Music

"To host the number one Hip Hop festival in the United States" — that is Larry Goldman's vision. Two years ago Mr. Goldman, president and chief executive officer of the New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC), charged Baraka Sele, curator/producer of NJPAC's World Festival: Alternate Routes, with bringing this statement to fruition. Over four days this fall (October 31, 2002 through November 3, 2002) NJPAC became one of the first major U.S. performing arts centers to host a festival dedicated to exploring and promoting Hip Hop.

In a crowded auditorium at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, funders, community activists, and artists gathered in March to listen to a panel discussion on hip-hop activism in the Bay Area. The goal of Constant Elevation: The Rise of Bay Area Hip-Hop Activism was twofold: to inform and educate funders about hip-hop activism and how it fits into foundation support, and to highlight local best practices that use Hip Hop as a framework.

November 9, 2002, on the occasion of receiving the Utah Governor's Award in the Humanities

Economic language and ideas have increasingly found their way into discussions of artistic value and cultural benefit. For better or for worse, the discipline of economics has been the lingua franca of public policy discourse for at least the past fifty years. Sometimes the terms resonate harshly on our ears. How do people in the world of arts and culture answer those who speak this language, who try to value cultural activity in terms of economic multipliers, cost-benefit analysis, quantitative outcome measures and, a current favorite, contingent valuation methodology?

November 2002, 72 pages. Human Interaction Research Institute, 5435 Balboa Boulevard, Suite 115, Encino, CA 91316, 818-386-9137, HIRILA@aol.com

Partnership as an Art Form: What Works and What Doesn't in Nonprofit Arts Partnerships should be required reading for funders who are encouraging their grantees to work more closely together in these difficult economic times.

America's Performing Art
A Study of Choruses, Choral Singers, and Their Impact
Chorus America
2003. Funded by the James Irvine Foundation, the Kiplinger Foundation, the Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation, and the Helen F. Whitaker Fund

Reggae to Rachmaninoff
How and Why People Participate in Arts and Culture
Chris Walker and Stephanie Scott-Melnyk, with Kay Sherwood. 2003. The Urban Institute (Washington, D.C.), Funded by the Wallace-Reader's Digest Funds

Federal Support for Historic Preservation Fund on Downward Trajectory
In his fiscal year 2004 budget, President Bush proposed $67 million for the Historic Preservation Fund. The Fund is authorized at $150 million, but historically the Congress and Administration have provided in appropriations just one third of the authorized amount.

I am pleased to report on a new initiative to be launched in November 2003. I first got wind of this proposal at an event in Canada House in London where the organizers were sounding out representatives of the arts-on-television community as to their interest and enthusiasm for an annual gathering to be held in different places around the world. This is an initiative of the Banff Television Foundation based in Alberta, Canada and enjoys the support of IMZ (The International Music Zentrum, in Vienna), U.S. Independents (a Washington, D.C.

The theme of education in the arts can be found throughout GIA's programs. The role that the arts can play in education is one of four primary themes that will be explored at our 2002 conference, Creative Connections; and the "Bookmarks" column in this issue of the Reader concentrates on "Arts Education Resources on the Web". The following two articles take a look at recent research, specifically research that explores the connections between education in the arts and student learning in other realms.The theme of education in the arts can be found throughout GIA's programs.

For more than a decade the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation has been among the nation's leading supporters of symphony orchestras, based on a longstanding commitment to help orchestra institutions strengthen, deepen, and broaden the relationships with their audiences.