Remembering Margaret Perry, Founder of Austin’s Armstrong Community Music School

Margaret Perry, founding director of Armstrong Community Music School (ACMS), former Guild trustee, and beloved member of the National Guild community, passed away on Thursday, April 5th, 2018. Margaret stepped down from her position at ACMS after learning of a cancer diagnosis and, according to ACMS, she “dealt with her treatment and final stages with grace, honesty, humor, and a depth of courage that was miraculous to witness.”

Margaret Perry was a music educator for 38 years. Trained originally as a harpsichordist, Margaret performed with Baroque music groups around Texas, and served for several years as the pianist for the Houston Ballet. Margaret taught music in both public and private schools in the U.S. and Europe, and maintained a private piano teaching practice in Austin for more than three decades. She lectured extensively on the lives of composers and opera history for both children’s classes and adult opera audiences, and created curricula for general musical studies for many ages.

Margaret was a trustee for nine non-profit boards in the Austin area, and was elected chairman of three of these. She served for six years on the board of trustees for the National Guild. She served as a trustee for Austin Classical Guitar and La Follia, and served in an advisory capacity for KMFA, Creative Action Project, Chamber Music in Public Schools (CHAMPS), and the Physics Advisory Board at the University of Texas.

In April of 2000, she became the founding director of the Armstrong Community Music School, the first music school in the world to be established by an opera company, after serving as the director of education of Austin Lyric Opera for eighteen years. In March of 2003, the city of Austin presented Margaret a Community Service Award, and the same year the State of Texas declared a day in her honor for thirty years of arts advocacy and education. In 2010, Margaret was given a “Profiles in Power: Women of Influence” award by the Austin Business Journal.

Margaret and the National Guild

In 2012, the Guild presented Margaret with the National Guild Service Award, in recognition of her remarkable service to the Austin arts community and the National Guild board of trustees. In her acceptance speech, she spoke about the importance of finding a national community as she moved into her role as director of ACMS. She also spoke powerfully about the vital role of the arts, saying:  “What about that first time a child takes clay into his hand and molds something beautiful. Or he makes a colorful collage. Or he paints a canvas and before him his creative expression is made real. And he is forever changed because of that experience. That is the work that we are doing and that is the work that the National Guild is supporting.” You can watch the full acceptance speech here.

Last year, in a GuildNotes article looking at what is required of leaders moving into the future, Margaret made the following observations: “Looking toward the future, it is likely that demand for the arts will continue to outpace the services that we can provide. Our difficulties may never go away. However, effective leaders should recognize that difficult times can be the catalyst for everyone in the arts to embrace their personal leadership. Those of us who know the healing power and energizing beauty of the arts need to personally set goals for action.” You can read the full article here.

Honoring Margaret’s Legacy

In honor of Margaret’s remarkable contribution to her community, to the National Guild, to arts education, and to the many young leaders that she supported with guidance and mentorship, the National Guild is pleased to announce the Margaret Perry Leadership Fund. This fund will be used to support the development of arts education leaders who, like Margaret, will make a lasting impact of positive change on their communities. You can support the Margaret Perry Leadership Fund via a donation here.

SDCYB Appoints Molly Terbovich-Ridenhour as President & CEO

The board of directors of San Diego Civic Youth Ballet (SDCYB) has promoted Molly Terbovich-Ridenhour to president & CEO of the organization, effective immediately. Terbovich-Ridenhour previously served as executive director of SDCYB for more than six years. Her promotion takes place in preparation of celebrating the Balboa Park nonprofit’s 75th Anniversary in 2020.

“As SDCYB looks to shape our future, it seemed only natural that we appoint a president & CEO to assist in developing and executing our strategic vision of accessible, affordable, family-oriented ballet,” said Michael King, chair of SDCYB’s board of directors.

SDCYB was founded in 1945 and has been the resident ballet school in Balboa Park ever since. In addition to offering high-quality, affordable, year-round training in the Casa del Prado studios, the nonprofit also brings ballet education to public schools and offers ballet classes for over 600 students through a thriving Outreach Program.

Learn more about the appointment here.

Currier Museum Named Champion in Action in Community Arts

The Currier Museum of Art (Manchester, N.H.) has been named a Champion in Action in the category of community arts. The award, announced jointly by Citizens Bank and New Hampshire Union Leader, includes $35,000 in unrestricted funding as well as promotional and volunteer support for the organization’s outstanding work.

Currier Museum of Art utilizes its collection of art and architecture as inspiration for challenging art-making programs and a variety of community arts offerings. The Currier Museum serves 60,000+ diverse visitors each year, including 7,000+ students through school tours and 1,500+ students through education programs.

Champions in Action is part of Citizens Helping Citizens Strengthen Communities, the bank’s program designed to enhance quality of life and economic vitality in local communities. It provides support for nonprofit organizations to recognize their contributions to communities throughout New Hampshire.“

Currier Museum of Art makes world-class works of art and enrichment programs accessible to all members of the community,” said Joe Carelli, president, Citizens Bank, New Hampshire. “They are a true Champion in Action, bringing nationally recognized learning experiences to all age groups and a culturally varied audience through innovative community arts programming.”

According to the New Hampshire Union Leader, Currier staff are set to launch a first-of-its-kind art program aimed at helping New Hampshire residents affected by the opioid crisis next month. “The Art of Hope” will be offered Mondays from Feb. 5 to 26. The program was created in conjunction with Partnership for Drug-Free Kids “to help families struggling with addiction by providing positive experiences in the museum’s galleries."

Learn more about the how the award will support the Currier’s programming here.

About Currier Museum of Art

The Currier Museum of Art is an internationally renowned art museum located in Manchester, N.H. The Currier features European and American paintings, decorative arts, photographs, and sculpture, including works by Picasso, Monet, O’Keeffe, Wyeth and LeWitt with exhibitions, tours and programs year-round.

Why Dance and Math Deserve Equal Footing in Education

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.

MacPhail Center for Music and Austin Public Schools Announce $11 Million Dollar Partnership

MacPhail Center for Music and Austin Public Schools announce a significant boost to their partnership in the form of an $11 million building renovation and addition, thanks to the generous support of The Hormel Foundation.

The project, which includes a 13,750 square-foot second floor addition and 17,850 square feet of alterations to the Austin High School Annex building, will be financed by Austin Public Schools over a 15-year time period. The Hormel Foundation has committed up to $8.7 million toward the financing of this project.

The renovations are the next phase in supporting MacPhail Center for Music’s presence in Austin, Minnesota, which began in 2015. The MacPhail Access Site will include 11 classrooms and instruction studios of various sizes to support individual lessons and ensemble training, music therapy programming and early childhood music programming.

The renovation will provide the Austin High School music programs with facilities for band, orchestra, a music library and practice rooms. A percussion studio, recording studio and performance classroom will be shared by both.

“This remarkable new music facility will reflect the strong collaboration that has developed between MacPhail, Austin Public Schools and The Hormel Foundation,” said Kyle Carpenter, CEO, MacPhail Center for Music, and a member of the National Guild board of trustees. “It is a testament to the value that Austin places on exceptional arts learning opportunities for the community’s students and residents.”

You can learn more about MacPhail and the Austin partnership here.

Henry Bridges Jr., Founder of Community School of the Arts, Passes Away at 91

Henry Bridges Jr.—founder of Community School of the Arts (CSA) in Charlotte, NC; former Guild trustee; and 1994 Guild Leadership Awardee—passed away on March 20. Henry officially founded CSA in 1971 and became its first teacher, serving 20 second- and third-grade students, selected from an applicant pool of 150, who met with Henry at a Church five days a week to study piano, choir, sight singing, and music theory. While Henry served as executive director he led the School to expand its outreach lessons to nearby schools, centers, and the former Piedmont Courts housing community, and experimented with trends in private instruction.

"Religion, the arts and education are all central to life," Henry told an interviewer in 1989. "They are really three facets of the same thing. You don't go to a museum without having some kind of transcendental experience. The same can be said of dance, music and theater — they're all interrelated. Central to the core of the universe are a belief in God, creativity and consciousness. That's what the arts are all about.”

Henry was also a dedicated member of the National Guild community. Lolita Mayadas, former director of the National Guild, remembers Henry’s role in supporting the Guild during difficult times:

"In the early eighties, during one of the most critical periods in its history the Guild found itself without an executive director, without a functioning board president and without the means to survive. Into this vacuum stepped Henry Bridges, the founder and director of Charlotte’s Community Music School in North Carolina. Henry was the Guild’s Vice President, having served as a Board member since 1975. With his laid-back, courteous manner, and gentle sense of humor he could easily be taken for a classic Southern Gentleman. But behind that graceful façade there lived a determined and natural-born leader. Without fuss or fanfare, he just took charge. Never has a “coup” such as this been greeted with greater relief. This much is certain: were it not for Henry, the Guild would surely have folded."

You can learn more about Community School of the Arts and Henry’s legacy here.

Congress Rejects Administration, Increases Funding for NEA and Afterschool

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 to Close After 40 Years

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.

Charity Navigator Highlights Music Programs, Guild Members

Charity Navigator regularly features lists of 10 highly-rated charities that are within a specific focus area. In a recent post—focused on music-based charities—the organization highlighted five National Guild members. The post noted that “these organizations from around the country offer unique opportunities for musicians and music lovers to engage in this craft. If you believe in the value of music education, consider supporting one of these four-star charities today.”

The Guild members include in the list were as follows:

  • Settlement Music School, Philadelphia, PA
  • Merit School of Music, Chicago, IL
  • Pasadena Conservatory of Music, Pasadena, CA
  • Third Street Music School Settlement, New York, NY
  • MacPhail Center for Music, Minneapolis, MN

You can read the full post here. 

Edward Farmilant, Guild Service Awardee, Passes Away at 86

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’?”