Music Haven Executive Director Tina Lee Hadari with a student
The National Endowment for the Arts has announced $77.17 million in arts grants. Among the recipients of the NEA’s “Art Works” grant-funding program are Music Haven and the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, each of which has been awarded $25,000. For Music Haven, according to the NEA’s website, the funding will “support a free, year-long, after-school music residency of the Haven String Quartet. Program components include twice-weekly instrumental music lessons, bi-monthly workshops, and mentoring from college students studying music.”
Music Haven “provides world-class performances and free after school education programs that build long-term relationships between professional musicians, children, and families in four high-poverty Empowerment Zone neighborhoods of New Haven,” the organization’s website indicates.
For the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, the “Art Works” grant will “support an residency project featuring composer and hip-hop violinist Daniel Bernard Roumain,” the orchestra said in a press release.
“The residency will serve 15,000 students and 3,500 adults, raise students’ awareness of their cultural heritage through creative adaptations of the school curriculum, and build strong partnerships in the community,” according to the NHSO’s press release.
NHSO Executive Director Elaine Carroll
Elaine Carroll, the orchestra’s executive director, was quoted in the release as saying, “This innovative residency has a strong focus on impact arts learning for New Haven residents of all ages. The student participants will acquire a broader knowledge of music, families will enjoy community arts experiences together, and the musicians will develop enhanced skills in the arts.”
The grants received by Music Haven and the New Haven Symphony Orchestra come from the NEA’s “Art Works” program, which has awarded $24.81 million in grants to 788 applicants as part of its “second round of fiscal year 2012 funding,” according to that organization’s website.
Rocco Landesman, the NEA’s chairman, was quoted in his organization’s news release as saying, “The arts should be a part of everyday life. Whether it’s seeing a performance, visiting a gallery, participating in an art class, or simply taking a walk around a neighborhood enhanced by public art, these grants are ensuring that across the nation, the public is able to experience how art works.”
Visit the NEA’s website to see which organizations in Connecticut and beyond are receiving grants in the current funding cycle.