Lecolion Washington, executive director of Community Music Center (Boston, MA) can be heard playing the bassoon on the soundtrack of the remake of the Lion King. He plays as part of the Re-Collective orchestra, a predominantly Black orchestra that played on the Black Panther soundtrack and was tapped to contribute work to the remake of the Disney film. 

“Each artist brings their selves. They bring their whole selves to the art. And the more perspectives you have,” Washington says, “the more colors overall that there are in the art, because you have a wider palette.”

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Noah Bloom has been appointed as the new Executive Director of the Neighborhood Music School (New Haven, CT) after a search that began earlier this summer and involved board members, staff, parents, and community members offering input for what they were looking for in a new leader. 

Noah is a graduate of the Community Arts Education Leadership Institute and worked at Church Street Music in New York City. 

"An organization like ours ideally seeks a leader who is immersed in the vibrancy of New Haven and its surrounding towns, and who also possesses a deep appreciation and understanding of music, the arts and education," they wrote in a press release. "These qualities define Noah."

Read the full release >> 

After a six-month long search, Wharton Institute for the Performing Arts (Berkeley Heights, NJ) has named Peter H. Gistelinck as its new Executive Director. 

In a press release from the organization, Wharton shared that Gistelinck joins WIPA from Kalamazoo where he was President and CEO of the Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra from 2014 through 2019. Prior to that, from 2006 through 2014, he was Executive Director of the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia. Before immigrating to the United States in 2006, Gistelinck was Director of Sales and Marketing and Co-Artistic Director for the Brussels Philharmonic Orchestra in Belgium and General Manager of Business Affairs at one of France's leading Baroque orchestras, Le Concert Spirituel in Paris.

"I am absolutely honored to have been chosen as the next leader of the renowned Wharton Institute for the Performing Arts," said Gistelinck. "This institution, because of its commitment to diversity in the arts, outstanding leadership, and nationally-praised educational programs with sweeping community impact, is poised to become even more prominent in the field of performing arts education. I am thrilled to have been given the opportunity to be part of this endeavor."
 

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Eerie Arts & Culture (Eerie, PA) has been awarded $37,500 from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. The funding will go towards programs to support immigrant and refugee arts programming. The grant recieved coverage in Eerie News Now, a local news organization.

"It enables us to work with artist that are already living in our community," said Kelly Armor, folk art director for Erie Arts and Culture. "Most of them are refugees."

"This grant helps us work with these artist through a variety of activities to build their share their abilities and capacities to be able to share their art," said Armor.

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New 42nd Street Theater (New York, NY) has annouced that Russell Granet has been named as its new president and chief executive officer. Granet currently serves as the acting president of Lincoln Center, and takes over New 42nd Street as the organization’s longtime leader Cora Cahan steps down after about 29 years. 

Granet says he will focus on commissioning new work, and will "prioritize offering the New 42nd Street Studios as an incubator space for projects by emerging artists and using the Duke to stage those works."

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Snow City Arts (Chicago, IL) received national attention in the form of an audio story produced by the National Endowment for the Arts magazine. The story features the work of John Lyons, a media arts teacher working in a local hospital, and his work with a student named Nicholas. 

Read the full story from Snow Cit Arts and listen to the audio >>

In a post on the Americans for the Arts blog, Kelly Lamb Pollock of the Center of Creative Arts (St. Louis, MO) shares a reflection on her organization's newest expansion project. COCA is expanding with a 50,000 square foot addition onto their current space. 

"Historically," Pollock write, "arts organizations have built facilities and spaces in service to their art, such as grand museums and acoustically pristine symphony halls. In planning for our expansion, we have done more than our fair share of discussing, debating, and decision-making about the technical specifications and “performance” of our new space. However, as the project has evolved, I’m more interested in thinking about how our space, and our art, can be in service to humanity, not the other way around."

Read the full article on the Americans for the Arts blog.

Art Expression Inc. (Pittsburgh, PA), received a $10,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to support programs in under served populations in Washington and Greene counties. They are running programs in three school districts which have had funding cuts made to arts programs. 

The organization was recently featured in the Observer Reporter for their work. The article explains that the districts’ schoolteachers and guidance counselors recommend students for these two-hour sessions, selecting kids who may need help socializing, have a behavioral problem or have a disability such as an autistic disorder. Some of these kids are selected because they enjoy art. 

“We teach them how to make art, not so much to hang on a wall, but as an expression of self,” said Cheryl Silinskas, an art facilitator who led Thursday’s class at Trinity North Elementary School in Canton Township.

Read the full article here. 

After losing its space in late 2018, the Filomen M. D’Agostino Greenberg Music School (New York, NY) is now operating as an independent music school out our four locations around Manhattan, including the 92Y, Kaufman Music Center, VISIONS, an Funkadelic Studios. They hope to consolidate to one or two locations when possible.

The school was founded in 1913, and "is committed to helping people pursue their study of music while addressing the challenges posed by vision loss." Along with finding new space, the school is welcoming new staff to its Accessible Music Technology Division: Konrad Kamm (our first D’Agostino Accessible Music Technology Fellow), Richard Thai (our second D’Agostino Accessible Music Technology Fellow), and Daniel Gillen (Braille Music Proofreader and former student extraordinaire).

Read the full release.

The Association of Teaching Artists, the oldest independent organization serving Teaching Artists in the US, awarded Ed Friedman and Maura O’Malley from Lifetime Arts a 2019 Distinguished Service Award. The two will be awarded the Teaching Artist Ally Award. The award recognizes arts administrators who support teaching artsits.

Established in 2002, the ATA Awards were the first in the nation to recognize artist educators. The ATA Awards seek to raise the visibility of Teaching Artists within the arts in education and community arts fields and in the organizations and institutions for which they work as well as honor innovation in teaching artistry. Nominations are made by peers in the teaching artistry field and winners are selected by panel review.

Read the full bios and press release here.