Thomas Breen photo
NMS Director Noah Bloom with Gov. Lamont (right) at Monday’s arts announcement.
Arts nonprofits that have been pummeled by the Covid-19 pandemic have a new $9 million state relief fund to turn to for support in helping pay staff, cover student scholarships, and generally stay afloat during the ongoing economic downturn.
State Director of Arts, Preservation and Museums Liz Shapiro announced the imminent launch of that new financial aid effort Monday morning during a press conference held on the front steps of Neighborhood Music School on Audubon Street.
Outside of NMS in the Audubon Arts District.
Flanked by Gov. Ned Lamont, Mayor Justin Elicker, and a host of state legislators and New Haven arts leaders, Shapiro said the new Covid Relief Fund for the Arts will provide a baseline grant of $5,000 each for eligible recipients.
The fund will also provide a matching grant worth up to $750,000 each, as calculated at 50 percent of total private donations raised by an eligible organization between the start of the pandemic in early March and Nov. 1.
“Is this going to fix all things for all people?” asked Shapiro (pictured). “I don’t think we’re in a situation where we can fix all things for all nonprofits, all arts agencies, or all businesses. Is this going to help? Yes. Absolutely.”
The fund — which is made up of federal CARES Act money allocated by the state, and which will be open to applications starting Friday and ending Nov. 3 — is reserved for three specific types of arts nonprofit organizations. Those are performing arts centers, performing groups, and schools of the arts.
Eligible organizations must show a documented loss of earned income of at least 20 percent year-to-date as of Sept. 30 in comparison to the same period last year. They have have been established by Oct. 1, 2019. And they must have at least one full-time paid staff member, either salaried or contractual.
Click here to read for more about the program, and here for the specific eligibility criteria.
The fund comes soon after the state entered Phase 3 of its economic reopening plan, which allows indoor performance venues to resume in-person operations for the first time since the start of the pandemic, albeit at 50 percent capacity. And it comes as arts leaders from across the state have warned that theaters and concerts venues have experienced an unprecedented hit over the past seven months thanks to pandemic-induced mandatory closures.
During a recent arts-forum state legislative candidate forum, a representative from Long Wharf Theatre cautioned that Connecticut’s arts sector has suffered $400 million in loss since the start of the pandemic, and that 62 percent of artists statewide are currently unemployed.
Neighborhood Music School Executive Director Noah Bloom (pictured) said the arts contribute $9 billion every year to the state’s economy, from travel to restaurants to parking to hotel stays.
He said arts nonprofits make up roughly $800 million of that economic impact every year. On Audubon Street alone, he said, various local organizations provide arts education to roughly 4,000 students every week.
“In this particular moment, the arts are hurting,” he said, “and need support to survive.”
Bread & Roses
The state and local politicians on the official speaking lineup for Monday’s presser stressed the importance of the arts in fostering a shared sense of humanity.
Elicker (pictured above) said he and his family have a weekly music night every Saturday for an hour, during which he plays his guitar and his two young daughters play harmonica and sing.
“It’s one of the moments in the week I look most forward to because it allows us to connect with each other in a way that day-to-day life doesn’t allow us to do,” he said. “To find joy, to tap into sorry in a different way, to find community connections, to find peace with each other.”
Elicker said that the city has stepped up to support local artists in need, and that that work began near the start of the pandemic. The city’s creative sector relief fund, launched nearly seven months ago in conjunction with the Arts Council of Greater New Haven, has given out 420 grants worth a total of $175,380 to New Haven artists.
Lamont (pictured) said that he too turns to music — to the piano, in particular — when he’s in need of some emotional solace.
“I play the blues, and it cheers me up,” he said.
He praised Bloom and NMS for continuing to offer remote lessons for young instrumentalists throughout the pandemic. And he said the matching grant nature of the new relief fund is designed to “create more and more popular support for the arts” by incentivizing private fundraising.
“Give us bread, but give us roses, also,” New Haven State Sen. Martin Looney said about the importance of the arts during times of broad-scale, social calamity. He said the arts — represented by the roses, in that aphorism — have an immeasurable impact on quality of life.
“In my own view, art for its own sake has true value,” he said. “Without regard to its economic value.”
“A Very Difficult Year”
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NMS woodwinds students during a virtual class in May.
Interviewed after the presser, local nonprofit arts leaders who head organizations that may be eligible for the new state fund emphasized how much they depend on government aid for survival.
Bloom said that NMS has resumed in-person preschool and middle school education at its Audubon Street campus this fall, but that that means only 60 of the roughly 2,500 students NMS serves any given semester are currently receiving in-person instruction.
During the spring shutdown, he said, NMS turned to online music lessons — which it has kept up with this fall — but had to cancel all of its larger dance and music ensemble work, and furloughed or laid off many of its staff.
Bloom said that the school is projecting a roughly 50 percent, year-over-year reduction in revenue this year thanks to the pandemic.
If the school were to land some of the newly announced state grant money, he said, it would spend it on funding financial aid and scholarships for students in need. That means helping cover the cost not just of admission to the school, but also of improving students’ wifi connections at home and of accessing instruments. “Students need support,” he said. He said the school will also put the money towards supporting faculty and staff.
Thomas Breen photo
Music Haven Executive Director Mandi Jackson (pictured) said her classical music education nonprofit has continued providing online lessons every day for its roughly 80 students this fall. While those virtual lessons continue, the nonprofit still needs to pay for rent at its Erector Square studio space, which has remained unused since the start of the pandemic.
Jackson said that in addition to the online lessons, Music Haven has also experimented with outdoor student recitals, including in a Fair Haven park at Front Street and Lewis Street.
If Music Haven were to qualify for one of the new state arts grants, she said, that money would go towards “our free after-school programs for kids.”
“I think it’s a really important and really encouraging development,” she said about the new relief fund. “It’s been a very difficult year.”
Long Wharf Theatre Managing Director Kit Ingui and Long Wharf Theatre Artistic Director Jacob Padrón (pictured) said that, were their venue to receive a state grant through this fund, they would spend that money on maintaining staff, “putting money in the pockets of artists” employed by the theater, and building out infrastructure for both new performances and an explicitly anti-racist, inclusive approach to local arts.
“You have to put money behind that work,” Padrón said, if a theater is really interested in racial equity in the arts. Ingui said that state grants like the one announced Monday can help cover both general operations and “combatting systemic oppression.”
“We are trying to focus on longevity,” Ingui said. “And a path to sustainability,” Padrón added.
While the theater has moved all of its work online since March, including a recently completed virtual artistic congress, Long Wharf is planning to host its first in-person play since the start of the pandemic this November.
That will be a performance of the play “A Little Bit of Death” by local artist Zulynette, held in East Rock’s Edgerton Park on Nov. 13 and Nov. 14.
Click on the Facebook Live video below to watch the full press conference.