100 Broadway productions including blockbusters like ‘Wicked,’ the three-week run of which last summer landed the venue on the number even spot of Pollstar’s list top 100 Worldwide Theatre Venues for the first three quarters of 2009.
Kathy Panoff, executive director of Texas Performing Arts said that the cooperative agreement also comes as a result of “my more strategic goals for Texas Performing Arts.”
“If I’m going to provide programming that’s in better alignment with the academic and research mission of the university, it will result in us making more choices in about the Broadway shows we present,” she said. “We’ll choose Broadway title that are a better fit with the academic mission (of the university).”
With an annual budget of $10 million, TPA stands to lose maybe $100,000 to $150,000 in income by foresaking one Broadway show per season. But Panoff said that the difference would be made up as the TPA moves to being “more of a donor-focused organization.”
(With this arrangement) we can take a leadership role as a community partner and fulfill our role as an academic partner within the university,” she said.
The Long Center opened in 2008 and is the permanent home to Austin Lyric Opera, Austin Symphony Orchestra and Ballet Austin. It also presents touring shows.
“Co-operating with other Austin performing arts organizations is central to the mission of the Long Center,” said Cliff Redd, executive director, “The partnership with Texas Performing Arts and Broadway Across America makes total sense both organizationally and from a customer service point of view.”
February 2, 2010
Magnum photos to reside at UT
The University of Texas’s Ransom Center will be home for five years to some 200,000 original press photographs taken by the legendary photographers of Magnum Photos, the long-standing international photo agency.
The Magnum archive — which was purchased last year by MSD Capital, the private investment firm for the family of Michael S. Dell — will be housed at the Ransom Center for five years for exhibition and study. It is the first time the Magnum archive will be available to the public.
The collection contains photographs dating from the 1930s and include images of major world events, celebrities and starling candid images by photographers such as Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, Elliott Erwitt, Leonard Freed and Bruce Davidson among many others.
Magnum, founded in 1947, is owned and managed cooperatively by its member photographers. Magnum continues to provide photographs to the media, publishers and advertising agencies.
The New York Times reported that the Ransom Center had insured the collection for more than $100 million.
As part of its agreement with Magnum and MSD Capital, the Ransom Center has agreed to catalog and preserve the entire photo archive. The Ransom Center will also make digital scans of every image.
The Magnum archive joins other important photography collections at UT including the Gernsheim Collection which includes the world first photograph made by Joseph Nicephore Niepce in 1826.
Photo: Bob Adelman. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. during his “I Have A Dream” speech, 1963. Copyright: Bob Adelman/Magnum Photos
January 31, 2010
No Grammy for Conspirare, but cheers at the ceremony
No Grammy this year for five-time nominated choir Austin Conspirare.
But we did hear audible cheers and hollers in the audience when Conspirare and artistic director Craig Hella Johnson were named. Johnson is at the awards with a contingent of family, friends and Conspirare supporters.
The Grammy’s pre-telecast show is being Web-cast live at www.grammys.com/live with Aretha Franklin hosting the classical awards.
Conspirare was nominated in the Best Classical Crossover Album for ‘A Company Of Voices: Conspirare In Concert,’ recorded live at the Long Center for the Performing Arts and released on the Harmonia Mundi label. It’s the fifth nomination for the non-profit organization.
The winner of the Best Classical Crossover Album was ‘Yo-Yo Ma & Friends: Songs Of Joy And Peace’ (Sony).
January 22, 2010
UT commissions David Ellis video for new Visual Arts Center
The University of Texas has commissioned New York artist David Ellis — known for his stunning motion paintings — to create an original video for the university’s new Visual Arts Center, slated to open in September 2010.
The VAC, which will be run by the Department of Art & Art History, will be in the existing Art Building in the former space once occupied by the Blanton Museum. Designed by Lake Flato Architect, the VAC is slated to offer greatly expanded exhibition space, student studio space and a new home for the Mesoamerican Center.
The Brooklyn-based Ellis merges an almost street art/graffiti sensibility to his sprawling paintings, installations and videos. Terrifically influenced by music, his multi-media work has a vibrancy to it, both literal and figurative. Artifice doesn’t try to hide in Ellis’s work either; He embraces the ersatz.
Daily from David Ellis on Vimeo.
The commission is being administered by UT’s Landmarks public art program officials form which wouldn’t report the exact amount of the commission. But according to the 2005 policy statement for UT’s Art in Public Spaces program, one to two percent of the capital cost of new construction and major renovations of UT building is to go to public art. The new VAC facility has an estimated construction cost of $7 million. We suppose that would make Ellis’s commission $70,000 to $140,000.
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January 21, 2010
Texas Cultural Trust seeks nominations, names chairs
The Texas Cultural Trust is seeking nomination for the sixth biennial Texas Medal of Arts Awards to be awarded in 2011.
Nomination forms and criteria can be found at www.txculturaltrust.org/tmaa and must be postmarked no later than March 1. The Trust is accepting nominations in the following categories:
- Lifetime Achievement
- Music
- Literary Arts
- Visual Arts
- Theatre
- Media/Multi-Media
- Film
- Arts Education
- Dance
- Craft
- Architecture
- Foundation Arts Patron
- Individual Arts Patron
- Corporate Arts Patron
The Trust also named El Paso gallery owner Adair Margo and Alice Carrington Foultz, president of the art consulting firm Carrington Gallery, Ltd, as chairs of the 2011 Texas Medal of Arts Awards scheduled for Feb. 28-March 1, 2011, in Austin.
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January 20, 2010
Americans for the Arts report: Arts industry faces big slump after much growth
A new report compiled by national advocacy group Americans for the Arts finds that the number of U.S. arts organizations grew by thousands over the last decade, but those groups now face greater competition for audiences and charity dollars, according to a national study of the industry’s health.
The report, the National Arts Index, looked at 76 indicators, including music royalties, Broadway ticket sales, museum visits, philanthropy and the number of college art majors.
It’s hard to judge how much real news there is in such a report. After all, reports declining arts audiences and funding have been percolating right along with the rest of the news of the recession.
But one thing is clear: Audiences are voting with their feet and with their ticket dollars and attendance at mainstream arts organizations is in a decline.
The challenge for arts groups? Finding ways to match their programming and offerings to the changing ways people consume culture and participate in it. Arts group who do exactly the same that things that’ve been doing for the past few decades, won’t make it through the next few decades.
Americans for the Arts plans to update the Index every October.
Read the AP story here.
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Money troubles at Latino arts museum in San Antonio
Looks like San Antonio’s Smithsonian affiliated Museo Alameda, aka, the Alameda National Center for Latino Arts and Culture — which opened to great fanfare three years ago — has stumbled financially.
Here’s a story from the Associated Press:
SAN ANTONIO (AP) — The nation’s largest museum devoted to Latino culture and arts is having money trouble three years after it opened.
The Alameda National Center for Latino Arts and Culture spent grant money intended for its charter school on the cash-strapped Museo Alameda, the San Antonio Express News reported Wednesday, citing minutes of a Nov. 9 Alameda board meeting. The $1 million Henry Ford Learning Institute grant, announced in August, was earmarked for renovations at the Henry Ford Academy: Alameda School for Art + Design.
The money was used before Margarita Flores took over as head of the nonprofit organization that oversees the museum, the charter school, the Alameda Theater and the Casa de Mexico office building, according to the Express-News.
Maintaining a museum “is a very expensive endeavor,” Flores said. “So was this spent on frivolous or things that are not the right things? No. It was spent on the operating expenses for the museum.”
Some of the grant money was used for the school, she said.
The Museo Alameda, which opened in April 2007, is about $1.5 million in debt. In recent months, the Smithsonian affiliate has struggled to pay staff and stay open.
During the November meeting, the board approved an amendment to the agreement between the Henry Ford Learning Institute and the Alameda that essentially gives the organization until Aug. 31, 2011, to meet terms of the grant.
“We look forward to the future and our continued partnership with the Centro Alameda and other community partners,” the institute said in a statement.
In 2008, Bexar County voters approved $6 million in venue tax funds for restoration of the Alameda Theater.
County Judge Nelson Wolff, who described the Alameda as being “on very dangerous ground right now,” said the county is “closely monitoring” the group.
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January 15, 2010
Austin Lyric Opera announces 2010-2011 season
Verdi’s ‘La Traviata,’ ‘Rossini’s ‘The Italian Girl in Algiers’ and ‘Flight’, the contemporary comedy by Johnathan Dove mark Austin Lyric Opera’s 2010-2011 season, ALO general director Kevin Patterson will announce today.
Actually, the new season will begin this summer with Michael Nyman’s chamber opera ‘The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat.’ Based on the popular book by poetic neurologist Oliver Sacks, Nyman’s 60-minute opera will be staged at St. Martin Lutheran Church in collaboration with the Austin Chamber Music Center’s summer festival. ‘Hat’ will run July 9-11.
And ‘Hat’ marks an important development for ALO and opera in Austin. Finally, some chamber opera in this town — and some contemporary chamber opera to boot Nyman’s minimalist score riffs on Schumann lieder. The three-character story follows a singer who suffers from visual agnosia, the inability to recognize familiar things and people.
Dove’s ‘Flight’ will also make a mark on the Austin scene. Based the true story of Mehran Nasseri, an Iranian refugee whose stateless status forced him to live for years within Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport. Dove’s opera, premiered by Glyndebourne Touring Opera in 1998, finds a cast of very modern characters grounded by their own emotional incapacities and stuck together in an airport during a storm. ‘Flight’ plays in April 2011.
In November, ALO will present a Lyric Opera of Chicago production of ‘La Traviata’ wiht Pamela Armstrong singing Violetta and native Texan Chad Shelton singing Alfredo.
And in January 2011 it’s Rossini’s ‘The Italian Girl in Algiers (L’Italiana in Algeri)’ in a smart production from Santa Fe Opera. Sandra Piques Eddy, who wowed Austin in La Cenerentola in 2008, will sing Isabella.
Richard Buckley will conduct all of ALO’s upcoming season.
Image: ‘Flight.” Glyndebourne Opera.
January 8, 2010
The O. Henry Museum temporarily closed for cold
The City of Austin just released this notice:
The Austin Parks and Recreation Department has temporarily closed the O. Henry Museum to the public due to a malfunction in the museum’s heating system. The museum was closed due to the frigid temperatures the city is experiencing and lack of heat in the building. The museum is projected to reopen Saturday, Jan. 9, at 12 noon.
The O. Henry Museum is 409 E. Fifth St. www.ci.austin.tx.us/ohenry
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January 7, 2010
UT's Blanton Museum raises admission prices
The University of Texas’ Blanton Museum of Art has just announced that it’s raising its admission prices.
The raise is effective immediately. Or really retroactively as the Jan. 7 announcement says the new prices are effective Jan. 1, 2010.
Also, the museum’s monthly B Scene arty party scales back to a bi-monthly schedule.
Update at 3:20 p.m.: A spokesperson for the Blanton adds this: ‘Like most cultural institutions, the Blanton has been affected by the downturn in the economy. While admissions have remained steady, the costs of presenting exceptional exhibitions and public programs has risen. In our effort to continue providing the very best programming for the community, we are raising prices to a range that is more in line with museums across the country.’
The following information is from the Blanton’s press release:
Admission remains free on Thursdays, and is always free for Blanton members, UT students, faculty and staff, and for children under 12.
New General Admission Prices:
Adult Admission $9 (was $7)
Seniors (65 +) $7 (was $5)
College Students with Valid ID $5 (was $3)
Youth (ages 13 -21) $5 (was $3)
Children 12 and under FREE
Blanton Members FREE
Current UT students, faculty and staff FREE
B scene (first Friday of every other month) $5 members/ $12 all others
Free Third Thursdays
Beginning in January, the museum’s free Third Thursday evenings (5:30 - 9 p.m.) will enjoy augmented programming. In addition to the popular yoga in the galleries and Blanton book club, artists’ talks and screenings of rare artist videos/films will be added to the mix. Additionally, The Blanton Café will offer a “happy hour” special, with a slice of gourmet pizza and glass of wine for only $5 all evening.
B Scene
B scene, The Blanton’s popular monthly art party will move from a monthly to bi-monthly basis. To be held the first Friday of every other month (beginning with February), the event will last from 6:00 - 10:30 p.m. Local bands and DJs will still be featured, as well as free savory appetizers, a cash bar, and art tours and activities. The Blanton Café will offer themed dinner menus in conjunction with B scene, which will include special tapas and wine pairings.
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January 5, 2010
Austin arts philanthropists establish Horton Foote Prize
Austin arts philanthropists Greg and Mari Marchbanks through their family foundation have established the Horton Foote Prize, in honor of the noted Texas playwright, news sources reported today.
Foote — author of ‘The Trip to Bountiful’ and ‘The Young Man from Atlanta’ among many other plays and screenplays — died in March 2009. Foote won an Academy Award for his screenplay of ‘To Kill a Mockingbird.’
The biennial Horton Foote Prize is for $30,000.
For the competition some 65 resident theaters will be invited to submit a play by a writer with at least three full-length plays to his or her credit that have been produced by professional theaters. A selection committee will choose a short list of finalists and a winner will be determined by a group of four theater directors Foote worked with closely.
Mari Marchbanks will serve as the executive director of the prize committee.
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December 21, 2009
School of Music faculty meets fundraising match
Despite recessionary cutbacks, some faculty at UT’s Butler School of Music have donated $25,000 to establish a new endowed scholarship in musicm, the university announced today.
The grassroots effort began this summer when philanthropists Sarah and Ernest Butler — who last year contributed $55 million to the UT School of Music which was named in their honor — said that they would provide matching funds for any scholarship gifts between $25,000 and $50,000 through the end of 2009. According to UT officials, several members of the music faculty saw the announcement as an opportunity to help provide much-needed student aid.
The resulting $50,000 endowed scholarship in music — when matched by the Butlers in January 2010 — will support undergraduate and graduate students in music.
“I am particularly moved by the fact that in a year in which the faculty received no merit raises, they would voluntarily donate funds in an amount sufficient to establish an endowed scholarship,” said B. Glenn Chandler, director of the Butler School of Music. “This is just another example of the unwavering dedication our faculty have to the education of their students.”
To date, the Butler’s dollar-for-dollar matching program has resulted in seven new scholarships for music. Chandler reportedly said he anticipates that three additional scholarships in progress will also be matched.
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Anton Nel named to endowed faculty position
The University of Texas has named UT professor of piano Anton Nel to the recently established Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long Endowed Chair in Piano in the Butler School of Music.
The the endowed position was established through a $1 million gift from the Longs.
An nternationally-recognized pianist,Nel joined the UT faculty in 2000. In March, he was the first classical performer to play a solo concert at the year-old Long Center for the Performing Arts, also named for Joe and Teresa Long.
Nel’s next Austin appearances include a concert with violinist Anne Akiko-Meyers and with the Texas Piano Quartet on April 28. Both concerts are at UT’s Butler School of Music.
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December 18, 2009
Frida Kahlo self-portrait to stay on view until March 2010
UT’s Ransom Center, which has Kahlo’s “Self-portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird” (1940), has announced that it will keep the painting on display until March to coincide with the exhibit “¡Viva! Mexico’s Independence.”
The Ransom Center’s Kahlo painting — which has been on almost continuous loan since 1990 — had been scheduled to come down off view on Jan. 3. “¡Viva!” goes on view Feb. 9 through Aug. 1. The year 2010 marks the 200th anniversary of Mexico’s independence from Spain and also the centennial of the Mexican Revolution.
‘Self-portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird’ has been featured in exhibitions in more than 25 museums in the United States and around the world. In 2010, the painting will travel to Berlin and Vienna.
‘Self-portrait’ travels by personal courier in its own special carrier and the case gets its own seat on the plane.
Where in the world was this Frida Kahlo? Check out the Ransom Center’s interactive map of where the Kahlo painting has been.
Image: Frida Kahlo. ‘Self-portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird,’ 1940. © 2009 Banco de Mexico Diego Rivera & Frida Kahlo Museums Trust. Av Cinco de Mayo No. 2, Col. Centro, Del. Cuauhtemoc 06059, Mexico, DF
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December 17, 2009
Vortex nets $15,000 NEA grant
The National Endowment for the Arts is beginning to make its list of FY 2010 grant recipients.
Long-time Austin indie theater Vortex Repertory Company has been awarded $15,000 in from the NEA’s Access to Artistic Excellence grant program for ‘Sleeping Beauty,’ an original musical by Vortex founder Bonnie Cullum and theater artist Content Love Knowles.
The grant will fund a new production of the all-ages musical that was first performed at the Vortex in 2005. Dance, music and storytelling weave together Cullum’s and Knowles’ feminist adaptation of the Grimm Brothers’ fairy tale.
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December 15, 2009
Kathleen Turner to play Molly Ivins in new play
Molly Ivins, the salty-tongue Texas columnist, will be portrayed by Kathleen Turner in a new play about Ivins’ lively career and character.
Philadelphia Theatre Company will premiere ‘Red Hot Patriot: The Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins’ a new play by Margaret Engel and Allison Engel.
Playbill reports that the production will run March 19-April 18, 2010.
Why Philadelphia and not the Lone Star State? Because if you want to align your production for an eventual Broadway run — or even to be a considered for such — you open it first in places like Philly or Boston.
Among her other brilliant witticisms, Ivins coined the nickname “Shrub” for George W. Bush.
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City of Austin gets NEA grant for professional workshops
The City of Austin Cultural Arts Division has been awarded a $35,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.
In its first round of FY2010 grants the NEA is distributing $26,968,500 to support 1,207 projects nationwide, the agency reported.
The Cultural Arts Division will use the grant to expand its ‘Take it to the Next Level’ series of workshops that offers training to non-profit arts and culture organizations and for-profit creative industries professionals.
Past workshop topics can be found at www.cityofaustin.org/nextlevel.
The city also hopes leverage the NEA funds to stage a statewide arts conference, tentatively scheduled for Spring 2011, that will offer the same kind of strategic and business training for creative professional. The conference will be presented in partnership with the Texas Commission on the Arts.
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December 10, 2009
Austin Symphony Orchestra hires new executive director
After suddenly losing its executive director earlier this year under a cloud of confusion, the Austin Symphony Orchestra has announced that it is hiring one of its own for the top management position.
Anthony Corroa, the orchestra’s operations manager since 2000 and the recent interim executive director, has been named the new executive director.
Orchestra board president Joe R. Long said in the announcement Thursday that Corroa was selected after a nationwide search.
Corroa’s appointment comes after the orchestra went through a tumultuous management shuffle earlier this fall.
Galen Wixson, the organization’s previous executive director, disappeared from the organization’s Web site Aug. 31. At the time, ASO board leaders offered no explanation for Wixson’s disappearance though it was reported that he had been fired.
On Sept. 1, more than two dozen orchestra musicians sent a letter to the board’s executive committee protesting Wixson’s sudden and unexplained absence.
Then on Sept. 9, Long finally issued a statement saying Wixson has resigned as executive director over creative differences.
Wixson never responded to requests for comment.
Wixson was hired in mid-March after a national search. He left the position of executive director of the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra to take the Austin job. Previously, Wixson had served as executive director for the Symphony of Southeast Texas, the Manhattan Center for the Arts and the American String Teachers Association.
NEA report: Less participation in/audience for the arts in 2008
The National Endowment for the Arts today released its 2008 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts, the nation’s largest and most representative study of adults’ arts participation habits.
The most important info culled from the report? Audiences for ballet, classical music, jazz and theater are both declining and growing older
- Nearly 35 percent of U.S. adults — or an estimated 78 million — attended an arts performance in the 2008 survey period, compared with about 40 percent in 1982, 1992, and 2002.
- Performing arts attendees are increasingly older (between 46 and 49 years old) than the average U.S. adult (45 years old). Forty-five to 54-year-olds — historically dependable arts participants — declined for all art forms except musical theatre.
- People with higher levels of education - usually the most likely to attend or participate in the arts -have curtailed their participation in nearly all art forms since 1982. High school graduates had the steepest rate of decline — 25 percent — between 2002 and 2008.
Also, Americans are increasingly participating in the arts through new media.
- The Internet and broadcast media are popular ways to engage with the arts. Forty seven million adults downloaded, watched, or listened to music, theater or dance performances online - and most said they did so at least once a week. More Americans view or listen to broadcasts and recordings of arts events than attend them live (live theater being the sole exception).
- Photography/videography/film-making increased in popularity as art-making activities, from 12 percent to 15 percent, since 1992, supplanting weaving/sewing as the most popular creative activity reported.
Generation Y reports taking fewer arts classes/lessons.
- When people ages 18-24 were asked if they had taken an art class/lesson at some point in their lives, they reported lower rates of participation than previous generations for all art forms compared in this study (by 6-23 percentage points, depending on the art form, from 1982 to 2008).
Further conclusions:
- About 35 percent of all U.S. adults — or 78 million Americans — visited an art museum or gallery or attended at least one of six types of the “benchmark” arts events tracked since 1982.
- About 23 percent of all adults visited an art museum or gallery.
- Musicals drew 17 percent of all adults, and nonmusical plays drew 9 percent.
- About 9 percent of adults attended classical music. Relatively fewer adults attended jazz (8 percent), ballet or other dance (7 percent), Latin or salsa music (5 percent), and opera (2 percent)
The NEA survey was conducted in partnership with the United States Census Bureau and asked more than 18,000 people 18 years of age and older about their frequency of arts engagement. It has been conducted five times since 1982.
Download a copy of the report here.
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December 4, 2009
AVAA inaugural Austin Visual Arts Award winners
Neither a few snow flurries nor bitterly cold weather stopped a crowd from attending the Austin Visual Arts Association’s inaugural Austin Visual Arts Awards at the Austin Museum of Art Friday night.
Winners at Friday night’s festivities were given a Fearing Award, a bronze metal designed by sculptor Bob Coffee and named after this year’s Lifetime Achievement Award Winner William Kelly Fearing.
- Austin Visual Arts Awards 2009
- Artist of the Year 2 Dimensional Art: Erin Curtis
- Artist of the Year 3 Dimensional Art: Beili Liu
- Artist of the Year Photography: Roberto Guerra
- Artist of the Year New Media: Michael Smith
- Artist of the Year Early Career: Heather Tolleson
- Collectors Circle Award: Bob “Daddy-O” Wade
- Service to the Arts: Jana Swec, Shea Little, Joseph Phillips for East Austin Studio Tour (E.A.S.T.)
- President’s Award: Will Klemm. Roi James
- Patron to the Arts: Becky Beaver
- Lifetime Achievement: William Kelly Fearing
- Lifetime Achievement, In Memoriam: Robert Dale Anderson
- Lifetime Achievement, In Memoriam: Michael Frary
A nominating committee of representative from 22 Austin art organizations nominated their picks in each category and those artists who received multiple nominations moved forward to the selection committee. The selection committee, which included representative from 12 organizations, developed a list of finalists.
See a previous post for a list of members of the selection committee and finalists.
December 3, 2009
Okay Mountain sets up shop at PULSE Miami
The Austin art collective Okay Mountain has hit the road to Miami.
No, they haven’t abandoned their East Austin digs. They’ve set out to conqueror PULSE Contemporary Art Fair in Miami, the super-trendy contemporary art fair that shadows the super-fashionable Art Basel Miami Beach.
‘Corner Store’ is a site-specific installation commissioned from the Okay Mountain collective by Arthouse, the Congress Avenue contemporary art center.
‘Corner Store’ is just that — an off-brand convenience store much like you would find in the scruffy patches of urban Texas, the kind of establishment where cheap versions of everything and anything is sold.
The Okay Mountain crew spent literally thousands of hours constructing hundreds of objects by hand that fill the store. And each piece of inventory contains its own quirky twist on the original.
‘Green Things’ anyone? Or how about ‘You Only Live Once’ candy bars?
‘Corner Store’ opened today at PULSE.
The level of detail to ‘Corner Store’ is staggering. The sheer volume and kind of items reaches an encyclopedic level. So do the store’s features right down to the soda machine, the worn shelving, the cheap poorly-crafted signage and the out-of-date cash register.
The Okay Mountain gang will don uniforms and work the ‘Corner Store’ as if it were the real thing (in a way, it is). And they’ve even created advertising circular on cheap newsprint that blasts “10 artworks under $100” and other deals.
And yes, everything is for sale. Items start at just a few dollars. And there’s no re-stocking. It’s the end of the line for ‘Corner Store’ with everything sold as if it were going out of business.
There’s something wonderfully ticklish about the idea of the arterati perusing Okay Mountain’s hand-made and oh-so irreverent items. After all, the Miami art fairs are the fickle and fashion-conscious art world laid bare. There’s no hiding the raw commerce of the art market nor its self-conscious socializing.
After laboring for weeks, the 11-member Okay Mountain crew — Carlos Rosales-Silva, Corkey Sinks, Jesse Butcher, Josh Rios, Justin Goldwater, Ryan Hennessee, Nathan Green, Peat Duggins, Michael Sieben, Sterling Allen and Tim Brown — loaded up their store and drove it by truck from Austin to Miami, camping along the way to save on funds. They’ll reportedly split the profits of anything sold at PULSE with their Arthouse sponsors.
It’ll be curious to hear how ‘Corner Store’ is received by the trendy crowds at PULSE. After all, the Okay mountaineers don’t shirk from poking at the ribs of any sacred art world cows. But ultimately, Okay Mountain’s art-making mischief is gentle — and wise.
Any one wanna buy a gallon of ‘BBQ Water’ or some ‘Olde Money’?
Austin choral group Conspirare nets fifth Grammy nomination
Austin-based professional choral ensemble Conspirare has been nominated for a Grammy for Best Classical Crossover Album for its CD ‘Company of Voices: Conspirare in Concert’ on the Harmonia Mundi label.
“Company of Voices: Conspirare in Concert” was recorded live at the Long Center for the Performing Arts in October 2008 in cooperation with PBS television station KLRU. It was first released as a DVD for national broadcast on PBS affiliate stations nationwide beginning in March 2009, and was subsequently released on CD by Harmonia Mundi in June 2009. Both the CD and DVD are available for purchase through Conspirare www.conspirare.org.
Previously, Conspirare received Grammy Award nominations in 2009 for “Threshold of Night.” The nominations were for Best Classical Album and Best Choral Performance.
Conspirare previously received two nominations in 2006.
‘Christmas at the Carillon’
Conspirare’s annual holiday concert showcases artistic director Craig Hella Johnson’s blending of music old and new. This year’s special guest is Patrice Pike.
8 p.m. Long Center. 701 W. Riverside Drive
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December 2, 2009
First Night Austin adds 'The Long First Night'
First Night Austin and the Long Center for the Performing Arts are teaming up to provide a new party attraction for the New Year’s Eve arts-filled celebration.
‘The Long First Night,’ is a ticketed New Year’s Eve gala, from 5 p.m. to midnight on Dec. 31. It is co-sponsored by Sterling Affairs.
The event at the Long Center— utilizing both the outdoor City Terrace and the mezzanine inside the performing arts facility — will bring music, food and drink to the annual First Night Austin festivities.
First Night Austin, now in its fifth year, brings free visual and performing arts to downtown Austin for a public celebration that attracts up to 100,000 revelers.
Tickets for ‘The Long First Night,’ which is will be sold at a special advance rate until Dec. 18.
General admission tickets, which include access to the Long Center, cash bars and food, and all entertainment (which will include music from bands and DJs, as well as a children’s activities area), are $15 until the Dec. After that, tickets are $20.
Details of the entertainment offerings are TBA.
A limited number of VIP tickets, on sale for $95 until Dec. 18 and $110 starting the Dec. 10. VIP tickets include access to the Long Center and all entertainment, as well as access to open bars, complimentary buffets and chefs stations and a private VIP party.
Tickets for the event are available via the Long Center website (www.thelongcenter.org the First Night Austin website www.firstnightaustin.org.
Ballet Austin adds audio described 'Nutcracker' shows
After we wrote about the free audio description services provided to visually impaired at Ballet Austin’s ‘The Nutcracker’ this year, word has spread. And demand is up.
Due to demand, audio description will be offered at two more ‘Nutcracker’ performances for a total of four performances:
7:30 p.m. Dec. 12
New shows: 7:30 p.m. Dec. 18 and Dec. 19
2 p.m. Dec. 20
Audio description is free and the Long Center for the Performing Arts has 50 headsets available without reservation.
Tickets to ‘The Nutcracker’ are $15-$71 and can be purchased at www.balletaustin.org.
Audio description is provided by VSA arts of Texas, a nonprofit organization that connects people with disabilities to the arts. For further information contact www.vsatx.org
November 30, 2009
AVAA announces inaugural Austin Visual Arts Awards
The Austin Visual Arts Association is hosting its first Visual Art Awards this Friday.
The long-standing arts service organization will hand-out awards in a variety of categories. Winners will be presented with a “Fearing” Award, a bronze metal designed by sculptor Bob Coffee, named after this year’s Lifetime Achievement Award Winner, William Kelly Fearing.
The event is at 7 p.m. Friday, Austin Museum of Art, 823 Congress. Tickets are $25. For information see www.avaaonline.org.
AVAA called on representatives from a dozen organizations and businesses to select the finalists after a nominating committee of 23 organizations, galleries and museums made nominations.
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2009 Award Finalists
- Artist of the Year 2 Dimensional Art: Jennifer Balkan, Shawn Camp, Erin Curtis, Ray Donley, Laurie Frick, Roi James, John Mulvany and Jana Swec
- Artist of the Year 3 Dimensional Art: Beili Liu, Hank Waddell, Catherine Lee, Sunyong Chung, Phillipe Klinefelter and David Everett
- Artist of the Year Photography: Roberto (Bear) Guerra, Barry Stone, Lesley Nowlin, Anna Krachey and Sandy Carson
- Artist of the Year New Media: Sean Gaulager, The Totally Wreck Institute, Michael Smith
- Artist of the Year Early Career: Debra Broz, Alonso Rey Sanchez, Heather Tolleson, Sterling Allen, Nathan Green, Jules Buck Jones and Carlos Rosales-Silva
- Collectors Circle Award: Helmutt Barnett, Damian Priour, Bob “Daddy-O” Wade, Sydney Yeager and Jack White
- Lifetime Achievement: William Kelly Fearing
- Lifetime Achievement In Memoriam: Robert Dale Anderson
- Lifetime Achievement In Memoriam: Michael Frary
- Service to the Arts: TBA
- President’s Award: TBA
- Patron to the Arts: TBA
- The Selection Committee
- Austin Chronicle - Robert Faires
- Austin Museum of Art - Andrea Mellard
- Art Palace - Arturo Palacios
- Art in Public Places - Meggan Crigger
- Austin Arts Commission - Gloria Mata Pennington
- The Blanton Museum of Art - Risa Puleo
- Carver Museum - Bob Jones
- Mexic-Arte Museum- Sylvia Orozco
- Texas Art Collectors of Austin & San Antonio - Carl McQueary
- Texas Society of Sculptors - Nancy Cardozier
- Tribeza magazine - Karen Landa
- Wally Workman Gallery - Wally Workman
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November 25, 2009
Kennedy Center initiative comes to Texas
Earlier this year, Kennedy Center President Michael M. Kaiser launched the Arts in Crisis Initiative, an effort to help the arts community in the face of the recession.
To spread the help, Kaiser — author of “The Art of the Turnaround: Creating and Maintaining Healthy Arts Organizations” — embarked on a 50-state tour to take his project on the road, offering free workshops on fundraising, building more effective boards of trustees, budgeting, tickets sales, marketing and audience development.
On Tues. Dec. 2, Kaiser comes to the Lone Star State. He’ll present his arts leadership symposium from 9:30 to 11:30 a.m. at the San Pedro Playhouse in San Antonio. The symposium is free.
For more information, see www.artsincrisis.org
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November 19, 2009
Artist Jeanne-Claude is dead at 74
With her orange-dyed hair, artist Jeanne-Claude was an ever-present companion to her husband Christo, collaborating on his ambitious and grand site-specific installations.
Now, the New York Times, among other news sources, is reporting that Jeanne-Claude is dead at age 74.
She died Wednesday night at a New York hospital from complications of a brain aneurysm.
Most recently, the couple grabbed international headlines when they altered New York’s Central Park with more than 7,500 metal gates draped with orange fabric. An estimated 4 million people saw “The Gates.”
In 2006, the couple visited Austin on the occasion of the exhibit ‘Christo and Jeanne- Claude: The Würth Collection’ at the Austin Museum of Art.
In an interview, she admonished me to never refer to her and Christo as the wrapping artists.
“Simply because we are not,” Jeanne- Claude said emphatically. “We have created so many works that have nothing to do with wrapping.”
Photo: AP/Ed Andrieski
November 17, 2009
Artist selected for Zach Theatre public art project
The City of Austin’s Arts Commission announced today that it has selected artist Cliff Garten to create a work of public art for new Topfer Theatre addition to the Zach Theatre complex adjacent to Lady Bird Lake.
The Venice, Calif.-based Garten will receive a $150,000 commission.
Zach unveiled the design of the $20 million Topfer Theater, by Austin’s Andersson Wise Architects, in October. The sleek 430-seat theater that will be surrounded by a tree-filled plaza and grounds.
“Cliff’s beautiful and thoughtful artistry, working in collaboration with the Andersson Wise team, has the potential to enhance the site in a way that connects Zach to Lady Bird Lake and engages Austinites during the daytime and evening,” said Dave Steakley, artistic director for Zach Theatre.
Garten was selected from among 148 national artist submissions. Through his Cliff Garten Studio the artist has created dozens of public art projects including the recently unveiled ‘Avenue of Light’ sculpture in Fort Worth.
Photo by Laura Seewoester/www.pegasusnews.com
October 30, 2009
Art Palace Gallery heads to Houston
It’s official news now. The chatter that’s been whispered for several weeks is now public.
After almost five years and lots of kudos, attention and even national press Art Palace Gallery is leaving Austin for Houston, gallery owner Arturo Palacious says. With its innovative shows and sophisticated roster of emerging artists, the East Austin gallery has been a mainstay of the developing indie gallery scene.
In Houston, Art Palace will set up its new home at 3913 Main Street in the Historic Isabella Court building. New neighbors will be Inman Gallery, Kinzelman Art Consulting and CTRL.
October 26, 2009
Paul Baker, legendary Texas theater educator, 1911-2009
Paul Baker — influential Texas theater educator — passed away at the age of 98.
He died at the hospital on Sunday morning, October 25 due to complications from pneumonia, a press release from Dallas Theatre Center reported. Baker was the founder of the Dallas Thearre Center as well as the founding principal of the Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts.
Among Baker’s contributions to the fields of theater and education continue to be celebrated. Over a long career as chair of the drama department at Baylor University, Baker honed his ideas about an integrated approach to the study of the arts (theater in particular), an approach still upheld today.
Read anAmerican-Statesman profile of Baker.
The Baker Idea Institute at the Dallas Theatre Center continues his legacy.
A public memorial and celebration of the life and work of Dr. Baker is being planned to take place at Rosewood Center for Family Arts in Dallas in early December. Details to be announced.
October 22, 2009
Bass Concert Hall jumps into Pollstar top ten
The University of Texas’ Bass Concert Hall has been ranked number seven for third quarter ticket sales in Pollstar’s worldwide ranking of top 100 international theater venues.
Pollstar, the trade journal of touring artists, booking agents and performance venues, released its third quarter rankings today. The Bass Concert Hall sold 215,237 tickets between Jan. 1 and Sept. 30 of this year. Pollstar rated the UT venue number 13 at its mid-year ranking.
The recent rankings positions Bass Concert Hall in the company of major venues such as New York’s Radio City Music Hall, Atlanta’s Fox Theatre and Las Vegas’ Coliseum at Ceasars Palace and ahead of regional venues like the Nokia Theatre in Grand Prairie, Texas.
A sold-out three-week run of the Broadway musical ‘Wicked’ is primarily responsible for the jump in tickets sales during the third quarter though other well-selling shows at Bass Concert Hall this year include violinist Itzhak Perman, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre, James Taylor and comedy show Flight of the Conchords.
In November, the Bass Concert Hall will be one of only five venues in the United States to host legendary comic artist Robert Crumb who penned well-known characters and series including Mr. Natural, Fritz the Cat, Joe Blow and Keep on Truckin’.
TOP 10 WORLDWIDE THEATRE VENUES BY THIRD QUARTER TICKETS SALES
1. Auditorio Nacional, Mexico City — 859,534
2. Fox Theatre, Atlanta — 418,958
3. Colosseum At Caesars Palace, Las Vegas —408,192
4. Auditorio Telmex, Guadalajara — 287,585
5. Radio City Music Hall, New York — 270,883
6. Benedum Center, Pittsburgh — 258,295
7. Bass Concert Hall, Austin — 215,237
8. Nokia Theatre At Grand Prairie, Grand Prairie, Texas — 212,434
9. Beacon Theatre, New York —204,559
10. Paramount Theatre, Seattle — 199,748
Source: Pollstar
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October 19, 2009
B. Iden Payne Awards winners
The Greater Austin Cultural Alliance — formerly known as the Austin Circle of Theatres — has awarded its B. Iden Payne Awards for 2008-2009. The awards are given to the local Austin theater community. Voting is open to members of Austin Circle of Theatres.
See the results here.
The awards are named for B. Iden Payne, an English actor who, on his retirement from the staged, landed at the University of Texas where he had a lasting effect on the then-nascent theater program and on Austin’s theater community.
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Zach Theatre unveils designs for new venue
Zach Theatre will release designs today for a sleek 430-seat theater that will be surrounded by a tree-filled plaza and grounds. Slipped onto Zach’s site at South Lamar Boulevard and West Riverside Drive, the new building promises to help establish an arts park on Lady Bird Lake.
“Along with the Long Center, we’re bookending a stretch along the south shore of Lady Bird Lake,” said Zach Managing Director Elisbeth Challener. “Our new theater is not just a great story for the development of Austin’s arts during these times, but it’s also a great story about downtown Austin and the future of (the lakeside) park.”
And despite the recession, Zach leaders say, they have raised $16 million toward their $20 million goal and are primed to see their new building — the third stage on Zach Theatre’s campus —become a reality. The recession also is expected to help reduce construction costs.
“We’re bucking a trend,” said Tom Terkel, chairman of the Zach capital campaign. “We’ve had our best fundraising year in our history.”
A year ago, arts patrons James Armstrong and Bill Dickson each donated $1 million. Terkel said an additional $3 million has been raised in the past 12 months. Zach also has $10 million in city bond money, part of the 2006 voter-approved bond package, and $1 million left from a 1985 bond package.
Although a construction schedule has not been finalized, Terkel said the goal is to break ground in 2010 and open by 2012.
The new theater will join Zach’s existing 200-seat Kleberg Stage and the 130-seat Whisenhunt Stage to provide the organization with more facilities for larger productions. Once the new venue is built, the Whisenhunt will be devoted to the Zach’s youth theater programs.
The venue was designed by Austin architect Arthur Andersson of Andersson-Wise Architects, designers of the Block 21 mixed-use project downtown, which includes a hotel and a venue for KLRU’s “Austin City Limits.”
Andersson’s design calls for a clean, modern form clad in a combination of bluish-gray brick and cement composite panels. A two-story glass lobby will front the 29,000-square-foot building, which will face west onto a tree-filled plaza that will be able to accommodate gatherings of up to 600 people. Andersson said landscape plans call for 80 trees to be added to the site, which is now an expanse of sun-beaten lawn little used by visitors to the adjacent hike-and-bike trail.
The stage will be 80 feet wide, more than twice the width of the Kleberg Stage, the larger of Zach’s two stages. Though the new theater will have double the number of seats of the Kleberg, seating will be arranged on a somewhat steep angle, decreasing the distance between each seat and the stage.
Andersson said the building will have environmentally sensitive materials and landscaping designed to capture rainwater.
Andersson estimated that construction expenses were down about 10 to 15 percent from when the project was first imagined more than a year ago, allowing for more design leeway within the $15.3 million construction budget.
Just as it will act as an architectural bookend to the Long Center, Zach’s new theater will add to the cultural cooperation between the two civic arts centers. In 1999, former Dell Computer Corp. executive Mort Topfer and his late wife, Angela, donated $5 million to the Long Center for the Performing Arts. An 800-seat theater there was to be named in their honor, but when plans for the Long Center were scaled down from three to two theaters, the Topfers agreed to have their donation folded into the Long Center’s general campaign.
But now, in an agreement between Long Center and Zach officials, the new Zach theater will be named for Topfer and his current wife, Bobbi. Like Zach, the Long Center is a private nonprofit operating on city-owned property.
“This project and collaboration is, in our eyes, the arts story in Austin over the past year,” the Topfers said in a statement. “We are so proud to have our name associated with the Zach brand and artistic integrity.”
Among those who have anted up since the Topfers signaled their approval of the Zach honor are Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long, the couple whose $20 million solidified the effort to build the performing arts center that now bears their name. The Longs donated $250,000 to the Zach capital campaign.
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September 28, 2009
And now, it's GACA
The Austin Circle of Theaters is now the Greater Austin Creative Alliance.
The umbrella service organization that has supported the non-profit performing arts community for 35 years is broadening its gaze and will expand its services to the larger creative community and industries.
The change reflects recommendations from the CreateAustin cultural planning process which called for establishing a central go-to resource that can assist individual creatives as well both non-profit and for-profit creative businesses on all fronts. CreateAustin is a community cultural planning effort — rooted in the city’s Cultural Arts Division and led by a coalition arts and civic leaders — that is mapping out how Austin’s creative scene can be better maintained and developed.
With its history of providing administrative and marketing support, providing access to affordable insurance and hosting professional development opportunities, ACoT is in the perfect place to expand its umbrella.
“The CreateAustin initiative had created both a process and an opportunity for more significant work,” said Latifah Taormina, Executive Director of Austin Circle of Theaters. “ACoT is a strong organization, well-connected locally and nationally to be the hub of an expanded set of services to strengthen our creative community.”
The GACA won’t change staff or core services, it’s just now, its services are available to every one in the creative businesses.
See www.austincreativealliance.org for more information.
September 26, 2009
Arthouse raises $5 million, construction set to begin
Arthouse, the Congress Avenue contemporary art center, announced tonight that it has raised $5 million towards its planned $6 million renovation and that construction will begin next month.
The new design — by architects Lewis.Tsurumaki.Lewis of New York — will triple the available exhibit and program space from 7,000 square-feet to 20,830 square-feet. The arts venue will re-open in October 2010, in advance of the organization’s centennial in 2011..
“Despite the global economic challenges of the past year, local and national conditions have gotten stronger and a confluence of circumstances have given Arthouse a unique opportunity to leverage today’s highly favorable construction costs and financing rates,” said Arthouse board chair Stephen M. Jones.
The renovation project calls for changes to the building’s facade and both floors, adding new galleries, two studios, a 90-seat community/screening room as well as the addition of a 5,500 square-foot roof top venue for art, film and special events.
The building, at 700 Congress Ave., was originally a movie house, built in the 1920s. It then was a department store beginning in the 1950s. Arthouse purchased the building in 1995 and remodeled the first floor, opening the venue in 1998.
Visit an interactive feature on the project.
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September 24, 2009
Mayor to proclaim October "Get Your Art On" month
Austin mayor Lee Leffingwell is scheduled to make a Mayoral Proclamation at 5:30 p.m. at City Hall today to proclaim that October is time to get “Get Your Art On.”
The ceremonial action is timed to promote events in Austin that will recognize National Arts and Humanities Month. The promotion is organized by the Greater Austin Creative Alliance (formerly Austin Circle of Theaters) together with CreateAustin and the City of Austin Cultural Arts Division.
Held every October and coordinated by national advocacy group Americans for the Arts, National Arts and Humanities Month is an annual celebration of arts and humanities.
Among the Austin activities are:
‘Get Your Art On.’
4 to 7 p.m., Thursday, Oct. 1
Wooldridge Park, 900 Guadalupe St.
A free family-oriented showcase of local creativity at Wooldridge Park. Favorite childrens’ musicians the Biscuit Brothers will be the strolling minstrels as Greater Tuna’s Aunt Pearl (performer Joe Sears) helps children make Halloween crafts and various performances from Austin Bike Zoo, improv comedians and the Austin School for the Performing and Visual Arts put on a show. Participants are encouraged to dress as their favorite artistic character and to bring their own chairs or blankets for seating. Water will be available.
For more info see www.NowPlayingAustin.com.
Ann Hume Wilson named as Conspirare executive director
After a nationwide search, Austin Grammy-nominated choirConspirare has selected Ann Hume Wilson as its next executive director, Conspirare officials announced today.
Wilson is currently associate director of the Blanton Museum of Art at the University of Texas at Austin, where she also served as interim director during 2008-09.
“Much as I will miss being at the Blanton, I jumped at the chance to come to Conspirare, which brings such acclaim to Austin through its recordings, tours, and always-moving performances,” said Wilson, in a statement released by Conspirare. “I am thrilled to be returning to the performing arts after many years with museums, and look forward to building more recognition and support for the inspiring art of Craig Hella Johnson and his amazing company of voices.”
Wilson’s job at the Blanton will conclude on October 23 and she will take the helm at Conspirare on November 2. Melissa J. Eddy, who has served as Conspirare’s interim managing director since July 1, will become its communications and grants manager.
A native of Washington D.C., Wilson has over three decades of experience in arts administration. Since 2004, she has been associate director of the Blanton, also serving as interim director during 2008-09. At the Blanton, she oversaw all administrative and operational aspects of the museum and led the institutional branding efforts and marketing campaign for the highly successful grand opening of the Blanton’s new building in 2006.
Wilson has served as director of marketing and communications for the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore; manager of public relations and marketing for the High Museum of Art, Atlanta; director of marketing for the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra; director of public relations for Spoleto Festival U.S.A.; and assistant manager of the Opera Company of Boston. She is a frequent speaker on arts management, branding and strategic planning at national and regional arts conferences.
Wilson bears a connection to a fun footnote in American vocal music history. Wilson is the daughter of the late Washington Post Music Critic Paul Hume who in 1950 earned the wrath of President Harry Truman when Hume wrote a negative review of a solo voice performance by Margaret Truman, the president’s daughter, who had aspirations to be a professional singer. “(She) cannot sing very well … is flat a good deal of the time,” wrote Hume. President Truman wrote Hume a blistering letter of complaint telling Hume “you’re off the beam.”
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September 18, 2009
UT receives archive of Pulitzer Prize-winning photo-journalist Eddie Adams
The archive of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Eddie Adams has been donated to the University of Texas’ Briscoe Center for American History, UT president William Powers Jr. announced today.
Valued between $7 and $8 million, the archive contains hundreds of thousands of Adams’ photographs including “Saigon Execution,” his Pulitzer Prize-winning 1968 photograph of South Vietnamese General Loan executing a Vietcong prisoner. “Saigon Execution” is widely considered one of the most influential images of the Vietnam War.
The photographer’s widow, Alyssa Adams, donated the archive to UT. She retains the copyright to the images. In a career spanning nearly five decades, Adams worked for the Associated Press, Time and Parade covering some 13 wars, He died in 2004 at age 71.
“This is a profoundly significant addition to our photojournalism archive,” said Don Carleton, Briscoe Center director.
Adams’ archive joins those of other noted photojournalists that UT has acquired such as David Hume Kennerly, Dirck Halstead and Wally McNamee.
An exhibit of select images from the archive is on view now through Jan. 16 at the Briscoe Center. An online version of the exhibit is here.
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September 16, 2009
Austin Museum of Art announces new exhibit initiatives
In an effort to do more with less during recessionary times, the Austin Museum of Art has re-jiggered its exhibition plan and beginning in November it will present three distinct exhibits at a time at its downtown digs at 823 Congress Ave.
“Reconfiguring our galleries and exhibition schedule will give the community access to a greater variety of artworks and experiences,” said Dana Friis-Hansen, AMOA executive director and chief curator, “and help us better harness reduced resources. As we considered how to do more with less in a tightened economy, we decided the best route was to draw on both the museum’s and the community’s artistic assets.”
In effect, the move ups the number of exhibit the museum will offer from five to eight or so each year to a total of 10 annually. The museum has had to make across the board budget cuts twice in the past year due to the recessionary economy.
Featured exhibits, including traveling shows, will continue to occupy the front and central galleries. Up right now is ‘Chuck Close: A Couple of Ways of Doing Something.’ Coming in November is ‘David Bates’ a retrospective of the Dallas artist.
In the side galleries, the museum will feature loosely thematic exhibits culled from its permanent collection. ‘Collection Selections’ will change roughly every six months and will give the museum a chance to show things that it normally keeps in storage.
Also taking up residency in the galleries come November is the ‘New Works’ series, a quarterly exhibit series that will introduce the latest from innovative local artists. The first year will feature shows by Jade Walker, Luke Savisky, Sunyong Chung and the Okay Mountain collective.
Here’s the ‘New Works’ series schedule for the first year:
Jade Walker, ‘Spectator Sport’
Nov. 21, 2009 -Jan. 31, 2010
Walker creates a bulbous fabric and found object installation that explores ideas about gender and sports.
Luke Savisky
Feb. 13 - May 9, 2010
There’s little about human experience that Luke Savisky doesn’t examine in his film art. Known for stretching the limits of visual media, Savisky uses manual film montage, direct projection techniques, kinetic sets and sculptures and unusual projection surfaces in unlikely environments.
Sunyong Chung
May 22 - Aug. 15, 2010
Ceramic artist Sunyong Chung pushes the traditional Japanese nerikome technique into new territory with her monumental sculpture and her imagery offers new riffs on traditional ceramic art imagery.
Okay Mountain. ‘Untitled (Spin Off).’
Aug. 28 - Nov. 14, 2010
From the Okay Mountain collective comes a fresh look from both ends of the camera lens at mass media. Who is watching who after all? With a studio audience mural and television soundstage installation, ‘Untitled (Spin Off)’ will consider what goes on behind the scenes.
Images: Chuck Close, ‘Self Portrait’ (top). Jade Walker, ‘Figure 1-5,’ installation view (bottom).
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ALO names artist-in-residence
The Austin Lyric Opera has named Vincent Frittelli, former concertmaster for the opera orchestra, as the artist-in-residence at the opera’s Armstrong Community Music School.
Frittelli was concertmaster for ALO from their first production of Mozart’s ‘The Magic Flute’ in 1987 to its 2007 production of Rossini’s ‘The Barber of Seville.’ He also was concertmaster for the Austin Symphony Orchestra for 25 years and recently retired from the University of Texas at Austin where he was associate professor of violin.
“We feel it’s a real feather in our cap to have such a talent associated with our school.” said ALO’s General Director Kevin Patterson.
Fritelli will maintain a studio at the Armstrong Community Music School and will be accepting violin students.
ALO’s first production of the season “La Boheme” opens Nov. 8 and runs through Nov. 13. See www.AustinLyricOpera.org for more information.
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September 9, 2009
Long Center generates $43 million in economic impact, study says
Long Center officials say an economic impact study shows that the performing arts center generates $20 million per year in direct economic impact through its activities and supports 950 jobs.
The report, released Wednesday and conducted by Michigan firm New Economy Strategies, also revealed that Long Center events generate an additional $18 million in indirect economic impact in the greater Austin area.
Economic impact numbers for the Long Center and its founding resident companies — Austin Lyric Opera, Austin Symphony Orchestra and Ballet Austin — are derived from ticket sales, food and drink revenues, rental income from special events and philanthropic contributions.
The total economic impact of the building of the $77 million two-venue facility was $105 million during the four-year period of 2005 through 2008.
More than 200,000 people attend events at the Long Center each year, the study showed.
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September 1, 2009
Orchestra musician protest ED's absence
More than two dozen musicians of the Austin Symphony Orchestra have signed a letter protesting the sudden absence of Galen Wixson, the orchestra’s executive director.
The letter was sent Monday to the orchestra’s executive committee after rumor’s emerged that Wixson had been fired.
A person answering the phone at the orchestra’s office Monday told the American-Statesman that Wixson no long works there. And Wixson is, as of late Tuesday, no listed on the orchestra’s Web site. Anthony Corroa is listed as interim executive director.
Jane Sibley, chairman of the orchestra board of directors, declined to comment.
“The Musician’s Committee found him to be a forward-thinking man, well-spoken and willing to listen to ideas,” said the letter, a copy of which was obtained by the American-Statesman. “We find it hard to imagine a reason good enough to force him to leave. We believe his leaving would be a mistake for this organization.”
Lana Harris, a violist and chairman of the committee that represents the orchestra musicians’ interests to the board of trustees, said that the musicians rarely petition the board.
Harris said that no board meeting was called to discuss Wixson’s dismissal.
“This was an unusual enough situation to state what we felt and state it quickly,” said Harris. “We’re concerned long-term what kind of message this will send.”
Wixson had only been on the job since mid-March.
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August 31, 2009
Austin Symphony Orchestra loses executive director
Galen Wixson, executive director of the Austin Symphony Orchestra, has left the organization, a call to the orchestra’s office Monday morning confirmed.
A person answering the phone at the orchestra office told the American-Statesman that Wixson no longer works there. Wixson is also no longer listed on the organization’s Web site as executive director.
Wixson had been on the job only since mid-March.
Jane Sibley, chairman of the board of directors, declined to comment. Edward Z. Safady, executive vice president of the board of directors, said that he was unaware of Wixson’s departure until told this afternoon by a reporter.
Calls to other board members, to symphony staff and to Wixson have not been returned.
Wixson was previously executive director of the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra as well as executive director for the Symphony of Southeast Texas, Reno Philharmonic, Manhattan Center for the Arts and the American String Teachers Association.
Wixson has bachelor’s and master’s degrees in cello performance from Wichita State University in addition a master’s in arts management from the Carnegie Mellon Heinz School of Public Policy.
Story developing.
August 21, 2009
UT hires associate dean for arts education
Hunter March, longtime professor of music education in the University of Texas’ Butler School of Music, has been appointed associate dean for arts education in the College of Fine Arts.
The newly-created deanship will focus on supporting the college’s initiatives in fine arts education and teacher training.
“Professor March is eminently well-qualified to fill this deanship,” said Douglas Dempster, dean of the College of Fine Arts. “Arts education is a vital part of the college’s public service to the State of Texas. Arguably, it’s the most urgent commitment we can make to perpetuating the art forms and disciplines to which the College of Fine Arts is dedicated.”
A 31-year veteran of teaching music education at UT, March begins his new role effective Sept. 1.
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August 10, 2009
New NEA chief has tough talk for Capitol Hill
Broadway producer Rocco Landesman, owner of Jujamcyn Theaters, is the new chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, as of late Friday.
Landesman replaces Dana Giora, a Bush administration appointee.
In an interview with the New York Times, Landesman said has already come up with a new slogan to replace “A great nation deserves great art,” which he says is too apologetic. “Art Works” betters suits the federal agency, according to Landesman.
Among other pointed statements, Landesman, who has a PhD in dramatic literature from Yale, said that the NEA’s current budget of $155 million — down from the agency’s all-time high of $176 million in 1992 — is “pathetic” and “embarrassing.”
Landesman also advocated re-instating individual grants to artists which were eliminated in 1996.
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July 21, 2009
The Longs give UT's Butler School of Music $1 million
Austin philanthropists Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long have donated $1 million to the University of Texas Butler School of Music to create a chaired professorship in piano performance.
The new gift follows the Longs’ $500,000 donation in March that created a piano scholarship endowment.
The Long Chair in Piano will be recommended by B. Glenn Chandler, director of the Butler School of Music, and approved by the board of regents. An appointment is expected to be announced at the end of the summer.
“We hope to accomplish two things with both of these gifts,” said Joe Long in statement released by the university. “One is to always have a professor of piano of national and international stature who will attract very talented students, we hope among the best in the nation. Secondly, with the gift for scholarships for piano students, we hope to further this goal and enable an outstanding professor in piano to offer scholarships to the very best students they can find.”
July 17, 2009
Plans for new Zach theater forge on: Architect chosen, new donations announced
Recession? Sure, but that hasn’t stopped the folks at Zach Theatre from forging on with their plans to build a new 500-seat venue as part of its plans to expand its campus at S. Lamar Blvd. and W. Riverside Dr.
Theater officials have announced that they have selected the Austin firm of Andersson-Wise Architects as the design architect for the new venue. Among the firm’s projects are the W Hotel on Austin’s Block 21, St. Edward’s University Fleck Hall, the Beach Museum of Art at Kansas State University and the Chihuly Bridge of Glass in Tacoma, Washington. Principal Arthur W. Andersson was one-time professional partners with noted architect and theorist Charles W. Moore. Moore and Andersson collaborated on the residential compound in West Austin now home to The Charles Moore Foundation.
Zach officials have also announced that Austin philanthropists Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long have donated $250,000 towards the theater $20 million capital campaign.
The Shubert Foundation has also donated $25,000.
In June, Zach opened its Production and Creativity Center — aka the Z-PACC — a rehearsal studio and production facility. Architectural designer Michael Hsu transformed a former bicycle workshop adjacent to Zach’s Whisenhunt Theatre into the Z-PACC which will also accommodate Zach’s youth programs.
Finally, commercial real estate developer Tom Terkel has been appointed the chairman of Zach’s capital campaign committee.
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July 8, 2009
NEA awards grants via American Recovery and Reinvestment Act; Austin receives $325,000
The National Endowment for the Arts has awarded grants to arts organizations around the country through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The grants go “to support the preservation of jobs that are threatened by declines in philanthropic and other support during the current economic downturn,” according to the NEA news release.
The NEA awarded 631 grants, totaling $29,775,000,a s part of the $50 million allotted to the agency from the federal economic stimulus package.
Some 20 nonprofit arts groups in Texas are receiving grants totaling $825,000. See the list here.
In Austin, six groups received a total of $325,000.
Women & Their Work is receiving $25,000 while the Fund for Folk Culture. Motion Media Arts Center, Rude Mechanicals theater collective and Texas Folklife Resources will each receive $50,000. The University of Texas is receiving two $50,000 grants.
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June 25, 2009
UT Butler School of Music hires violinist Anne Akiko Meyers
Another major score for the University of Texas’ Butler School of Music. This fall internationally renowned violinist Anne Akiko Meyers will join the school’s faculty, university officials announced today.
Meyers has earned world-wide recognition as asoloist, chamber musician and recording artist. She’s soloed with orchestras such as the Boston Symphony, London’s Philharmonia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, l’Orchestre de Paris, New York Philharmonic and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra.
‘I am thrilled at the opportunity to work with the incredibly talented faculty and build on the inspiration the Butlers have afforded the University of Texas at Austin,’ said the 39-year-old Meyers. ‘I believe the students and quality of music making will be the talk of the world! I look forward to passing on the traditions that I learned from my mentors and incredible teachers throughout my life.’
And in a great piece of news for the future of Austin’s percolating new music scene, Meyers is an avid champion of contemporary music. She has premiered pieces by, among other noted composers, John Corigliano, Jennifer Higdon, Olivier Messiaen, Arvo Part, Manuel Maria Ponce and Ezequiel Vinao.
Meyers most recent recording — ‘Smile’ (Koch International) — features a boundaring-busting program that includes Schubert’s Fantasie, Op. 159, Arvo Part’s Spiegel im Spiegel, the U.S. premiere of the Messiaen’e Fantasie and tango great Piazzolla’s Introduction et Angel and Milonga en Re “Tango.” Also on the CD are a pair of ethereal arrangements of traditional Japanese folk songs, Kojo no Tsuki (Moonlight Over the Ruined Castle) and Haru no Umi (Sea in Spring). And to finish off its eclectic and forward-thinking offering, the CD also has a very intimate renditions of ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ as well as Charlie Chaplin’s ‘Smile.’ Sweet.
Meyers played the program in recital in Austin this April at UT.
Here’s Myers with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestr playing Bruch’s Scottish Fantasy, Leonard Slatkin conducting:
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June 4, 2009
Austin Museum of Art makes cuts to budget, staff
Responding to an across-the-board dip in private and corporate donations, the Austin Museum of Art has made another round of cuts to its operating budget and staff.
Dana Friis-Hansen, the museum’s executive director, said the institution’s budget has been reduced from $3.6 million to $3.45 million, and five full-time positions have been eliminated, leaving 25 employees. Senior staff have also taken a 10 percent salary cut, and all staff will take one-week furloughs.
In January, the museum made a 10 percent cut to budget and staff. “As an organization, we just have to respond to current economic circumstances,” Friis-Hansen said. However he added that there were to be no dramatic restrictions to the museum’s programming.
Museum hours will remain the same but instead of hosting two simultaneous traveling exhibits at its downtown Congress Avenue location, Friis-Hansen said the museum will bring in one traveling exhibit at a time, initiate a new exhibit series that will feature Austin artists and add another series of exhibits that will draw from the museum’s permanent collection and private Austin collections. Friis-Hansen said the museum is also looking to broaden its programming at its historic Laguna Gloria site in West Austin, where exhibits are staged in the 1916 Driscoll Villa and sculpture fills 12-acres of grounds on the shores of Lake Austin.
“We’re trying to do more with less,” Friis-Hansen. “Our donors are giving; it’s just that many of them are only able to give less than they have in previous years.”
People may have cut back on their charitable donations, but they haven’t stopped visiting the museum. Friis-Hansen said that attendance has stayed steady with an annual average of about 75,000 visitors to the museum.
Other arts groups have experienced some cutbacks in recent months, though not as drastic as the museum’s. In February, Grammy-nominated choir Conspirare laid off one senior staff person. At Austin Lyric Opera, senior staff salaries were cut by five percent. “It’s the smaller donations that have been much more sensitive to this economy,” said Kevin Patterson, general director of Austin Lyric Opera. Patterson said his organization was on target to meet its annual budget of $5 million.
Overall, Austin’s arts groups are faring better than many around the country. In March, the the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles — long-recognized as the world’s richest museum — announced that it was cutting its operating budget by 25 percent and slashed its staff by almost 14 percent after its endowment fell to $4.5 billion, down from $6 billion. In Florida, the 51-year-old Orlando Opera ceased operations in April, the sixth professional company in the country to go under or declare bankruptcy in recent months.
Closer to home, at the Dallas Museum of Art, attendance at the blockbuster traveling exhibit “Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs.” which ran from November to May, drew 600,000 visitors, far less than the 1 million the museum had initially projected.
May 27, 2009
TCA announces Texas state poet laureate, musician, artist
he Texas Commission on the Arts announced Tuesday its appointments to the positions of state poet laureate, state musician, state two-dimensional artist and state three-dimensional artist.
The eight appointees named for 2009 and 2010 were selected for the exceptional quality of their work and for their outstanding commitment to the arts in Texas
The 2009 appointees include Texas State Poet Laureate Paul Ruffin of Huntsville, Texas State Musician Willie Nelson of Austin, Texas State Two-Dimensional Artist Rene Alvarado of San Angelo and Texas State Three-Dimensional Artist Eliseo Garcia of Dallas.
The 2010 appointees include Texas State Poet Laureate Karla K. Morton of Denton, Texas State Musician Sara Hickman of Austin, Texas State Two-Dimensional Artist Marc Burckhardt of Austin and Texas State Three-Dimensional Artist John Bennett of Fredericksburg.
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May 14, 2009
Austin Critics' Table Awards nominations announced
Austin Shakespeare’s production of “An Ideal Husband,” Dan Welcher’s Symphony No. 5 and the Blanton Museum of Art exhibit “Birth of the Cool” are just some of many arts events in the past year that have been nominated for an award by the Austin Critics’ Table.
Other nominees announced today include Austin Lyric Opera’s production of ‘The Bat,’ pianist Anton Nel’s solo concert at the Long Center and costume designer Michaele Hite for the UT Butler School of Music production of Duke Ellington’s “Queenie Pie.”
Visual artists Sterling Allen, Heyd Fontenot and Anna Krachey are among those nominated for Outstanding Visual Artist. Those recognized for Outstanding Actor in a Lead Role include Barbara Chisholm, Liz Fisher, Joey Hood, Lauren Lane and Chase Woolridge.
Receiving nominations for Outstanding Original Composition are Austin composers Dries Berghman, Jason Hoogerhyde, Russell Reed and Graham Reynolds.
The informal group of arts critics from the American-Statesman and the Austin Chronicle acknowledges achievement in the arts with its annual awards. Awards are given in various categories for theater, dance, visual art and classical music. This year’s awards ceremony will be at 7 p.m. June 1 at the Cap City Comedy Club, 8120 Research Blvd. Admission is free, and no reservations are required.
For this year’s honorees for the Austin Arts Hall of Fame, go here.
May 8, 2009
Hideout Theatre comedy team buys itself, sorta
What to do when the lease to the theater you’ve been using for years is threatened with closure, when the owners of the business title and lease to the place just want to roll-up the show for good?
Buy it yourself.
That’s what a team of improv comedians have done with the Hideout Theatre, the popular yet intimate venue on Congress Avenue. When the owners of the business title decided they wanted out of the biz of running a theater and didn’t seek renewal on the lease, a group of comedians — all of whom started as improve students at the Hideout — did want improvisers do best. They improvised and found a way to buy the rights to Hideout Theatre as well as renew the lease for five years.
That’s clever. And show some business savvy too.
Jessica Arjet, Kareem Badr and Roy Janik are teachers, producers, directors and performers at The Hideout. Arjet is also creator of Austin’s only improv show for kids, Flying Theatre Machine, and Janik and Badhr are founding members of Parallelogramophonograph and co-producers of the Out of Bounds Improv Comedy Festival.
They declined to disclose how much was paid for the rights to the Hideout Theatre name or what the venue rent amount was.
“I don’t think we could have lived with ourselves if we had let the Hideout just go away. It means too much to everyone,” said Badr in a press release.
The group will celebrate its new self-ownership June 5 with a party and show.
In the meantime, the Hideout folks are reprising their popular ‘Improvised Shakespeare’ every Saturday at 8 p.m. in May and June.
See www.hideouttheatre.com for more information.
Image: Roy Janik, Jessica Arjet and Kareem Badr.
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May 7, 2009
Blanton Museum names Ned Rifkin, former Smithsonian Under Secretary of Art, as its new director
Ned Rifkin, former Under Secretary for Art at the Smithsonian Institution, has been named the new director the University of Texas’ Blanton Museum of Art, university officials announced Thursday.
Rifkin, 59, replaces Jesse Otto Hite who retired in 2008 after 30 years with the museum. With Rifkin’s appointment, the Blanton Museum will move from the College of Fine Arts and report to the UT Provost’s office.
The university’s Ransom Center, a rare book and manuscript library and museum, also reports to the provost’s office.
Rifkin will also will hold the position of full professor of art and art history and hold the position as special advisor to UT president William Powers.
At the Smithsonian, Rifkin served as the top administrator overseeing eight art museums, a position he held from 2004 to 2008. During his tenure at the Smithsonian, Rifkin oversaw the renovation of an historic building for the American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery. He had previously been director and chief curator at the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum after serving as director of Houston’s Menil Collection from 2000 to 2002 and the High Museum in Atlanta from 1991 to 1999.
Rifkin received a bachelor’s degree from Syracuse University and a master’s and doctoral degrees in art history form the University of Michigan.
A champion of contemporary art and public art, Rifkin organized a major exhibit of the work of minimalist painter Agnes Martin while he was director of the Menil. When he was director of the Hirshhorn, Rifkin commissioned conceptual artist Olafur Eliasson to reconceive the entrance to the historic museum building by shifting the front entrance to a different side of the building.
“I’m interested in all contemporary creativity,” Rifkin told an interviewer last year. “Art is a part of culture. Culture is what we make collectively. Artists are a kind of beacon.”
Photo courtesy Smithsonian Institution.
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May 4, 2009
Robyn O'Neil wins $50,000 Hunting Art Prize
Kingswood, Texas painter Robyn O’Neil has won the $50,000 Hunting Art Prize for her drawing “A death, a fall, a march: toward a better world.”
The prize was announced Saturday night in Houston.
O’Neil’s drawing was selected from 129 final juried participants each of whom had been selected for a single two-dimensional painting and drawing.
O’Neil has exhibited at Whitney Museum in New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; ArtPace, San Antonio.
Here in Austin, O’Neil’s work has been seen at Arthouse and at the Blanton Museum of Art which has her work in its permanent collection. The Hunting Prize is limited to two-dimensional paintings and drawings. No printmaking, photography, collage, assemblage, sculpture, relief, found object, or computer-generated works. It is open by self—submission to amateur and established artists in Texas who are 18 years of age or older.
Twenty artists from Central Texas were named finalists.
The award is given annually by Hunting PLC, an international oil services company. The awards parameters changed to a Texas focus when Hunting moved its North American headquarters are to Houston after a quarter-century in the United Kingdom.
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April 15, 2009
Gina Ducloux: 1923-2009, with husband helped found Austin Lyric Opera
Austin Lyric Opera announced today the passing of Gina Rifino Ducloux, wife of Austin Lyric Opera co-founder, the late Walter Ducloux.
Gina Ducloux passed on April 15 in Newport Beach, California. No cause of death was given.
Walter Ducloux co-found Austin Lyric Opera along with Joseph McClain.
“Our thoughts are with the family and friends of this Austin icon,” said general firector Kevin Patterson. “Unfortunately I never had the chance to meet Mrs. Ducloux but I’ve heard nothing but wonderful stories about her days with our company and we’re indebted to her and Walter for their generous contributions to ALO and our city.”
Born June 24, 1923, in New Jersey to Carlo and Rose Rifino, Ducloux excelled as a student, musician, singer, pianist, accordionist, linguist and teacher. Growing up, she won numerous scholarships, and began giving operatic vocal recitals as a teenager. Along with her siblings, Al and Anita, she would perform regularly at local events as an accordion trio.
Ducloux attended the University of New Hampshire on voice scholarship, where, as a freshman she met a dashing young professor (and assistant conductor to the NBC Symphony) from Switzerland, Walter Ducloux. They were married 53 years before his death in 1997.
After World War II, the Duclouxs moved to Prague, Czechoslovakia, where they lived from 1945-1948. During this time, they performed throughout Europe in various opera productions, he as conductor and she as a soprano.
They lived in New York in 1948-1954, while Walter served as musical director of the Voice of America. In 1954, they moved to Los Angeles where Walter became head of the University of Southern California symphony and opera departments.
In 1968, at the personal urging of Frank Erwin, the Duclouxs moved to Austin to develop the opera and symphony departments at the University of Texas. In 1986, with the support of the community, they co-founded the Austin Lyric Opera along with Joseph McClain.
Gina Ducloux was a voice teacher and vocal coach, and her high school students regularly took top prizes in UIL vocal competitions. She was regularly invited to teach foreign language musical diction at various conventions, including the annual summer Mozart Festival in Salzburg, Austria, where she taught as recently as 2004.
She is survived by her children, Denise (Dede) Brink, of Newport Beach, California, and Dede’s husband Howard; Claude and wife, Susan; and Philip and wife, Summer; and grandchildren, Simone (and husband Zachary Miner), Christopher, Daniel, Dominique, and Zoe.
An Austin memorial and celebration of her life will be held in Austin at a future date. Memorial gifts may be made to The Austin Lyric Opera Gina Ducloux Memorial Fund.
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April 2, 2009
City council to weigh street closure rules
The City of Austin has proposed new rules about closing streets for races, parades, arts festivals and other big events. And today at 6 p.m. the council is scheduled to consider a change to street closure rules that would prevent arts events like Art City Austin and First Night Austin from occupying Cesar Chavez Street.
Read a recent American-Statesman story about the issues.
See the city council agenda item and supporting documents here.
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March 31, 2009
Mayoral and City Council candidate forum on the arts
Don’t forget Wednesday’s public forum with the candidates for Austin City Council and Mayor will meet with Austin arts supporters as part of an open forum, this Wednesday, April 1 at 7 p.m. at the Paramount Theatre.
No April foolin’ either.
Be there, or don’t be complaining that your voice is never heard.
A roster of major arts organizations — Arthouse, Austin Lyric Opera, AustinM useum of Art, Austin Symphony Orchestra, Ballet Austin, Austin Theatre Alliance, Conspirare, KMFA, The Long Center, Paramount & State Theatre Company and Zach Theatre — have come together to ask the candidates to speak about arts issues.
Up for election May 9 are council places 2, 5 and 6 and the mayor’s slot.
Invited to the forum are Mayoral candidates David Buttross, Josiah James Ingalls, Carole Keeton Strayhorn, Lee Leffingwell, Brewster McCracken and City Council candidates Perla Cavazos, Sheryl Cole, Mike Martinez, Sam Osemene, Jose Quintero, Chris Riley, and Bill Spelman.
The forum will be moderated by the Honorable Betty Dunkerley
7 p.m. April 1
Paramount Theatre, 713 Congress Ave.
FREE
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March 16, 2009
Craig Hella Johnson spikes Waterloo sales records
Conspirare founder Craig Hella Johnson broke Waterloo Records release week sales records last week with his new CD, ‘Thorns On The Rose. In less than two hours, 341 CDs were sold at the in-store signing party.
Produced by Michael Hynes of Austin’s Hideout Studios, ‘Thorns’ features Johnson in collaboration with Austin musicians. Eliza Gilkyson, Bukka Allen, Kim Deschamps, Andre Moran and Michael Hynes on pop, folk ballads and art songs with covers of Bob Dylan, Billy Jo Shaver, Eliza Gilkyson and four new Craig Hella Johnson originals set to the poems of Emily Dickinson and Tagore.
You can preview ‘Thorns on the Rose’ here.
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March 14, 2009
UT commissions a mural from Shepard Fairey, Obama "Hope" poster artist
Shepard Fairey, the street artist best known for his now-iconic “Hope” campaign poster of Barack Obama, has been commissioned by the University of Texas at Austin’s Landmarks public art program to create a mural on the exterior of the Art Building at the corner of 23rd Street and San Jacinto Boulevard.
The artist’s team will install Fairey’s original composition beginning at 2 p.m. Thursday. The public is invited to show up and watch the mural be installed. Likely it will one Fairey’s signature multi-layered images that feature counter-culture heroes in a retro-like propaganda style.
The Los Angeles-based Fairey won’t commit, however, to be at UT himself to the see mural go up. Although his Obama poster now hangs in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., Fairey currently faces multiple vandalism charges in Boston for pasting his work on public and private property. Also, the Associated Press has recently accused Fairey of unfair appropriation of their copyrighted photograph for the “Hope” poster.
Still, it’s widely rumored that Fairey will be in Austin during SXSW. And if he is in town, he’s likely to be postering around town. Fairey’s can also be seen here next week in the exhibit “New Brow: The Rise of Underground Art.”
Born in 1970, Fairey received his bachelor of arts degree from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1992. While still in art school the skateboard-obsessed Fairey started making defiant images on stickers that he plastered in public spaces.
One of his earliest street campaigns was the “Obey Giant,” referencing Andre the Giant, the professional wrestler. The simple black and white image with “obey” across the bottom soon appeared in cities across the country on posters and stickers.
“The sticker has no meaning but exists only to cause people to react, to contemplate and search for meaning in the sticker,” reads the Obey campaign manifesto. “Because OBEY has no actual meaning, the various reactions and interpretations of those who view it reflect their personality and the nature of their sensibilities.”
The Obey Giant campaign still continues.
And despite his own run-ins with copyright infringement, last year Fairey had his attorneys send a cease-and-desist order to Austin graphic artist Baxter Orr who did his own take on Fairey’s work, creating an image called Protect, with the iconic Obey Giant face covered by a respiratory mask.
Fairey’s work is included in the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego.
The artist’s first museum survey, “Shepard Fairey: Supply & Demand,” is currently on view at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston. To complement this exhibition, he installed an ephemeral mural for Tufts University Art Gallery, Boston.
March 13, 2009
Prokofiev to play SXSW
Yes, you read that headline right.
Gabriel Prokoviev — grandson of famed Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev — a 34-year-old London-based composer and producer, is hosting a showcase for his Nonclassical record label March 21 at the Tap Room.
With the Elysian Quartet laptop, violin- and-laptap duo John Matthias and Nick Ryan along with a lineup of Austin’s best indie classical musicians, Prokoviev will present a version of his monthly classical club nights that mixes live classically-based music with DJ’d electronica.
Have a listen here.
Prokofiev has been presenting his ‘Nonclassical’ club nights for 16 months in London to ever-increasing buzz.
Prokofiev, you see, is breaking musical boundaries, much like his grandfather. (Gabriel is at peace with the inevitable references. (“It is who I am,” says Gabriel. “But everyone wants to be judged on their own merits and not be the subject to unnecessary comparisons.”)
His own two releases on his Nonclassical label — String Quartet No. 1 and String Quartet No. 2, both played by the Elysian Quartet — bust far past any expected hybrid or crossover style. Ethereal and intelligent, the captivating quartets are followed by remixes of each of the four movements. And in an appropriate spirit of collaboration, Prokoviev shares the remix possibilities with other DJs.
Though he studied composition, electro-acoustic music and ethno-musicology at university, Prokofiev at first shunned the classical musical world, instead following the popular instincts he had since, well, see he was a wee young thing.
“I feel like contemporary classical music has gotten overly academic and overly analytical and it’s totally forgotten how much it should try and interact with everyday contemporary cultural,” said Prokofiev by phone Thursday from his London home. “Before, composers used to readily draw on folk music or popular music. And they appropriated that music because it was great and it had a good energy and it was fresh.”
This isn’t his first visit to SXSW. He and his electro-punk band Spektrum played in 2007.
“It feels like the timing is just right,” says Prokofiev of the SXSW showcase. “Austin has the right vibe and (our gig) will feel like any other live band showcase.”
Image: The Elysian Quartet with Gabriel Prokofiev (center). Photo by Maja Flink.
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March 11, 2009
Austin Museum of Art announces a few changes
The Austin Museum of Art has announced several organizational changes.
From an official release:
“I’m proud to announce the promotion of Judith Sims to Senior Director of Education,” said Dana Friis-Hansen, AMOA Executive Director. “In addition, AMOA will begin the search for a new Chief Curator. Both of these changes will allow the Museum to better focus on serving its varied audiences through strengthened education and exhibition programs.”
Sims has served as the Director of the AMOA-Art School for the last thirty-five years and brings a tremendous wealth of knowledge and experience to the position. During her tenure with the Museum, Sims has created innovative programming and outreach including film and video, spearheaded three successful renovations at Laguna Gloria, and served as the Executive Producer of a statewide PBS television series The Territory for the past 25 years. Sims’ new role will unite The Art School and the Education Departments. In conjunction with this promotion, AMOA will also begin the search for a new Chief Curator.
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March 10, 2009
Headed to Auditorium Shores for SXSW? Expect parking problems
If you plan to hit the free SXSW showcases at Auditorium Shores March 20 and March 21, plan ahead for parking congestion.
With the Austin Symphony Orchestra playing atthe Long Center March 20 and 21, and the Spa Show at thePalmer Events Center, the Palmer/Long Center garage will be reserved for ticketholders for those two events from 1-8:30 p.m. on both days.
According to an Austin Symphony representative, traffic signs and DPS will send all SXSW parkers to One Texas Center Garage, at S. First St. and Barton Springs Road (Cost: $7). Shuttles will also be made available with stops at the Austin Convention Center on Trinity and the Convention Center parking garage on E. Second St.
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March 4, 2009
Horton Foote: 1916-2009
Texas playwright and screenwriter Horton Foote has died, the AP reported today.
A master storyteller and native of Wharton, Texas, Foote chronicled the human experience through the lens of the ordinary people who populated the small town America in such “The Trip to Bountiful,” “Tender Mercies” and his Oscar-winning screen adaptation of “To Kill a Mockingbird.”
In all, his scripts earned him a Pulitzer Prize and two Academy Awards.
Although Foote left Wharton when he was 16, he kept the family home and in many ways, never left artistically. His plays and screenplays focused on the misleading pull of nostalgia.
“My first memory was of stories about the past — a past that, according to the storytellers, was superior in every way to the life then being lived,” Foote wrote in 1988. “It didn’t take me long, however, to understand that the present was all we had, for the past was gone and nothing could be done about it.”
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February 23, 2009
People's Choices exhibit winners at Austin City Hall
The people have chosen.
“Buba at Barton Springs” a photograph by artist Roy Mata is the winner of 2008 People’s Choice Award from the annual People’s Gallery exhibit at Austin City Hall. The winner was announced Friday at the opening of the 2009 People’s Gallery exhibit.
‘Buba at Barton Springs,’ Roy Mata. 2003/
Each year, a purchase is made from the People’s Gallery annual exhibition of work by more than 100 Austin artists to build a permanent collection of art for City Hall. Each year, the public is invited to recommend art pieces for the purchase. Mata decided to forego any payment from the city for his artwork which was priced at $100.
And in an interesting development, Zach Booth Simpson interactive video piece “Elevator Goblins” was also elected for the People’s choice. But because of the high price tag of the complex artwork — said to be upwards of $20,000 — the city couldn’t afford to purchase it.
However given that the “Elevator Goblins” was so popular, Simpson offered to loan City Hall “Elevator Dragonflies,” another interactive projection piece that “lives” on the first floor elevator entrance. “Elevator Dragonflies” — which uses infared lights — will be buzzing elevator riders at City Hall for the remainder of 2009.
You can see a video Dragonflies here.

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February 18, 2009
Hunting Art Prize finalists announced
A total of 134 Texas artists have been selected to move on to the final round of judging in the 2009 Hunting Art Prize, Hunting PLC, the Houston-based oil services company that grants the award announced today.
The $50,000 prize — a bit of a curiosity in the Lone Star State art world — is open to established, emerging, or amateur artists that are residents of the State of Texas and who are at least 18 years of age or older. Only paintings or drawings can qualify and an artist can only submit one work. No prints, photographs, collages, sculpture, found object assemblages or computer-generated works
The award came to Texas in 2006 from the UK when Hunting PLC moved its corporate headquarters. This year’s winner will be announced at a gala in Houston on May 2. Previous winners Wendy Wagner, Michael Tole and Francesca Fuchs.
Among the finalists are 20 artists from the Central Texas area:
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Luis Abreu, Austin
Andrew Anderson, Austin
Heyd Fontenot, Austin
Joshua Kight, Austin
Ashe Laughlin, Austin
David Leonard, Austin
Suzanne Lewis, Austin
Katie Maratta, Austin
Erick Michaud, Austin
Skip Noah, Austin
David Ohlerking, Austin
Anna Marie Pavlik, Austin
Ellen Tanner, Austin
Krutie Thakkar, Austin
Leanne Venier, Austin
Matthew Winters, Austin
Carol Grigsby, Bastrop
Kathleen Holder, Buda
Randolph Nesbitt, Round Rock
Yuko Fukuzumi, San Marcos
Keith Sanders, Wimberley
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February 11, 2009
Austin Wind Symphony joins 'Orchestras Feeding America'
A little orchestra does good. One of Austin’s smaller and newer orchestras is the first in the area to join an important national hunger relief campaign.
Austin Wind Symphony will participate in Orchestras Feeding America, the first national food drive sponsored by America’s symphony orchestras.
The food drive — to take place in March and April — is organized by the League of American Orchestras, which represents the nation’s professional, volunteer and youth orchestras.
To date, over 160 orchestras have come together to combat hunger in their communities through Orchestras Feeding America. Austin Wind Symphony is the only Austin orchestra so far to participate in the program.
Volunteers will collect non-perishable food donations at the Austin Wind Symphony’s performance on March 26 at the Monarch Event Center.
The national food drive is inspired by the true story depicted in the upcoming film “The Soloist.” The movie is based on the story of the friendship between Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez and Nathaniel Ayers, a gifted Juilliard-trained string player whose mental illness landed him homeless on the streets. Starring Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey Jr., the film is due for release April 24.
“I am very inspired by the number of people coming together during this time of need for so many people,” said Austin Wind Symphony Vice President Shelly Eager in a released statemen. “So often as musicians we are speaking through the music, telling stories, and teaching valuable lessons. This was our opportunity to step outside of the music, and truly make a difference.”
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February 9, 2009
Austin Symphony Orchestra names new executive director
Austin Symphony Orchestra has named Galen Wixson as the organization’s new executive director. Wixson is currently serving as executive director of the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra. He begins his job March 16..
Wixson will be in charge of all daily business operations of ASO supervising marketing, public relations, policy development and fundraising. Peter Bay remains music director.
Wixson is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz School of Public Policy and Management with a Master of Arts Management degree. He also holds Bachelor and Master of Music degrees in Cello Performance from Wichita State University.
His previous positions include executive director for the Symphony of Southeast Texas, Reno Philharmonic, Manhattan Center for the Arts and the American String Teachers Association.
Previous executive director Jim Reagan retired in 2007.
Galen Wixon.
February 8, 2009
Conspirare misses out on Grammy
Austin choral group Conspirare missed out on a Grammy Award today, the second time around that the group has been nominated.
Conspriare’s CD “Threshold of Night: Music of Tarik O’Regan” was nominated for Best Choral Performance and Best Classical Album.
Winning for Best Choral Performance was “Symphony Of Psalms,” with Sir Simon Rattle, conductor and Simon Halsey, chorus master (Berliner Philharmoniker; Rundfunkchor Berlin
Winning Best Classical Album was “Weill: Rise And Fall Of The City Of Mahagonny (Los Angeles Opera Chorus and Los Angeles Opera Orchestra).
Conspirare’s next round of concerts in Austin comes Feb. 28 and March 1.
Rachmaninov Vespers, 8 p.m. Feb. 28 Regarded as the crowning achievement of the “Golden Age” of Russian Orthodox sacred music, as well as one of the greatest works of choral music ever written.
‘American Songs & Spirituals,’ 2:30 p.m. March 1 Back by popular demand, this concerts includes such favorites as “Shenandoah,” “Deep River” and Moses Hogan’s glorious arrangements of African-American spirituals.
Both concerts are at St. Martin’s Lutheran Church 606 W. 15th St. Tickets $26, $36 and $46 (Half-price tickets for youth, ages 6-17).
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February 7, 2009
A rarity: Ellington's 'Sacred Concert'
Pencil it in: On Feb. 22, Austin audiences will get the relatively rare chance to hear Duke Ellington’s “Sacred Concerts” when Austin Chamber Music Center joins forces with Huston-Tillotson University to present selections from the three sweeping musical works that the jazz maestro himself called the most important music he had ever written.
The free concert is at 3 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 22 in the King-Seabrook Chapel at Huston-Tillotson Univ., 900 Chicon St. That’s right, the concert is free.
In the last years of his life, between 1965 and 1973, the jazz genius Ellington composed three massive works he called the ‘Sacred Concerts.’ They were performed in cathedrals and churches around the world. Based on Ellington’s own astute spiritual writings, the concerts are sprawling collections of songs and suites that juxtapose gospel music with jazz, classical music, spirituals, blues, choral music and even dance and oratory.
But because of the sheer scale of the ‘Sacred Concerts’ — they require huge choruses, ensembles of musicians, dancers, solo singers — they have rarely been performed in a grand scale since Ellington’s death in 1974. Also complicating things, the scores were never published in a definitive version.
ACMC artistic director Michelle Schumann has worked for several years now to assemble the kind of collaborators to mount a Schumann’s teamed up with Texas State Univ. prof Keith Winking who will lead a big band. Soprano Gloria Quinlan, Huston-Tillotson music professor and director of choirs, will solo and lead the Huston-Tillotson Concert Choir.
The Feb. 22 concert promises to stunning, accomplished — and moving. Ellington himself wrote expressively in the program notes for the first ‘Sacred Concert.”
“As I travel from place to place by car, bus, train, plane … taking rhythm to the dancers, harmony to the romantic, melody to the nostalgic, gratitude to the listener … receiving praise, applause and handshakes, and at the same time, doing the thing I like to do, I feel that I am most fortunate because I know that God has blessed my timing, without which no thing could have happened—the right time or place or with the right people. The four must converge. Thank God … .
… In this program, you may hear a wide variety of statements without words, and I think you should know that if it is a phrase with six tones, it symbolizes the six syllables in the first four words of the Bible, “In the beginning God,” which is our theme. We say it many times … many ways.”
[The Duke Ellington Reader, ed. Mark Tucker (Oxford University Press, 1993)]
February 6, 2009
Rude Mechs grow new Shoot
Congratulations to Austin theater collective Rude Mechs. They’ve raised $80,000 toward the creation of a new home for Grrl Action, the Rude’s writing and performance program for teenage girls.
The Rudes have secured 1,400-square-feet of warehouse space adjacent to their current East Austin venue, the Off Center, to transform into the Off Shoot, a dedicated space for Grrl Action participants to research, write and rehearse for performances and to create their multi-disciplinary year-round projects. It will include a studio space with sound and light equipment, desks, lockers, seating and a resource lab with video and computer equipment, and a library.
A recent gift of $40,000 from The Laos House—Center for Personal Learning brings the campaign closer to finishing in time for the 10th anniversary class of Grrl Action beginning July 2009.
Local architectural designer Nicole Blair, of Studio 512, is providing her services pro bono to realize the design. She has enlisted local contractor Ramirez Homes, Inc to oversee the project.Also providing support for the Off Shoot are Impact Austin, The Meadows Foundation, Austin Community Foundation and Dollar General Corporation.
Go girls!
A room of her own: before. Raw warehouse space waiting for renovation.
A room of her own: after. Designer Nicole Blair’s plan to tranform warehouse space into a workshop for Grrl Action.
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February 4, 2009
Blanton gala nets $2.325 million in donations, tickets sales
Saturday night’s gala at the Blanton Museum of Art welcomed more than 450 guests who fashionably partied in honor of museum namesake and donor Jack S. Blanton.
Beyond the impressive $600,000 in ticket sales, the gala and celebration of Blanton was also cause for announcing some $1,025,000 in gifts to the museum’s $40 million endowment.
The children of Jack Blanton — Eddy and Kelli Blanton, Jack Jr. and Leslie Blanton, Elizabeth Blanton Wareing and Peter Wareing — donated $1 million in their father’s honor, with the monies going to the Blanton’s endowment campaign. The LBJ Family Foundation donated $25,000.
The Blanton also raised $275,000 in in-kind support from corporate sponsors for the event.
Making the biggest visual splash of the evening were the two arts works unveiled. Donated by contemporary collectors and Blanton supporters Jeanne and Michael Klein, a massive site-specific installation by Macarthur “genius grant” award-winner Teresita Fernandez and an untitled wall sculpture by Ghanan artist El Anatsui. The two piece together are valued at $700,000.
El Anatsui, Untitled, 2007, Copper, aluminum, 144 x 195 inches, Promised gift of Jeanne and Michael Klein.
Always visionary in their taste in art, the Kleins took the forward step of commissioning Fernandez to create something that could aesthetically defuse the Blanton’s massive white atrium. Fernandez succeeded brilliantly. “Stacked Water” makes an invigorating yet sublime statement as visitors enter the museum. It encourages thoughtful looking — exactly the mindset needed for a satisfying museum experience.
Teresita Fernandez, “Stacked Waters.” 2009. Gift of Jeanne and Michael Klein.
Teresita Fernandez, “Stacked Waters.” 2009. Gift of Jeanne and Michael Klein.
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Council, mayoral candidates to meet with arts groups
Pencil it in: Candidates for the Austin City Council and Mayor will meet with Austin arts supporters as part of an open forum on April 1.
No April foolin’ either.
A roster of major arts organizations — Arthouse, Austin Lyric Opera, AustinMuseum of Art, Austin Symphony Orchestra, Ballet Austin, AustinTheatreAlliance, Conspirare, KMFA, The Long Center, Paramount & State Theatre Company and Zach Theatre — have come together to ask the candidates to speak about arts issues.
Up for election May 9 are council places 2, 5 and 6 and the mayor’s slot.
The forum will be moderated by the Honorable Betty Dunkerley
7 p.m. April 1
Paramount Theatre, 713 Congress Ave.
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Kennedy Center sets up crisis line for arts managers
The Kennedy Center is amping up its national role moving beyond being a performing arts center. Beyond hosting performances, sponsoring theater festivals, competitions and otherwise serving as the nation’s theater, the center has initiated a new program to share its management experience with struggling performing arts organizations across the country.
Announced yesterday, “Arts in Crisis: A Kennedy Center Initiative” is an online support service through which arts administrators from non-profit theaters, dance companies and music groups around the country can seek advice from the Kennedy Center’s personnel on issues such fundraising and audience development.
The program’s Web site explains that it will provide information “pertinent to maintaining a vital performing arts organization during a troubled economy.” Assistance — which is free — will be provided mainly through e-mails, telephone calls and Web chats.
“These are times of economic crisis and as the nation’s center for the performing arts, we wish to help,” said Kennedy Center President Michael M. Kaiser in an official statement. “If any arts organization in the United States believes we can assist, the senior staff of the Kennedy Center and I offer our collective skills. We are at your service.”
Kaiser is the author of “The Art of the Turnaround: Creating and Maintaining Healthy Arts Organizations.”
The initiative also asks that administrators at successful arts organization get involved as mentors.
“There are many talented arts administrators around the country and we encourage them to lend their expertise,” said Kaiser. “If all of us work together, we can turn a time of crisis into a time of opportunity.”
Kaiser told the Washington Post yesterday, “I’m worried that people are cutting the wrong things first, and that makes it much harder to compete for funding,” he said. “Those who cut the programming first wouldn’t look as attractive to the funders.”
Kaiser also cited the president’s recent call to community service as reason for creating the program. “This is in the spirit of President Obama saying we have to volunteer and get involved,” Kaiser told the Post.
The new program received $500,000 from two individual donors.
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January 28, 2009
Arts education gets a boost from Texas legislators
Some readers of this blog may have missed an article that ran in our pages yesterday about efforts from Texas lawmakers to re-institute fine arts education into the Texas education system.
Senate Education Committee Chairwoman Florence Shapiro, R-Plano and Rep. Rob Eissler, R-The Woodlands, hosted author Dan Pink, author of “A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future,” in a session Monday urging a discussion of how fine arts education might be melded into the core curriculum.
Read the story here.
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January 23, 2009
UTPAC names new director
Kathleen Panoff, director of the Modlin Center for the Arts at the University of Richmond, has been named the director of the University of Texas’ Performing Arts, UT officials will announce later today.
Panoff replaces Pebbles Wadsworth who retired last year. Panoff will work part-time this spring with the PAC staff until she assumes full-time duties this summer. She has more than two decades experience as an arts administrator. In addition to having served as managing director of the Cincinnati Playhouse, she was a development officer for the Celebrity Series of Boston and WGUC-FM, Fine Arts Public Radio in Cincinnati and owned a private consultancy in fundraising.
A practicing flutist, she received her bachelor’s and masters in music from Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music.
The UTPAC today re-opens its flagship venue, the Bass Concert Hall, after an 18-month $14.5 million renovation.
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January 22, 2009
2009 Texas Medal of Arts Awards announced
The late artist Robert Rauschenberg, country singer Clint Black, photographer Keith Carter and author T.R. Fehrenbach are just some of the Texans honored with 2009 Texas Medal of Arts Awards.
The biennial awards are given by the Texas Cultural Trust in celebration of those individuals and organizations who have contributed to the Lone Star State’s cultural landscape.
The other honorees are actress Betty Buckley, pianist and arts educator James Dick, Dallas arts patron Edith O’Donnell and the San Antonio architecture firm of Lake Flato. KLRU’s “Austin City Limits” show was named for the multimedia award. Anheuser-Busch Corporation was honored for as a corporate patron.
Award winners will be honored at ceremony and show at the Long Center April 7.
Past Texas Medal of Arts winners include Tommy Tune, Van Cliburn, Debbie Allen, Charley Pride, Willie Nelson. Bill Whitliff and Lyle Lovett.
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January 15, 2009
Austin Lyric Opera announces 2009-2010 season
Austin Lyric Opera announces their 2009-2010 season today — and welcomes to two operas into its repertoire to boot.
Undoubtedly the sprarkliest production on ALO’s lineup is the surreal Glimmerglass Opera production of Emmanuel Chabrier’s ‘L’Etoile.’
‘L’Etoile,’ Jan. 30-Feb. 7, 2010 at ALO.
Chabrier’s operatta is filled with witty tunes and clever dialogue, a confection of a piece that pokes fun at society’s mores and class snobbery with plenty of outrageous slapstick. But it’s also a slyly sharp satire as well, despite its zany plot that revolves around a kind named Ouf who loves to impale things (well, people) and a peddler named Lazuli who pines for Ouf’s beloved, Princess Laoula.
Sung in French with dialogue in English, this production features acid-hued sets, outrageous props and hyper-stylized costumes. Jean-Paul Fouchecourt plays Ouf with Deborah Domanski as Lazuli and Nili Reimer as Princess Laoula. Richard Buckley conducts.
‘L’Etoile,’ Jan. 30-Feb. 7, 2010 at ALO.
Also new to the ALO repertoire is Humperdinck’s ‘Hansel and Gretel,’ next season presented in an edgy production by the New York City Opera.
Yes, Humperdinck’s opera is based on the familiar fairy tale, but with this inventive — and dark — staging, the story is set in 1893 New York when the city was teeming with immigrants. And fraught with fear. Hansel and Gretel live in a gritty Lower East Side tenement and when they wander in search of food, they end up in a snowy Central Park. The witch? She lives in a sumptuous Fifth Avenue mansion.
Also a first for ALO, countertenor Jason Abrams will sing the role of the Sandman. Abrams will be the first countertenor featured in an ALO production and I look forward to that ethereal countertenor sound he’ll bring to the role.
“Hansel and Gretel,” April 24-May, 2010 at ALO.
Opening the ALO season is Puccini’s ‘Boheme.’ A production of San Diego Opera, this show is probably the most traditional telling of Puccini’s tragedy of bohemian Paris — remember, it’s the origin of the Broadway musical ‘Rent’ — that Austin has seen. This ‘Boheme’ is set in 19th-century France, awash in Toulouse-Lautrec visual references.
‘La Boheme’ Nov. 7-11, 2009 at ALO.
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January 6, 2009
Patron pledges $1 million to the Austin Symphony Orchestra
Austin arts patron James C. Armstrong has pledged $1 million to the Austin Symphony Orchestra’s education programs, symphony officials announced Tuesday.
The monies will be used in an endowment to support the symphony’s youth programs. Armstrong has been a longtime supporter of the symphony’s Young People’s Concerts which bring fourth and fifth graders to the special 45-minute orchestra concerts. The concert feature music the children have heard all year at school via study guides designed and published by ASO.
A steady supporter of youth arts programs, Armstrong has also donated to the Austin Lyric Opera, Ballet Austin, Austin Museum of Art and Zach Theatre, among other arts organizations. Austin Lyric Opera’s Armstrong School of Music is named in his honor.
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January 2, 2009
Austin Museum of Art cancels downtown project
While revelers and arts patrons were busy preparing for New Year’s Eve festivities, the Austin Museum of Art quietly dropped a ball of its own Wednesday. Talk about finishing up 2008 with a bang — or really, a bust.
Museum officials and representatives of Houston development firm Hines Interests LP announced Wednesday that they were postponing their plans to build a 30-story office tower and a new $23 million Austin Museum of Art facility downtown on the museum-owned block at West Fourth and Guadalupe streets. Both the museum and Hines cited the grim economic climate as the reason the project is on hold.
Did they think no one was looking, announcing it New Year’s Eve? Well, we were.
Plans had called for the museum to occupy the east half of the prime downtown block with a three-story 40,000-square-foot building facing Republic Square Park. Hines was going to purchase — for an undisclosed sum — the west side of the lot for its office tower. Both the tower and the museum were to be designed by Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects, the firm is responsible for the master plan of the redesigned University of Texas campus, with principal Fred Clarke leading the design team. Preliminary designs were unveiled in February and suggested that the museum would be clean modernist structure featuring plenty of transparent glass.
The project had been scheduled to break ground in 2009 and with completion slated for 2011.
Representatives of the museum and Hines both say the project is merely postponed, not altogether canceled. But a spokesperson for Hines said the company would not renew an option that expired Wednesday to purchase half of the prime downtown lot which the museum has owned since the early 1980s. The sale of the land to Hines probably would have covered almost half of the $23 million needed to build the museum. And now with no partner anteing up, that leaves the museum flat out of luck — and money. The museum’s board has not decided whether to put the land back on the market.
The museum, by the way, selected Hines after 14 developers submitted proposals.
At 40,000 square feet, the proposed new museum would have more than double the museum’s existing space at 823 Congress Ave., where it rents the first floor of an office building. The museum, which has a $4.3 million annual budget, also has the historical 12-acre Laguna Gloria site in West Austin, which includes a restored 1916 villa that hosts small exhibitions and studio buildings for the museum’s art school.
This is the third time in nearly three decades that the museum and its leaders have tried — and failed — to build a downtown museum.
The first time the museum, then known as Laguna Gloria Art Museum, proposed building in downtown Austin was in the early 1980s. In 1985, voters approved $14.7 million in tax-supported bonds for the project. But the real estate bust of the late 1980s sent the project into a tailspin. Also, bickering among major arts groups caused the City Council to rescind its support of the then public-private venture.
Plans by famed architect Robert Venturi were shelved after $3 million was spent on design and administrative fees.
In 1995, the museum moved to its current location on Congress Avenue and made another bid to build downtown. In 1998, architect Richard Gluckman was selected to design a sleek, modern 140,000-square-foot building. A $64 million capital campaign was launched. At the same time, the museum returned $13.7 million in city bond money after museum leaders said they wanted control of their project and its land.
However, in 2001 museum officials decided to build the project in stages and settled on a $43 million first phase.
But then Austin’s high-tech economy fizzled even more and after the abrupt departure of then-director Elizabeth Ferrer in 2002, supporters of the project retreated. By early 2004, the Gluckman design had been scrapped. Of the $14.25 million the museum had raised for the project, all but $860,000 was spent on architect fees and fundraising and marketing expenses.
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December 19, 2008
Long Center aims to wipe out construction debt
Seems another major arts non-profit is steeling itself against the recession.
A few days ago, Austin Lyric Opera said it was canceling its opulent annual ball, instead reallocating all of the money raised from the annual fete directly toward opera programming and education.
Now, the Long Center for the Performing Arts is giving itself a challenging New Year’s resolution. Center officials announced yesterday that they plan to pay off the center’s construction debt in 2009. The center has already wiped out more than 99 percent of its $77 million debt. The plan is to dispense of the remainder of it early next year, possibly even in time for center’s first anniversary celebration in late March.
The Long Center is owned by the City of Austin, which leases it to the nonprofit organization that raised the money to build it. All of the money raised to build the Long Center came from private sources. No public money was used.
“Operating the Long Center without any construction debt will free up future fundraising to focus solely on a variety of performing arts programs and on keeping the doors of this fine facility open,” Cliff Redd, executive director of the Long Center, said in a statement.
To date, the Long Center has reached about one-third of its goal of $1.9 million in fundraising for 2008-09, Redd said. The center’s 2008-09 budget year ends June 30, 2009. The fundraising goal for 2009-10 has been set at $1.5 million.
“We have gotten ourselves lean and mean to cope with the current economic times,” Paul Beutel, managing director of the Long Center, said. “The financial health of the Long Center is good. We have been taking steps to ensure it remains good.”
Among those steps, Beutel said, is concentrating on shows that sell. “Cirque Dreams Jungle Fantasy” attracted more than 15,500 patrons during its eight-performance run in late November. However, both the David Benoit concert and the “King Operetta,” scheduled for January, were canceled because they were underperforming in ticket sales.
The Long Center has also trimmed its 2008-09 operating expenses by 20 percent. “As the venue has been up and running for nine months, we’ve gotten smarter about how to operate more efficiently and yet still maintain the high level of customer service that audiences and artists expect from the Long Center,” Beutel said.
July 25, 2008
Report from Austin's Conspirare in Copenhagen
Christi Harlan, former Washington correspondent for the Statesman and sister of bass Robert Harlan of Austin-based Conspirare, is traveling with the group in Copenhagen. Here’s her first report:
COPENHAGEN — Austin-based Conspirare took its musical chops to international stages Thursday as the only U.S. choir to perform at the 8th World Symposium on Choral Music.
Under the direction of founder Craig Hella Johnson, Conspirare debuted a jazzy mass by Lithuanian composer Vytautus Miskinis at Copenhagen’s waterside opera house before moving to the imposing and historic Marble Church for a Thursday night program of American music.
With a bouncy Benedictus at the opera house and a haunting Dolly Parton anthem at the Marble Church, Conspirare demonstrated why it was one of 38 choirs to be invited from among 176 applicants from around the world.
“We listened to the tapes and the CDs,” said Steen Lindholm, executive director of the choral symposium. ” This was the program that influenced the judges.”
So Conspirare came to Copenhagen and conquered the stage — if not the herring. But that’s the rest of the story, and the rest of the oily details will be spilled next week …
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June 19, 2008
Update: City Council postpone actions on Zach zoning change
With a packed agenda on its hands, the Austin City Council last night postponed action on a proposed zoning ordinance change that would permit Zachary Scott Theatre to exceed current height limitations when they build a new theater at their West Riverside Dr. and S. Lamar Blvd. site.
Although the council had originally indicated it would discuss the item at 6 p.m, it was until 9:40 p.m. that any discussion began. Action will now by taken on the proposed zoning change at the July 24 council meeting.
As they planned their new 500-seat theater, Zach project managers alerted city staff that the stage house for the new venue would exceed the 60-foot zoning district height limit. Working with city staff, the project managers crafted a detail request to amend the zoning restrictions so that theater could build stage houses that would exceed zoning height limits by 33 percent. The new Zach theater needs a stage house between 75 and 80 feet tall.
But the neighbors squealed. Specifically, the Zilker Neighborhood Association and its president Jeff Jack, objected to the proposed amendment. Though the nearby Barton Place condo project going up on Barton Springs Road is slated to by 75 feet tall, apparently neighbors didn’t want Zach to be able to do the same.
Zach leaders are now working with Jack and the neighborhood association to re-word the request for the zoning amendment per Jack’s demand that the language of the amendment be restricted to Zach and “not be transferrable” to future theater building projects or set any kind of precedent for zoning amendments for future theater building projects.
Of course, there’s no saying what such a restrictive zoning ordinance might mean when, say, the Long Center begins working on its third planned theater.
Read the city background materials here
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June 3, 2008
2007-08 Austin Critics' Table Awards winners
The Austin Critics’ Table handed out it annual awards Monday night at Cap City Comedy Club.
The informal group of arts critics from the American-Statesman and the Austin Chronicle acknowledges achievement in the arts with its annual awards.
THEATRE
Production, Drama “Death and the King’s Horseman,” Mary Moody Northen Theatre/ProArts Collective
Production, Comedy “Full Circle,” Mary Moody Northen Theatre
Production, Musical “Porgy and Bess,” Zachary Scott Theatre Center
Direction Jenny Larson, “Voices Underwater”/”You Are Pretty” Carlos Treviño, Matt Hislope, and Josh Meyer, “A Thought in Three Parts”
Acting in a Leading Role Jill Blackwood, “Carousel”/”Full Circle” Janelle Buchanan, “Doubt” Jude Hickey, “The Pillowman”/”Io: a myth about you” Marc Pouhe, “Death and the King’s Horseman”
Acting in a Supporting Role Ken Bradley, “The Pillowman” Cedric Neal, “Porgy and Bess” Amy Nichols, “The Ultimate Christmas Musical: The Musical!” Angela Rawna, “Doubt”
Ensemble Performance “Fefu and Her Friends,” UT Department of Theatre & Dance
David Mark Cohen New Play Award “Elephant’s Graveyard,” George Brant
Music Direction Lyn Koenning, “Carousel”/”Porgy and Bess”/”Assassins”
Movement Robin Lewis, “Jesuchristo, Superestrella”/”Full Circle”/”Porgy and Bess”/”On the Town”
Touring Show, Theatre “Five in the Morning,” Rotozaza, Fuse Box Festival
DESIGN
Scenic Design Sarah Davidson, “Fefu and Her Friends”/”Assassins”
Costume Design Trenton Doyle Hancock, “Cult of Color: Call to Color”
Lighting Design Tony Tucci, “Carousel”/”Cult of Color: Call to Color”
Sound Design Buzz Moran, “Mud”/”Full Circle”/”Voices Underwater”
Video Design Dutch Rall, “Woman’s Work: Reconstructions of Self”
DANCE
Dance Concert “Cult of Color: Call to Color,” Ballet Austin & “Woman’s Work: Reconstructions of Self,” Andee Scott
Short Work “Soudain L’Hiver Dernier,” Winter Tryst
Choreographer Stephen Mills, “Cult of Color: Call to Color”
Dancer Anthony Casati, “Cult of Color: Call to Color” & Andee Scott, “Woman’s Work: Reconstructions of Self”
Duets Laura Cannon and Nicole Whiteside, “Illuminaton”/”Constellation”
Ensemble “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” Paul Michael Bloodgood, Ashley Lynn, Allisyn Paino, Frank Shott
CLASSICAL MUSIC
Symphonic Performance “Falla: The Three-cornered Hat,” Austin Symphony Orchestra
Chamber Performance “Faces of America: The Dark/Faces of America: The Light,” Miró Quartet “Nobody Like a Show-Off. Well, Maybe Just This Once,” Austin Chamber Music Center
Choral Concert “The Odyssey,” Austin Children’s Choir
Original Composition/Score “The American Nightmare: The Marriage of Church and State - Dark Fantasia on Hymn and Patriotic Tunes,” P. Kellach Waddle
Singer Scot R. Cameron, St. Paul
Instrumentalist William Doppmann, Adams: Phrygian Gates
Touring Classical Chanticleer, St. Cecilia Music Series
Body of Work/Season UT Butler School of Music John Adams series
ART
Museum Exhibition “Mike’s World: Michael Smith & Joshua White (and other collaborators),” Blanton Museum of Art, curator: Annette Carlozzi
Solo Gallery Exhibition “The Book of Lenny: Jonathan Marshall,’ Art Palace
Group Gallery Exhibition “Radical Nautical,” Gallery Lombardi, curators: Ian Schultz, Michael Schiefke, Kevin Peake, Kev Tijerina and Rachel Koper “Serious Fun,” Butridge Gallery, curator: Edith Whitsitt.
Independent Project “I Am _,” Jackie Young and Cybil Gustafson, Art City Austin
Work of Art Note to Self, Jill Pangallo, “New Art in Austin: 20 to Watch”
Gallery, Body of Work Women & Their Work
Artist Jill Pangallo
Touring Show, Art “Jorge Macchi: The Anatomy of Melancholy,” Blanton Museum of Art
SPECIAL CITATIONS John Bustin Award for Conspicuous Versatility: Joe York
W.H. “Deacon” Crain Award for Outstanding Student Work: Kimberley Adams, UT Theatre & Dance; Libby Dees, St. Edward’s University
Control Shift Award: David Justin, for his set changes in the American Repertory Ensemble performances
Bringing It Home Award: Soloists in The Odyssey (David Geyer, Marshall Geyer, Amber Mercado, Christine Ortiz, Caleb Rech, Janie Townsend, Alina Vega, Kayla Watson, and Sean Yi)
Plenty of Somethin’ Award: Greg Bolin, for his arrangements for “Porgy and Bess”
White Knight Award: Cliff Redd
Thanks for the Memories Award: Sharir + Bustamante Danceworks
St. Joan of P’arc Award: Kevin Patterson of Austin Lyric Opera
Past, Present, and Future Award: Arthouse
Infinite Body of Energy Award: David Ohlerking and Austin Figurative Gallery
Permalink | Comments (6) | Categories: Critics Table, News
May 2, 2008
City announces new Long Center parking plan
Assistant City Manager Rudy Garza released a memo Friday detailing a new parking and traffic plan for the Long Center, Palmer Events Center and Auditorium Shores.
Memo on Long Center Parking Meeting (pdf)
Update: Arts on Real loses lease
Arts on Real Theater has lost its lease on the East Austin property it has called home for the past five years.
The venue, at 2826 Real Street, is the permanent home of theater director Blake Yelavich’s Naughty Austin Productions, the primary presenter of shows at the theater.
Gary I. Currier, an attorney with Vack, Kiecke and Currier who is representing the property’s owner, LWR Family Partnership, LP, said Friday that the nonprofit theater organization’s lease was terminated effective May 1 and that his client has taken reposition of the property. Currier said he has been negotiating a renewal of the lease contingent on payment of back rent but that the theater had not made the payment by Thursday. Currier declined to disclose the amount of back rent the owner said was due.
Earlier this week, Yelavich and Arts on Real supporters had sent out a plea for money when a new lease was not offered on the former warehouse.
Catherine Tabor , an attorney with Tabor Law Firm, PC who said she was providing pro bono legal services to Arts on Real, said donors had pledged $15,000 by Wednesday in effort to secure a new lease. Tabor said she had “a small hope” that the property owner would still be open to negotiating new lease terms once the pledges had been collected.
Tabor said that Yelavich had added approximately $30,000 of improvements to the property over the five years he has occupied it.
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April 29, 2008
Arts on Real may lose East Austin home
Arts on Real Theatre may lose the lease on the East Austin property it has called home for the past five years.
The venue, at 2826 Real Street, is the permanent home of theater director Blake Yelavich’s Naughty Austin Productions, which is the primary presenter of shows at the theater.
In an e-mail sent to supporters April 23, Yelavich wrote that “we will be forced to close (our) doors by the end of May if we do not raise $7,500 by the end of April.”
A copy of the lease obtained by the American-Statesman shows that Yelavich was required to pay from $2,480 per month to $3,100 per month for the past 11 months in a graduated rent payment schedule over 60 months. The lease also required that Yelavich pay the taxes on the property.
A statement issued by Gary I. Currier, an attorney with Vack, Kiecke and Currier who is representing the property owner, LWR Family Partnership LP, said that the nonprofit theater organization “was in almost continuous default of the lease by failing to pay its rent on time, wrote several rent checks that were returned for lack of sufficient funds and still owes a considerable sum in back rent to the landlord.”
Currier did not respond to a request asking for the specific amount LWR Famly Partnership was owed by Yelavich.
“In all honesty there have been cash flow problems with the organization,” said Catherine Tabor on Tuesday, an attorney with Tabor Law Firm who said she was providing pro bono legal services to Arts on Real. “All we really want is May, to (have the time to) sort out the numbers and figure out what is owed and to negotiate the next year’s rent,” she said. Tabor said that documents she received Tuesday from Currier revealed that $15,000 was owed by Arts on Real. She said that almost $10,000 has been raised by the organization since last week. She added that Yelavich had added $30,000 of improvements to the property over the five years he has occupied it.
Multiple calls to Yelavich were not returned Tuesday.
Larry Rother, representative of the group that owns the property, referred all questions to lawyer Currier when reached for comment. In the statement from Currier, he said that LWR Family Partnership, “has decided not to extend the lease on the property leased to Arts on Real.”
This is a developing story and updates will be posted.
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Salvage Vanguard Theater announces new leadership
Salvage Vanguard Theater has appointed a new executive director and an interim artistic director to fill the shoes of company founder Jason Neulander, who announced his departure from the nonprofit group last fall.
Here’s the official news release from the theater:
Salvage Vanguard Theater, an Austin theater company founded in 1994, has selected two people to replace founder and Artistic Director Jason Neulander when he steps down on May 30.
Following a four-month national search, SVT has hired Brad Carlin as executive director of the fourteen-year-old company. Jenny Larson, currently SVT’s associate artistic director, will serve as interim artistic director.
“There is genuine excitement on the Board about our future with Brad and Jenny leading the organization,” says SVT board chair Reza Shirazi. “We’re evolving from a founder-driven company to a full-fledged Austin arts institution.”
When Neulander announced he was leaving last year, the company’s board determined that they would split his role into two positions. They quickly asked Larson to step in as interim artistic director based on her long association with the company as they began a national search for an executive director.
Shirazi led a succession committee through the four-month search. The committee received resumes from coast to coast. When the time came to select the new leadership, the committee’s vote was unanimous.
“Jenny and Brad have a natural chemistry,” continues Shirazi. “Both can focus on their specialties, and together they will find great ways for SVT to have impact on the artistic community in Austin.”
Before accepting the position with SVT, Brad Carlin was the associate managing director of SITI Company (an ensemble theater company led by Anne Bogart and based in New York City). Prior to his time with SITI, he worked with the managing director of City Theatre in Pittsburgh while earning his masters degree in arts management from Carnegie Mellon University. While in Pittsburgh, he led research projects on tax policies supporting the arts and arts education for American for the Arts. Carlin is also an alumnus of the prestigious Theatre Communications Group’s New Generations Mentorship Program.
Carlin’s roots in Austin run deep. He has a BA in acting from St. Edward’s University and has worked on stage and off with many local theater companies, including SVT, Hyde Park Theatre, the Rude Mechanicals, and Refraction Arts. His work was recognized with several ACoT B. Iden Payne Award nominations, Critics Table Award nominations, and a Deacon Crain Award.
“I feel like the challenges and experiences I have gained while away will be invaluable in charting a path for the next fourteen years of SVT,” says Carlin. “Salvage Vanguard Theater is a robust and vital company with a nationwide profile, and I am honored to be entrusted with continuing SVT’s transformation into an Austin institution.”
Jenny Larson has been active in Austin theater as an actor, director, and teacher for over ten years. Larson has a BA in theater from St. Edward’s University and has been involved with numerous local and touring theater productions. Larson’s first experience with SVT was as an audience member at SVT’s 2000 production of Terminal Hip. After seeing the show, she knew she had to work with the company.
“I have always had and continue to nurture my love for new works, edgy performance, and productions that defy tradition,” says Larson. “This company has always been a perfect fit for me.”
Larson started her professional relationship with SVT in 2001, first as a literary intern, then as an actor, literary manager, resident company member, director, and finally, associate artistic director. Larson has won numerous local theater awards and has already directed three SVT main-stage productions.
Larson’s enthusiasm about the future is palpable: “I am very excited and hopeful as I step into this next phase of not only my career, but of Salvage Vanguard Theater’s development. And I am thrilled to be working with Brad Carlin.”
Salvage Vanguard Theater’s next production is Hamilton Township by Jason Grote, directed by Jenny Larson. It opens May 30 and plays through the end of June at Salvage Vanguard Theater, 2803 Manor Road in Austin
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April 23, 2008
Austin Symphony Orchestra announces new season
A solo concert by famed cellist Yo-Yo Ma and a world premiere of a piece specifically for the Long Center’s Dell Hall by noted composer Christopher Theofanidis and electroacoustic music pioneer Mark Wingate are just two of the highlights of the Austin Symphony Orchestra’s 2008-2009 season, which was announced Wednesday.
Maestro Peter Bay made the announcement on the Long Center’s City Terrace with a fanfare provided by the symphony’s brass quintet.
Also on the schedule next season is the premiere of Austin composer Dan Welcher’s Symphony No. 5. Conspirare, Austin’s Grammy-nominated choral group, will join the symphony May 15-16, 2009, for Mahler’s mighty “Resurrection” Symphony No. 2 in C Minor.
Other special guests include famed British flutists Sir James and Lady Jeanne Galway, Austin pianist Anton Nel, violinist Sarah Chang and pianist Jon Nakamatsu, whose recording of Gershwin music with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra spent 27 weeks in Billboard’s top classical charts last year, peaking at an impressive number 3 position. Nakamatsu will play Gerswhin’s Piano Concerto in F Major. The all-American concert will also feature works by Roy Harris and Leonard Bernstein.
The Long Center’s Dell Hall will be celebrated with the innovative collaboration between Theofanidis and Wingate. The as yet untitled suite of five short pieces will employ both the symphony orchestra and Wingate’s live surround-sound samplings. Theofandis and Wingate were in town recently to explore the Dell Hall and find inspiration in the venue’s architecture and acoustic possibilities.
The Texas-born award-winning Theofanidis received national kudos and attention this year for “The Refuge,” his massive musical and community event for the Houston Grand Opera inspired by Houston’s polyglot immigrant community and involving the opera’s singers and community performers. Wingate, by the way, received his doctorate in composition from the University of Texas.
Hats off to Bay for pursuing such a ground-breaking commission perfect for Austin and the new Long Center.
Peter Bay on the stage of the Long Center’s Dell Hall.
For tickets and more information go to the Austin Symphony Orchetra’s Web site.
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February 25, 2008
Buckley to stay on as ALO conductor
Austin Lyric Opera’s general director Kevin Patterson announced today that noted conductor Richard Buckley will stay on as the opera’s principal conductor through the 2009-2010 season.
Buckley was artistic director of ALO from 2003 until he stepped down from the position in 2007 and took the helm as principal conductor. Buckley is also currently principal conductor for Opera Cleveland.
“I am extremely pleased to have Richard continue with ALO as principal conductor,” said Patterson. “Under Richard’s leadership the orchestra has matured to a very high level artistically. He continues to play a significant role in aiding Austin Lyric Opera to achieve our mission of presenting operas of the highest standard that enrich the lives of this community.”
“There is no doubt that Richard has added a new dimension to the playing of our orchestra,” Patterson said.
During his tenure as ALO artistic director, Buckley staged an ambitious new production of Shostakovich’s “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk” and also the critically-acclaimed American premiere of Philip Glass’” Waiting for the Barbarians.”
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February 14, 2008
Long Center mini-site launches
Stay tuned to coverage on the opening of new Long Center for the Performing Arts at our new mini-site:
http://www.austin360.com/longcenter
Updates, blog blasts, new photos — we’ll post it all there.
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October 15, 2007
Blanton -- and Texas -- make good with AICA noms
The Blanton Museum of Art has done good when it comes to getting nominations for 2006-2007 AICA-USA Awards, the annual kudos passed out by the International Association of Art Critics - USA Section
Two Blanton exhibits have nabbed noms. “The Geometry of Hope: Latin American Abstract Art from the Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Collection,” curated Gabriel Perez-Barreiro, is up for “Best Thematic Museum Show Nationally” while “Luca Cambiaso, 1527-1585,” gets to try out for “Best Historical Show.” Curator Jonathan Bober was the Blanton’s rep on the international curatorial team for that show.
The Blanton is one of two museums in “fly-over land” — i.e., somewheres not on the East or West Coast — to receive more one nomination from the admittedly New York-centric critics group. (Although, as a long-time AICA-USA member, Texas-based yours truly gets to nominate for the annual awards.)
The Museum of Fine Arts-Houston gets two noms too: “Singular Multiples: The Peter Blum Edition Archive 1980-1994” is up for “Best Thematic Museum Show Nationally” while “Helio Oiticica: The Body of Color” competes for “Best Monographic Museum Show Nationally.”
In fact, Texas, and Austin, faired well with this year’s AICA-USA nominations.
Arthouse’s Daniel Bozhkov: Recent Works/ Cantata for Twelve Choirs and Several Salamanders is up for “Best Exhibition of Time Based Art.” So is “Miguel Angel Rios: Aqui” by the Univ. of Houston’s Blaffer Gallery.
Getting a shout out for “Best Show in a Commercial Gallery Nationally” is Austin’s Lora Reynolds Gallery for “Tom Molloy: Lone Star,” and Houston’s Texas Gallery for “Hamish Fulton: Geronimo Homeland.”
Up in Dallas, the Jennifer Steinkamp-Jimmy Johnson collaborative video and sound permanent installation “Ring of Fire” in Victory Park was nominated for “Best Show in a Public Space.”
GO TEXAS!!
“Lone Star,” (detail), by Tom Molloy. Courtesy Lora Reynolds Gallery.
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August 27, 2007
Blanton to raise some admission prices
The Blanton Museum of Art has announced that it will add a slight increase to its adult and senior general public admissions prices effective September 1. Student and youth prices will remain the same modest $3. Admission will still be free for everyone on Thursdays when the museum is open late until 8 p.m.
New general admission prices:
- Adult admission: $7 ( was $5)
- Seniors (65+): $5 ( was $4)
- College students with valid ID: $3 (no change)
- Youth (ages 13-21): $3 (no change)
- Members: free
- Current UT faculty/students/staff: free
- Children 12 and under: free
Julio Alpuy, ‘Marina metafísica [Metaphysical Marina],’ 1962, Oil on incised, carved wood. Permanent collection.
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August 9, 2007
Austin Shakespeare Festival hires new artistic director
Just a week after announcing that Guy Roberts had left the position of artistic director of Austin Shakespeare Festival after 5 years on the job, the organization has announced that it has hired longtime Austin theater professional Ann Ciccolella to lead the nonprofit Shakespeare company.
Most recently, Ciccolella was managing director of Zachary Scott Theatre Center, where she spearheaded efforts to get Proposition 4 — with its $32.5 million in bond money for cultural facilities — passed in the municipal elections last fall. Prior to that, Ciccolella, who hails from New Jersey, was director of Austin Circle of Theaters.
The announcement was made on the steps of the City Hall today. A representative of Council Member Mike Martinez also awarded Ciccolella a “Distinguished Service Award” for her years of work in the Austin arts community.
Austin Shakespeare Festival — which received $63,000 in city money last year and has about a $200,000 annual budget — could use some housecleaning and some help. As we reported earlier, the organization has gone adrift with their productions dwindling to a few at Richard Garriott’s private replica of the Globe on his far West Austin estate. And the organization’s mission to present free Shakespeare in Zilker Park was this year realized as a selection of scenes, sonnets and verses. Not exactly a grand effort.
Ciccolella has some big work ahead of her to ASF on track. But she has the chops to do it.
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August 1, 2007
Austin Singers names new artistic director
The Austin Singers has appointed Dwight Bigler as artistic director, effective immediately, the organization announced Tuesday. He succeeds Ara Carapetyan, who retired at the end of the 2006-2007 season, and founding director Lanier Bayliss.
Originally from Blackfoot, Idaho, Dwight Bigler recently completed a DMA in choral conducting at the University of Texas at Austin, where he currently holds a full-time adjunct faculty position teaching and performing as a collaborative pianist. He received his BM degree in piano performance and MM in choral conducting from Brigham Young University.
He was director of the UT Men’s Chorus 2003-06 and chorus master for the 2004 production of ‘Eugene Onegin’ at the UT Butler Opera Center. He also served as assistant conductor of the world-renowned Dale Warland Singers of St. Paul, Minn., (2001-03) as well as the UT Choral Arts Society (2003-05) and the UT Chamber Singers (2004-05).
Also an accomplished composer, he has published choral works with Oxford University Press and Hinshaw Music. Most recently, as part of his award-winning doctoral treatise, he composed ‘Glimpses,’ a five-movement, 25-minute work for choir and chamber orchestra with texts by Henry David Thoreau, Anthony Trollope, Jeremy Taylor, and Owen Felltham. ‘Glimpses’ will be performed as part of the upcoming Austin Singers season.
The 50-voice, fully auditioned Austin Singers chorus was founded in 1995 under the artistic direction of Lanier Bayliss. The ensemble presents several concerts each season with one concert benefiting a local nonprofit human services organization.
Dwight Biggler
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July 31, 2007
ACoT offers affordable healthcare for artists
Let’s hear for Austin Circle of Theaters!
The Austin arts service organization — led by the smart and passionate Latifah Taormina — has just announced that it is now offering affordable health insurance to its members.
Through ACoT’s partnership with Fractured Atlas, a New York City-based arts service organization, existing and new ACoT members will have access to a variety of health care plans, including limited as well as full-feature plans, prescription discount programs and even a discount dental plan.
Membership fees to ACoT run $36-$48 for individuals, $120-$500 for arts nonprofit organizations. Detailed information on pricing and benefits of the health insurance plan is available online.
Additionally, ACoT has negotiated a discounted rate on liability insurance for ACoT member organizations through the John A. Barclay Agency. The all-in-one Showtime Product policy is specifically designed to suit the needs of performing arts groups and will be especially beneficial to ACoT member organizations required to carry insurance as a condition of receiving City of Austin funding.
ACoT is the only organization in Austin providing these types of vital shared services to artists and arts organizations. Say Taormina: “We work hard to provide Austin artists with accessible and affordable insurance options, so that they can focus their energy and finances on their creative work.”
Can’t argue with that!
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July 26, 2007
Conspirare announces season, next recording deal
Two-time Grammy-nominated chorus Conspirare plans to head into the new Long Center for the Performing Arts with boom. Specifically, conductor Craig Hella Johnson and his singers will sing the unrelentingly dramatic, emotionally-charged, ultimately operatic Verdi Requiem on June 21, 2008, Conspirare’s first Long Center concert. What better way to blow the roof off the new house? And adding to the drama, South Texas Money Management has given $50,000 to be sole presenting sponsor of the production.
Other concerts announced for the 2007-2008 season are ‘Threshold of Night’ Sept. 27-30, featuring the music of Tarik O’Regan, a rising star British composer (and youngester; he was born in 1978). Conspirare’s ever-popular ‘Christmas at the Carillon’ runs Dec. 5-11. ‘Love is a Circle,’ March 29-30 features the premiere of Jeffrey Van’s ‘A Procession Winding Around Me,’ a setting of four Civil War poems of Walt Whitman.
On Jan. 31-Feb. 3 ‘I Dream A World’ will give you a chance to preview Conspirare’s first-ever European tour. The chorus will take a program of American choral classics and traditional spirituals on a tour in July 2008 of the Scandinavian cities of Stockholm, Sweden; Oslo and Bergen, Norway as well as perform at the Eighth World Symposium on Choral Music in Copenhagen, Denmark, as the only U.S. choral organization invited to participate. Following the Symposium, the ensemble is scheduled to record a new CD in the studios of historic Radio Denmark.
In other Conspirare news, the group has signed with the prestigious Harmonia Mundi label for their next CD. The France-based noted label — which handles international distribution for classical, jazz and world music — includes Anonymous 4 and William Christie among its more noted artists.
Note to Grammy organizers — we expect another Conspirare nom next year.
To hear selections from Conspirare’s Grammy-nominated album ‘Requiem’ — including Eliza Gilkyson’s own ‘Requiem,’ go to Austin360’s SoundCheck 360 Player
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July 25, 2007
Arthouse announces Texas Prize finalists
This time there’s five.
Arthouse has announced the finalist for the second biennial Arthouse Texas Prize. Competing for the $30,000 prize are Dawolu Jabari Anderson, Justin Boyd, Margarita Cabrera, Bill Davenport and Katrina Moorhead.
Their work will be on view from Sept. 8 through Nov. 11. The winner will be announced at the annual Arthouse gala on Nov. 2. One of the largest visual arts prizes, the Texas Prize goes to an emerging and/or under-recognized artist in Texas. The first Texas Prize went to Eileen Maxson in 2005. The $30,000 bounty come with no strings attached.
Cabrera, who hails from El Paso, creates painstakingly handcrafted objects and installations that address issues related to border relations and Mexican immigration, particularly economic exchange, dislocation and notions of the “American dream.” Her life-size Volkswagen Beetle stitched out cheap vinyl intrigued a few years ago when it was on view at Women & Their Work. For the Texas Prize exhibit, she plans to make a life-size tractor from clay.
Also one to mess with scale and meaning, the Houston-based Davenport is creating an enormous stealth bomber piñata. Here’s Davenport’s giant Styrofoam wagon wheel:
The judges for the 2007 Texas Prize include Arthouse director Sue Graze; Menil curator Frank Sirmans; director of and curator at The Kitchen, Debra Singer; critic and art historian Frances Colpitt and 2005 Texas Prize winner Maxson.
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July 20, 2007
Interim director named for PAC
Charles Leslie, former associate director for the University of Texas’ Performing Arts Center, has been appointed interim director of the PAC, effective immediately, a UT press release said. Leslie has been the associate director of the PAC since 2003 and was assistant director and production manager prior to that appointment.
Leslie steps in for Pebbles Wadsworth who in March announced her plans to retire in January 2008. Wadsworth will stay on as consulting director as the Bass Concert Hall undergoes a $15 million renovation. A $12 million renovation is planned for the 1,200-seat historic Hogg Memorial Auditorium. The schedule for that project has not been set.
What’s going down at the PAC if the Bass is closed? Not much during the 2007-2008 season. Expect a few music acts to pop up at the Hogg, but otherwise UT’s Dept. of Theatre and Dance and the UT School of Music are getting the promotional push this season.
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July 3, 2007
In memoriam: Linda Pace, arts patron
Linda Pace, the San Antonio hot sauce heir and visionary arts patron who transformed an abandoned car dealership building into a highly regarded contemporary arts center with a worldwide reputation, died Monday after complications of breast cancer.
Pace, 62, whose father created the original Pace Picante Sauce in 1947, founded Artpace in 1995 in an old Hudson car dealership in downtown San Antonio. Offering residencies to selected artists from around the world, Artpace is now arguably the best-known contemporary visual arts residency program in the country, if not the world. Artpace’s programming and publications — and even its one-word compound name and distinctive numeric exhibit naming system — became models for many other art organizations.
An active artist in her own right, Pace stepped back from her philanthropic work in the past few years to spend more time on her own work. Most recently, her “Mirrored Igloo” was featured in the Texas Biennial 2007. The piece was also nominated for an Austin Critics’ Table Award.
A memorial service for Pace will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday in Chrispark, a public square Pace funded and established in 2006 in downtown San Antonio as a memorial to her late son Chris Goldsbury who died in 1997.
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