Dear Mr. President…….. First, let me tell you how delighted I am to be able to say those words.
Arts Funding
Audience Connection Final – part 2
The final two dream big Arts organizations from the Audience Connection final (here is part 1). Also, as part of their final I wanted them to take a genre of music and redefine it into more clearly understood sub-genres i.e funk, techno funk. I have included clips from two that were very well thought out and presented. For the Holidays, at the end of the post I have included audio from a rehearsal of Franz Biebl’s extraordinary Ave Maria with yours truly conducting Choirs from Evangel University and the College of the Ozarks….
Field Dressing the Arts
By this time I would expect anyone who doesn’t live in what is the Last Bastion of Civilized Man in America – AKA the Twin Cities of Minneapolis/St. Paul – to be utterly tired of my relentless promotion of this area. Those who are indeed tired might want to skip over this post.
The Coming Storm
More fabulous news on the Arts front – from the daily updates from organizations around the U.S. that suddenly they’re looking at multi-million dollar deficits due to the worsening economy (muchas gracias, Señor Bush!) to the wonderful news that even the government of that bastion of Liberalism – Australia – has lost it’s collective mind. One wonders if you should start building the bomb shelter.
Cultural Trust – Redistributing Wealth Missouri Style!
So when we at the Springfield Symphony (Missouri’s 3rd largest Orchestra) read the news last week regarding the ruling against the Kansas City Symphony’s lawsuit to restore funds into the cultural trust that were not put in during a certain period as the legislature felt the money at that time was needed elsewhere, our reaction was : Oh that’s right they filed a lawsuit! We had forgotten about it. Arts funding in Missouri has risen the last two years….under a Republican governor! I have a little insight into what happened and some personal experience with the whole thing including some interaction with the governor….
Arts Funding – Why?…..
In Audience Connection on Wednesday the big question of the week was:
How can you argue for Arts funding in front of someone that might be more interested in Health, Poverty or Education issues?
Big questions need big answers, but when you have 5 minutes in front of a donor to make the case, they can’t be long answers. I liked what Amanda said, the clip is below……