Arts in America webisodes

Ovation TV launches webisode series Arts in America

Their conversation touched on a lot of really interesting issues, including: the value of creativity, how we pay for the arts, and what leaders might do to help the arts. As a citizen, and an advocate for the arts, I question our government's spending priorities. We're spending billions and billions to save companies too large to fail, and not enough on smaller bailouts - including arts bailouts - that would reap larger and more widespread economic benefits. Michael Kaiser, arts organization guru and current President of the Kennedy Center wrote in the Washington Post that "the arts in the United States provide 5.7 million jobs and account for $166 billion in economic activity annually." According to the GM website, that company employs just 252,000 - and that's globally - not just in the United States. Why are we not spending more to save arts institutions? Given the many compelling priorities facing the administration such as the economy and Healthcare reform, and the competition for funding, I think public discussion about the arts, arts education and America's cultural system is critical.

Michael Kaiser advocates for a Federal Arts Policy:

For example, grants for arts education are given by several agencies yet there is no effort to coordinate the educational programming of the arts organizations receiving federal funds. This cannot yield the most effective or efficient results.

There is also no organized process for sharing what has been learned so that every arts organization must learn from its own mistakes. As a result, the federal government has been funding arts education in our public schools for decades and we still have not implemented a coherent approach to using the arts to benefit our children.

The problem is not that federal funding for the arts is unwarranted; the problem is that we need to be assured, as citizens, that we are getting the most value for our money. What is needed is a coordinated approach to arts grants to ensure that the arts programming supported by federal funds truly serves our national interest.

Recession adds to challenges for suburban arts

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090705/ap_en_mu/us_meltdown_suburban_arts

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. – When he hired Itzhak Perlman as artistic director of the Westchester Philharmonic in 2007, Joshua Worby thought he'd hit a grand slam.

He figured that Perlman, a popular, world-famous violinist, would attract new subscribers, raise the reputation of a suburban orchestra just outside New York City and spur fundraising by 40 percent.

"That's the way we projected it," said Worby, the Philharmonic's executive director, "and most of it came true."

Sure enough, attendance doubled. Perlman said he was "extremely happy." Even one category of fundraising, donations from individuals, went up 25 percent.

Then the economy tanked, corporate giving dried up and the orchestra ended the 2008-09 season with a deficit instead of a surplus.

Orchestras, theaters, museums and other arts organizations in the nation's suburbs face the challenge to attract customers — and donors — from the same population going to the Chicago Symphony, the Smithsonian or Broadway plays.