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    Anne-Sophie Mutter and Les Arts Florissants with William Christie lead star-studded wrap-up of music season

    Published April 24, 2015 by

    Long-awaited debuts and interesting programming are in store for fans as South Florida’s 2014-2015 music season draws to a close. First, Anne-Sophie Mutter is scheduled to perform with the New World Symphony, conducted by Founder and Artistic Director Michael Tilson Thomas, in the same program they will perform at Carnegie Hall a few days later. As part of her overdue debut in our city, the renowned German violinist will play Alban Berg’s Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, one of her warhorses, and the American première of Norbert Moret’s En rêve, a concerto for violin and chamber orchestra that the Swiss artist, who died in 1998, composed for Mutter in 1988. The concert ends with Debussy’s La mer and Schubert’s incidental music for Rosamunde. A season finale with all the bells and whistles, the show will be also be wallcast on Saturday, April 25, at 8 p.m.
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    ‘The Leisure Pit’ at PAMM: Pools and the precarious nature of Miami

    Published April 24, 2015 by

    'The Leisure Pit:' concrete, rubber sandals, glass pool tile. Pools have always been integral to the image of Miami. Of the warm-weather city of sun and fun, of the ostentatious show of wealth that pools often convey. They are also high maintenance, requiring tons of water to be replenished constantly, and chemicals to keep them clean. We are floating here in Miami, in liquid luxury and borderline sustainability. Nicolas Lobo’s new site-specific installation at PAMM, a commissioned work with Knight Foundation backing, gets to the heart succinctly in its title: "The Leisure Pit." We like leisure, pits not so much.  
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    American Composers Forum announces winners of the NextNotes High School Composition Awards

    Published April 24, 2015 by

    NextNotes is a new, national program designed to nurture the next generation of creative voices in music composition regardless of musical style. Awards encourage and recognize the creative and talented composers with mentorship, scholarship funds and a performance of their work by professional musicians. The following outstanding 2015 NextNotes Winners were selected for their compositional skills and strong creative voices (more on each winner below): Aiyana Braun (Ardmore, PA): abrasions for cello quartet Michael Cabrera (Auburndale, FL): Polarities for string quartet Evan Caplinger (San Diego, CA): Forges the Sky for string quintet
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    Challenge Fund: Ready for Round 2

    Published April 24, 2015 by

    Irving Washington is deputy director of the Online News Association. This post is cross-published from the association’s website. The best experiments start with an intriguing question. When we launched the Challenge Fund for Innovation in Journalism Education last year, we hoped to spur a fresh, collaborative mindset around journalism education. Our experiment: Can we encourage more U.S. journalism schools to be thought leaders, innovators and change agents? With our partners—the Excellence and Ethics in Journalism Foundation, the Robert R. McCormick Foundation, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Democracy Fund and the Rita Allen Foundation—we awarded $420,000 in grants to 12 schools that came up with original ideas on how to collaborate with local newsrooms on innovative projects. It’s been an exciting journey to see these projects unfold. In the first year, our winners used new tools, relationships and processes to, just as a sampling, successfully cover the issues emerging from sea level rise; break investigative stories on the New York City Housing Authority and mold in tenements, and launch a student-run digital news portal in New Mexico. They’ve shared their learning along the way at venues across the country, including ONA14, the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute, AEJMC, Journalism/Interactive and the International Symposium on Online Journalism.
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    Expanding eMerge Americas conference reflects Miami’s growing reputation

    Published April 24, 2015 by

    In his closing remarks at the eMerge Americas technology conference last year, keynote speaker Armando Christian Pérez, aka Pitbull, said, “Get ready for this thing to grow bigger.” It turns out he was right. Funded in part by Knight Foundation, the inaugural eMerge Americas attracted more than 6,000 attendees and over 400 companies. A year later, the second eMerge Americas, scheduled for May 1 through 5 at Miami Beach Convention Center and other venues around South Florida, has grown bigger — organizers expect more than 10,000 attendees and “hundreds of top companies” — as well as deeper and broader. In addition, Knight Foundation has extended its support for three more years to the tune of $1.5 million and the list of speakers and participating countries has grown impressively. The main events on this year’s agenda include a Startup Showcase, in which entrepreneurs compete for funding from well-known investors; Women, Innovation & Technology (WIT), a one-day summit showcasing top female professionals from different industries; eGov: Government Innovation Summit, which will feature government officials discussing the uses of innovative technology for sustainable development; and pavilions from different nations. But perhaps the most dramatic development in eMarge’s rapid growth is the conference’s partnership with NBC Universal News Group and Telemundo. The on-air and digital powerhouses will cover the event live on several platforms, including leading shows such as “Fast Money,” with Melissa Lee, “Meet the Press,” with Chuck Todd, and “Enfoque,” with Jose Diaz-Balart.
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    AUTOMAT finds footholds with new space for emerging artists

    Published April 24, 2015 by

    April, in addition to being the start of beautiful spring weather in Philadelphia, is also the inaugural month for the latest collective featuring work by emerging artists: AUTOMAT. In order to kick off this creative journey, the space is showcasing work by member artists in a debut exhibition entitled “Hello, My Name is AUTOMAT.” The gallery is in good company, surrounded by a shortlist of Philadelphia’s cutting-edge, artist-run locales on the second floor of 319 North 11th Street. Providing examples of the founding members’ tastes and talents, the exhibition includes assemblages, paintings, photos, a video and, perhaps most importantly, yet another fresh outlet for Philadelphia visual art. Zach Zecha, "planes for tomorrow." Zach Zecha’s mixed media sculpture “planes for tomorrow” resides in the middle of the show and provides both a sense of movement and location with its sparse, linear structure. One side of the piece has a six-paned window elevated on a banister or gate of sorts. All of the wooden elements – the rungs of the lower half and the frames of the window – are coated in mellow shades of pastel blue and lavender. Splashed against the glass are more jarring streaks of red and white paint, as well as a decal of Donald Duck peering through yet another frame. Sheets of reflective silvery material hang down in front of two sections of the window-like tinfoil curtains, reflecting where one could otherwise see through.
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    Listen first: Life lessons from the Peace Corps

    Published April 24, 2015 by

    At the “Stories From the Peace Corps” discussion at the University of Miami Wednesday, there were poignant moments and laughter; tales of mullahs and mud bricks in Iran; river merchants and a moustache in Venezuela and a birth in a village in Western Samoa. Together, they provided snapshots of ordinary people having extraordinary encounters. And as University of Miami President Donna Shalala, Knight Foundation President Alberto Ibargüen and Peace Corps Director Carrie Hessler-Radelet, all returned Peace Corps volunteers, told their stories, they also spoke of how those experiences shaped their lives. “If you pay attention to what’s going on around you and shut up and listen, you are likely to learn a lot yourself,” said Ibargüen, who served stints in Venezuela (1966-68) and Colombia (1969-71). “I don’t think there is any question in my mind that the greatest beneficiary of my time at the Peace Corps was me.” For Shalala, who served as a volunteer teacher at an Agricultural College in southern Iran from 1962-64, “once a Peace Corps volunteer always a volunteer.” “You see how excited we are even after all these years,” said Shalala, who is retiring as university president at the end of the school year and will be leading the Clinton Foundation. “ All the other stuff in our resumes ... that’s boring compared to this.” There was definitely a palpable passion in the telling of those stories, some of which influenced their lives and careers.
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    Akron’s Big Love Fest showcases creativity and strength of local community

    Published April 24, 2015 by

    Over the past two months, the Akron League of Creative Interventionists has been celebrating culture, music, art and even time to connect local residents through creativity. Participating in Big Love Fest was just one of the approaches the group used, which gave league members a chance to contribute through art and leadership within a zero waste framework. Roughly 2,000 people attended the 12-hour event on Feb. 28, and when it was over, there wasn’t enough trash to fill a single trash bag. Megan Shane, one of many Akron League of Creative Interventionist members who made the event possible, said, “Everything else was recycled or composted.” Even the art was made from recycled materials. Each month the league builds an event around a theme set by its founder, San-Francisco-based artist Hunter Franks. Knight Foundation provided more than $55,000 for Franks to create similar community connections in four Knight cities: Akron, Detroit, Philadelphia and Macon, Ga. February’s theme was Strength, and the league was one of the presenting organizations for Big Love.
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    Akron Baroque to present “Venetian Splendor” in upcoming concert

    Published April 23, 2015 by

    If it ain’t baroque, don’t fix it. That could be a twist on the cooperative way that Akron Baroque, a Knight Arts grantee, goes about the business of planning concert programs. For the upcoming “Venetian Splendor” concert that will feature composers Tomaso Albinoni and Antonio Vivaldi, organist and harpsichordist Valerie Thorson took the collaborative lead in the upcoming concert. During a fun telephone interview with the enthusiastic Thorson, she provided lots of background information for the context and selection of the upcoming concert. If you have ever wondered how musical venues take shape, here's at least one model. Momentously for Akron Baroque, the 13-15-member ensemble will, for the first time, work without a conductor. At the suggestion of Music Director Guy Bordo, the concert will be led by a player–in this case, violinist Alan Bodman. Bodman, as Thorson noted, is the concert master for the Akron Symphony Orchestra (also a Knight arts grantee), so he’s used to leading a group, if not conducting it.
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    New Knight report: Art that builds community

    Published April 23, 2015 by

    Six years ago, Knight Foundation President Alberto Ibargüen asked me to develop a national arts program for the foundation focused on building community through the arts. Today, I’m excited to share a new report that chronicles our progress and introduces you to the many people and projects that have surprised us with their ideas for engaging audiences through arts and culture. In it, I hope you find both inspiration and practical examples that can help inform your work. The report focuses on projects that live the ideal of making art an integral part of people’s lives. For example, the report explores larger institutions that are literally changing the way their community interacts with art – whether it’s Opera Philadelphia surprising an entire city with its Random Acts of Culture, or the Akron Art Museum’s goal of bringing residents closer to the artistic experience. You can also read about smaller, grassroots efforts, like a poetry festival in Miami that has experimented with ways to bring a poem to each one of the area’s 2.6 million residents, and a St. Paul group that has sparked a national movement to make buying art as easy as participating in a local farm share program.
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    Restoring Lowerton’s ghost signs: April update

    Published April 23, 2015 by

    Okay, it’s time to admit that I’m hooked on history. Now that I’ve embarked with my company, Stahl Construction, on the adventure of restoring and conserving some of the ghost signs in Lowertown, my interest in the local history of St. Paul has grown even stronger. I find myself frequently browsing the internet for any tidbits of information that will paint a clearer picture of the city as it once was. History for me isn’t about dry dates and dull chronologies of historical events. I see history as the best works of drama or literary fiction and the finest examples of physical art.  
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    Going ‘lean’ to build better communities

    Published April 22, 2015 by

    Photo: Andrés Duany, partner at Duany Plater-Zyberk & Co. in Miami, left, and Hank Dittmar, former chief executive of The Prince’s Foundation in London. Courtesy of Urban Land Institute.  Developers from around the world took part in discussions on small-scale projects to revitalize urban neighborhoods last week at the Hilton Miami Downtown. That was the focus of the Urban Land Institute Small-Scale Developers Forum April 16-17. Several speakers championed the idea of making the development process more accessible and inclusive, especially to young and immigrant leaders seeking to build enduring value in their communities. One central topic was “Lean Urbanism.” An introduction to the concept of what it means to incorporate the “lean” philosophy into a city was made by architectural planners and urban design strategists Hank Dittmar, principal at Hank Dittmar Associates and former chief executive of The Prince’s Foundation in London, and Andrés Duany, a partner at Duany Plater-Zyberk & Co. in Miami.
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    Knight Cities podcast: Insights from Down Under in making government bureaucracy open to change

    Published April 22, 2015 by

    Are “creative” and “bureaucracy” mutually exclusive terms? Erma Ranieri is working hard to prove otherwise. As commissioner for public sector employment in South Australia, she is leading [email protected] to speed change in government. For her efforts to make government bureaucracy creative and responsive to citizens she was named 2014 Telstra South Australia Business Woman of the Year. [email protected] initiatives, such as the Public Sector Values, 90-day projects and High-Performance Framework, encourage change and contribute to a vibrant public service that works together and solves problems for and with the community. 
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    Tough questions and answers at “Gentrification and Urban Development” at the N’Namdi Center for Contemporary Art

    Published April 22, 2015 by

    A diverse audience was gathered at the N’Namdi Center for Contemporary Art on Thursday, April 16th, for the final installment of a three-part panel series on gentrification–this one on the subject of “Gentrification and Urban Development.” The panel was moderated by Stephen Henderson of the Detroit Free Press, and comprised of Malik Yakini, founder and executive director of the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network, which operates the seven-acre D-Town Farm in Detroit's Rouge Park; Ernest Zachary, founder and vice president for development at Zachary & Associates, a Detroit-based firm specializing in all phases of economic development; Kathleen Colin, director of investments at Oppenheimer & Co. and chapter president for the National Association of Securities Professionals-Detroit; Catherine Kelly, publisher for the Michigan Citizen; and Halima Cassells, a Detroit-based artist and activist who holds leadership roles at many community-based organizations, including the Oakland Avenue Artists Coalition, North End SOUP and The Free Market.
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    Seeing the Forest for the Art: LandLab residency concludes

    Published April 22, 2015 by

    On Sunday, April 26, seven Philadelphia artists will open up their studios, inviting the public to see how they’ve paired art and science in the LandLab artist residency at the Schuylkill Center. But these studios aren’t buildings, aren’t indoors at all. For the LandLab residents, the Center’s fields and forests have been both studio and laboratory for the past year as the artists grapple with how environmental art can address local ecological issues. At the Schuylkill Center, managing our forests presents seemingly insurmountable obstacles: invasive species, deer that overgraze the forest and remove native wildflowers, erosion from increasingly large storms, and the myriad impacts of climate change.