A new book from Amy Nathan, Making Time for Making Music: How to Bring Music into Your Busy Life, explores how time-stretched adults can make focused time to follow their musical passion. The book draws on conversations with an “advice panel” that includes numerous Guild members, including: Eastman New Horizons Chorus, Harmony Project, Peabody Preparatory, San Francisco Community Music Center, and Third Street Music School.

According to Erika Floreska, executive director at Bloomingdale School of Music, “Amy Nathan once again opens up the world of music to make it more accessible to more people. This book, by focusing on real stories, challenges, and benefits adults have faced keeping and bringing music into their lives, demonstrates how music is for all—at any level, at any point in life. Makes me want to get my flute out!”

The book demonstrates the wide-ranging avenues for accessing music and music education, while also exploring the long-term benefits on health and well-being. According to the author, “the book is filled with real-life success stories from more than 350 adults in the U.S., UK and elsewhere (ranging in age from 25 to 96) who don’t have musical careers but still fit in time for music-making."

Making Time for Making Music is a reminder that there is always enough time for the things that matter.

You can learn more about the book here.

Bloomberg Philanthropies is investing $43 million in over 200 small and midsize arts organizations in seven cities, according to The New York Times. The supported cities include Atlanta, Austin, Baltimore, Denver, New Orleans, Pittsburgh, and Washington.

“By invitation only, selected organizations are being offered unrestricted support — roughly 10 percent of their annual operating budgets — in addition to arts-management training. That includes a consulting mentor for each organization and a series of seminars for all grantees in a given city on topics such as fund-raising, strategic planning, marketing and board development.”

The funding is provided through a cohort model. Grant recipients in particular cities connect with one another during the training process. According to the NY Times, “Each institution is asked to match 20 percent of the dollar amount it is given — a chance to put into practice some of the fund-raising tools offered through the program.”

Read the full article here.

The National Association of Area Agencies on Aging (n4a) has released engAGED: The National Resource Center for Engaging Older Adults. Through the resource center, n4a and its partners will:

• Identify and disseminate information about emerging trends, resources, and replication strategies that the Aging Network can use and tailor in their communities
• Develop a national strategy for educating and informing the Aging Network about innovative engagement approaches and programming

According to n4a, “Research suggests that remaining socially engaged improves the quality of life for older adults and is associated with better health. In addition, older adults who are socially engaged in their communities are able to share their knowledge, talent, skills, experience and wisdom, enabling them to have a powerful impact.”

A recent article added to resource center includes: Because We’re Stronger Together: Intergenerational Programs Engaging Youth in Service to Older Adults.

Access the resource center here.

A new resource from Alternate ROOTS provides a multimedia exploration of creative placemaking. Through podcasts, articles, films, and other media, Creating Place: The Art of Equitable Community Building provides an overview of the strategies that are fundamental to the work and offers insights on how to build community in an artistic, equitable way.

“Within the creative placemaking framework, there can be a tendency to privilege economics and infrastructures over community connection; neither need be in conflict – they are best when working together. Community power, unimagined possibilities, and collective brilliance arise when we honor and make space for everyone’s full selves to arrive, to be seen and valued,” writes Nicole Gurgel-Seefeldt, Creating Place curator and project manager.

The resource, both a PDF as well as an online collection, includes numerous contributions from the field:

• Creative Placetaking: It’s a Thing!, Vicki Meek (Dallas, TX)
• Empowering Women at the Border as Creative Placemaking, Dora Arreola (Tampa, FL)
• Making How Away from Home, Ashley Minner (Baltimore, MD)
• I am Powerful: Reclaiming and Uplifting the Power, Space, and Voice of Incarcerated Youth, Jeree Thomas (Richmond, VA)

You can learn more and access the full resource collection here.

A new discussion guide from The Wallace Foundation and the League of American Orchestras examines audience-building strategies at the Seattle Symphony and explores how these lessons might apply in other contexts. Part of The Wallace Foundation’s Building Audiences for Sustainability (BAS) Initiative, the discussion guide builds on a previous report entitled, Seattle Symphony: Can the City’s Boom Mean New Audiences for the Seattle Symphony? In the guide, arts administrators, board members, and arts practitioners will gain a better understanding of how to apply Seattle’s experience to their own organizations.

Prompts in the guide related to implementation include:

• The Seattle Symphony learned that brand distinctions between their programmatic offerings were critical to recruiting new audience members. Why did Seattle Symphony leadership find it important for artistic and marketing staff teams to work together more closely? To what extent should market research drive artistic programming decisions?
• What challenges does your organization face that prevent collaboration across departments? How could you streamline the collaborative process to encourage the generation and implementation of new ideas?

You can learn more and download the full guide here.

In a recent article for TED, Sir Ken Robinson, author and global leader in education reform, argues that dance education should receive equal attention in schools when compared to other core subjects, such as math. As he puts it, this is not an argument against the importance of math, but rather “an argument for equity in educating the whole child.”

To help support his argument, Robinson cites the work of National Guild member Dancing Classrooms. This organization, according to the article, “brings ballroom dancing into elementary and middle schools in some of the most challenging districts in the country. Using dance, the organization aims to improve social relationships especially among genders and to enrich the culture of the schools by cultivating collaboration, respect and compassion. Founded in 1994 by the dancer Pierre Dulaine, the program now offers each school twenty sessions over ten weeks, culminating in a showcase.”

The data backs up Robinson’s claims. As he notes, research continually shows that dance education improves students’ interpersonal relationships, makes them more likely to accept others, and correlates strongly with improved math and reading scores. Still, dance education, and arts education more broadly, is absent from the school experience of millions of young people around the country.

Bob Morrison, the founder and director of Quadrant Research, asks, “Would it be okay to have millions of students without access to math or language arts? Of course not, and it should not be tolerated in the arts. There is a persistent myth that arts education is for the gifted and talented, but we know that the arts benefit everyone regardless of their vocational pathways,” he says.

Read the full article.

Following a wave of advocacy from communities across the country, including Arts Advocacy Day in D.C. March 12-13, Congress has released an omnibus bill for FY18 that includes an increase in funding for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), and 21st Century Community Learning Centers. Both the NEA and the NEH were funded at $152.849 million and 21st Century received a $20 million dollar boost.

According to Americans for the Arts, “This victory is such a fitting tribute to last week’s passing of Congressional Arts Caucus Co-Chair Representative Louise Slaughter, who spent her career in Congress fighting for the arts. She had most recently co-authored an Arts Advocacy Day ‘Dear Colleague’ letter to her fellow Members of Congress recruiting a record number of 166 House Democrats and Republicans to sign a joint letter to House Appropriators to increase arts funding in America.”

Through the Arts Action Fund, Grassroots arts advocates sent close to 200,000 messages to Members of Congress, thousands more signed our petitions and visited their elected Representatives and Senators.

You can learn more about the victory for the NEA here and about the boost in funding for afterschool programming here.

Elders Share the Arts (ESTA), a Brooklyn based organization that pioneered the field of creative aging, will be closing after a 40-year history. The organization will pass on its successful programs—including Pearls of Wisdom, History Alive, Legacy Arts, and the ESTA training unit—to established partners in the field. The National Guild partnered with Susan Perlstein, founder of ESTA, to deliver training to our members as part of the MetLife Creative Aging program.

ESTA has made a number of vital contributions to the field of arts education. According to the board of trustees, among ESTA’s significant milestones are:

• Providing dynamic arts programs for seniors in NYC neighborhood centers, such as History Alive!, Legacy Arts, and the Pearls of Wisdom, ignite creative expression, establish elders' role as bearers of culture, and  establish pathways that deepen seniors’ connections to their communities;
• Being a key research partner in Dr. Gene Cohen’s landmark study, “Creativity and Aging” in 2001 which inspired and led ESTA to launch the National Center for Creative Aging as an advocacy, policy and networking organization for the field;
• Receiving awards and recognition for our programs from the National Council on Aging, the National Endowment for the Arts, the American Society on Aging, and the United States Committee for the Observance of the United Nations International Year of Older Persons, and many others;
• Initiating and developing a training unit for the Creative Aging field in partnership with the NYC Department for the Aging, New York State Council on the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Center for Creative Aging, as well as internationally with foundation support in Taiwan, England, and Australia.

You can learn more about ESTA and their legacy here.

Edward Farmilant, former Guild trustee, National Guild Service Awardee, and founder of the Southwest School of Music and PRIME School of Music, passed away at his home in Tucson on February 15. Mr. Farmilant began his career as a nursing home administrator at the Martha Washington Manor on South Drexel Ave in Chicago. A lover and supporter of the arts, he was a lifetime honorary member of the Tucson Symphony Orchestra.

“Known for his intelligence, integrity, humor and generosity, Ed sought to live and die with dignity. He led his life as an example to his children and grandchildren, and to society as a whole, on how to break down societal barriers based on age, race, and gender, and how to treat everyone he met with humanity and respect,” Edward’s obituary reads.

Edward served two terms on the National Guild board, during which time he was instrumental in advising the creation of the current online Resource Center. In the National Guild’s bio for Edward when he received the Service Award it was noted that: “Ed has flunked Guitar 101 three times.  He faults the teachers for thinking that tempo is important, saying ‘where is the creativity in that’?”

New data released recently by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) and the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) offers an insightful picture of the impact the arts have on the nation’s economy. The arts contribute $763.6 billion to the U.S. economy, more than agriculture, transportation, or warehousing. The arts employ 4.9 million workers across the country with earnings of over $370 billion. Furthermore, the arts exported $20 billion more than imported, providing a positive trade balance.

Produced by the BEA and NEA, the Arts and Cultural Production Satellite Account (ACSPA) tracks the annual economic impact of arts and cultural production from 35 industries, both commercial and non-profit. The ACPSA reports on economic measures—value-added to gross domestic product (GDP) as well as employment and compensation. For the first time, the report also includes the arts impact on state economies as contributions to gross state product (GSP). The numbers in this report are from 2015, the most recent reporting year.

“The robust data present in the Arts and Cultural Production Satellite Account show through hard evidence how and where arts and culture contribute value to the economies of communities throughout the nation,” said NEA chairman Jane Chu. “The data confirm that the arts play a meaningful role in our daily lives, including through the jobs we have, the products we purchase, and the experiences we share.”

Read the full report here.