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Legion Arts and Waterloo-Cedar Falls Symphony Receive Challenge America
Grants
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) announced that it will award $1.7 million
through 171 grants in its Challenge America Fast-Track Review Grants category.
These awards support projects that provide opportunities for people to experience and participate in a wide range of art forms and activities, enable arts organizations to expand and diversify their audiences, and emphasize the potential of the arts to help strengthen communities.
Many of the projects extend the arts to underserved populations whose access to the arts is limited by geography, ethnicity, economics, or disability.
Iowa organizations receiving grants are:
Legion Arts, Inc.
Cedar Rapids, IA
$10,000
To support presentations by visual, music, and theater artists in community settings
around Cedar Rapids. Artists who reflect selected cultural traditions will collaborate
with local museums as well as with schools, housing agencies, and social service
organizations to engage the citizens of the diverse local neighborhood.
Waterloo-Cedar Falls Symphony Orchestra
$10,000
To support presentations of A Viennese Treat, a concert program featuring pianist
Wendy Chen as a guest artist. The concert will be performed in Cedar Falls and
in rural Oelwein, where residents have little opportunity to hear live classical
music. High school band students will be integrated into the performance.
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Fridley to Serve as Iowa’s Arts Advocacy Captain
Americans for the Arts announced that the organization now has State Arts Advocacy
Captains in all 50 states. Gary Fridley from Sioux City will serve as Iowa’s
representative.
State Arts Advocacy Captains are selected to help promote federal arts issues on a statewide level while also helping keep Americans for the Arts' Government and Public Affairs staff aware of any pending issues at the state level. State Captains have been integral to many of the group’s legislative successes, including the passage of amendments to increase National Endowment for the Arts funding in 2003 and 2004.
In addition, State Captains will lead their state arts delegation's visits to Capitol Hill on Arts Advocacy Day to urge Congress to support arts-friendly legislation and policies. This year, the Arts Advocacy Day Conference will be held March 14-15 in Washington, D.C.
Fridley has served with Iowans for the Arts and has been a review panelist for
the Iowa Scholarship for the Arts. He is a violinist in the Sioux City Symphony,
and currently the orchestra teacher in Cherokee public schools. He is also a 31-year
veteran orchestra instructor in the Sioux City public schools and believes in
forming a strong arts and music program through his teaching.
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Cedar Rapids Drum Corps Invited to Bush Inaugural
A drum corps from Cedar Rapids has been invited to perform at President Bush's
Inauguration Day parade Jan. 20.
This will be the Grant Wood All City Drum Corps' second invitation to an inaugural
parade. The group also marched in President Clinton's second inaugural parade
in 1997.
About 55 students, preschool age through high school and from various Cedar Rapids
schools, participate in the drum corps.
Charletta Taylor with Music Celebrations International, worked with the group on their parade application and arrangements.
“Being chosen for this event is a great honor as hundreds of marching groups
apply to participate,” Taylor said. “A group that is chosen must not
only prove themselves to be outstanding performers, but must also be recognized
representatives of their community.”
