Opera Theatre of Saint Louis gets $500,000 from Saigh Foundation
Matthew Hibbard
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St. Louis Business Journal
Opera Theatre of Saint Louis has received an endowment grant of $500,000 from The Saigh Foundation,
which will increase the Fred M. Saigh Endowment Fund at Opera Theatre
to more than $1.5 million, according to a statement from the company.
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Hospital Caring for an Heiress Pressed Her to Give Lavishly
Anemona Hartocollis
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The New York Times
For the last 20 years of her life, Huguette Clark, a wealthy and reclusive copper heiress, lived in a Manhattan hospital room, shades drawn, door closed.... Within months of her arrival, the hospital, Beth Israel Medical Center, went after her for an all-out fund-raising campaign. They researched her family history, had officials visit her often in her room and plied her with gifts. The effort, described in court documents, quickly extended to the hospital’s chief executive and even his mother, who watched the Smurfs with Mrs. Clark and talked to her about making a will.
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Big state arts funding bill falters, so backers lower the ante
Mike Boehm
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Culture Monster (Los Angeles Times)
A bill in Sacramento that would have decisively erased California’s longstanding dubious distinction as the stingiest state in the nation for arts-grant funding has failed for now. Some backers hope it might be revived next year. The bill would have secured $75 million in guaranteed annual funding for the California Arts Council but was frozen last week without a vote. Now advocates aim to persuade legislators and Gov. Jerry Brown to give the agency at least a modest increase as they determine the state budget for the coming fiscal year.
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What Can We Learn? Part 2: Public Radio
Michelle Cheng
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Technology in the Arts
A while back we examined some of the creative ways in which the Nature Conservancy uses its web presence to promote engagement with its constituents. The arts and our public radio comrades have much in common with regard to audience development and engagement challenges. In the spirit of pledge drive season, we’ll take a look at what regional public radio institutions are doing online to create a stronger sense of community and participation, even without the benefit of a physical space.
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Song of Houston operas redefine the art form
Steven Brown
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Houston Chronicle
"Bound" is one in a series of works that have helped Houston Grand Opera redefine what its art form means to a 21st-century city. After centuries as a song of faraway lands and people - hotheaded lovers, ailing heroines, insatiable villains - opera has become a Song of Houston.
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Will Women Billionaires Make Better Philanthropists?
Anya Kamenetz
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FastCoExist.com
The phenomenon of women being personally responsible for giving away billions is really new. Currently women hold almost three-fourths of all jobs, and almost half of all CEO positions, in the nonprofit sector. But they are much more underrepresented at the board and executive level at the really big large charities, the ones with more than $25 million in the bank.
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Los Angeles Opera among recipients of new-audiences grant
David Ng
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LA Times
As the classical-music world continues to struggle with graying and
shrinking audiences, companies are experimenting with ways to attract
new crowds. On Tuesday, 13 opera companies across the nation were named
recipients of a new grant from Opera America designed to foster
attendance growth.
Based in New York, Opera America is a nonprofit
organization whose goal is to promote and raise general awareness of
opera as an art form. The group said it awarded a total of $300,000 in
grants -- ranging from $7,500 to $30,000 -- under the new program, which
is titled "Building Opera Audiences."
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OPERA America Program to Aid 13 Companies
Allan Kozzinn
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ArtsBeat (The New York Times)
Thirteen opera companies across the United States will share $300,000 in grants awarded by OPERA America in the first year of its new Building Opera Audiences program. The grants, which range from $7,500 to $30,000, are for programs meant to increase first-time opera attendance, and to increase return visits.
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Atlanta Opera Appoints Tomer Zvulun as General & Artistic Director
Staff
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broadwayworld.com
Beginning June 1, 2013, Tomer Zvulun will become the Atlanta Opera's new general and artistic director. At only 37 years old, Zvulun is hailed as a rising star in the opera industry, and has earned consistent praise for his creative vision and work in prestigious opera houses worldwide, including The Metropolitan Opera, and the opera companies of Seattle, Cleveland, Dallas, Cincinnati, Buenos Aires, Wolf Trap and more. Zvulun, an Israeli native, will manage both the artistic and administrative aspects of The Atlanta Opera.
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What if an Arts Organization was a MOOC?
Douglas McLennan
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Diacritical
That’s “Massive Open Online Course” and they’re everywhere right now. Some of the most prestigious universities are creating courses online and attracting tens of thousands of students.
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'Django Unchained' pays homage to Wagner's 'Siegfried'
David Ng
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LA Times
When Los Angeles Opera presented its new production of Richard Wagner's Siegfried a few years ago at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, the packed house included the usual assortment of donors and local opera buffs. Nestled somewhere in the orchestra section was an odd man out: Quentin Tarantino, the filmmaker whose hyper-modern and manic sensibilities would seem at odds with slow-moving 19th century German opera.... Tarantino's feelings about Siegfried remain unknown, but it's safe to say his encounter with the opera eventually helped to inspire his most recent movie, Django Unchained, which is available on DVD and video-on-demand this week.
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Raymonds give Palm Beach Opera $50,000 challenge grant
Jan Sjostrom
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Palm Beach Daily News
By now, most audience members know that ticket revenues fall far short of the cost of supporting an opera company. In
Palm Beach Opera’s case, its $1.2 million in ticket sales cover less
than a third of its $3.8 million annual operating budget. That’s
why Palm Beach residents Beverlee and John Raymond have given the
company a $50,000 challenge grant to encourage fans to not only buy
tickets, but also donate. Each contribution will be matched up to
$50,000.
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Plato Karayanis to head The Opera San Antonio
Scott Cantrell
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The Dallas Morning News
Plato Karayanis, who was general director of the Dallas Opera from 1977 to 2000, has been named interim general director and CEO of The Opera San Antonio.
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Experience The Verona Opera For Free With Topflight
Staff
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thecorknews.ie
No trip to Lake Garda is complete without a visit to the Verona Opera and this year you could get your tickets for free if you book with Topflight. To celebrate the Centennial Festival of the Verona Opera, Topflight are giving away free tickets to some of Giuseppe Verdi’s most well known operatic performances including ‘Aida’ when booking a holiday to Lake Garda this August.
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Dan Pallotta: The Way We Think About Nonprofits
Dan Pallotta
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TED
Activist and fundraiser Dan Pallotta calls out the double standard that drives our broken relationship to charities. Too many nonprofits, he says, are rewarded for how little they spend -- not for what they get done. Instead of equating frugality with morality, he asks us to start rewarding charities for their big goals and big accomplishments (even if that comes with big expenses). In this bold talk, he says: Let's change the way we think about changing the world.
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Dear Nonprofit Organizations, You are in Sales
Marc Koenig
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NonProfitHub
Selling is more than pushing products and seducing clients. Instead, we’re all in the business of persuading others. Without good salesmanship, nonprofit professionals can’t learn how to better persuade others of the value of our organizations nor of the change we want to create in the world.
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A Success in HD, but at What Cost?
Anthony Tommasini
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The New York Times
Peter Gelb, the general manager of the Metropolitan Opera, now says that it was not the most fortunate choice of words when he recently attributed a decline in attendance at the house to the “cannibalization” of the audience by the company’s high-definition broadcasts.
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How to Be Ultra Productive — 10 Tips for Mastering Your Time Now
Preston Ni
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Psychology Today
Do you ever wish you had more time to do everything? Have you had
days that were busy but inefficient? Would you like to be highly
productive, feel accomplished at the end of each day, with even time to
spare?
The following are ten tip to help master your time,
interspersed with thoughtful quotes, many of which from well known,
successful individuals who have (obviously) made good use of their time.
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Looking for Leaders: 4 Pivotal Insights on How to Hire Good Leaders
Ronald E. Riggio, Ph.D.
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Psychology Today
The most important individuals in an organization are
not always those who are up front. Sometimes the most important leaders
are those who are further back. In a truly successful organization,
leadership comes from every position and very often leadership in the
seemingly less significant organizational layers can be just as critical
as leadership at the senior level.
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“Only Connect the Prose and the Passion” A Manifesto
Marian Godfrey
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Grantmakers in the Arts
In May 2012 I was invited to speak at the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts’ Cultural Summit 2012, which took place at the school in September. The school is on Deer Isle, part of the coastal archipelago that stitches Maine to the Atlantic Ocean, and that also includes Vinalhaven Island, my family’s home. This article is adapted from my speech.
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Michigan Is Finding That the Arts Is a Growth Industry, Even During the Recession
Hrag Vartanian
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HyperAllergic
Last summer, we reported that ArtsServe Michigan had releases statistics that suggest every $1 invested in the arts in the Great Lakes State yields $51 for the state’s economy. If that didn’t impress you then perhaps you will be surprised to hear that even during the recent recession the arts has been a growth industry in the state.
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What I Hope My Search Committee Thinks About
Michael Kaiser
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The Huffington Post
It is official: I am a lame duck. My contract as President of the Kennedy Center expires at the end of next year and the board has just assembled a search committee to look for my successor. I am deeply grateful to have had the opportunity to lead this amazing institution and have enjoyed (almost) every minute of my tenure. But after 12 years as President, it is time for someone with a new and different vision to run the national cultural center.
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Postcard from Retirement
Rocco Landesman
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ArtWorks (NEA)
I’ve been officially retired now for 27 days, which seems like as good a time as any to reflect on my time at the NEA.
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International Opera Awards launched
Michael Quinn
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The Stage
Details of a new awards initiative for opera have been announced, with the inaugural prize-giving ceremony to be held in London on April 22.
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How Dallas Does Philanthropy
Willard Spiegelman
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The Wall Street Journal
Ross Perot has lived in Dallas for 50 years and made his fortune here.
In 2008, at the start of the last recession, his five children together
pledged $50 million for a new museum to replace older facilities in Fair
Park, the 1936 home of the Texas Centennial, and to honor their father
and mother, Margot, a former teacher with a passion for education.
Carolyn Perot Rathjen said she and her siblings knew exactly how to
celebrate their parents — "with a mission to inspire minds through nature
and science" — when they saw Mrs. Perot's eyes light up at the sight of
yellow school buses in front of Houston's Museum of Natural Science.
Thus far, at the Perot Museum, attendance includes 2,000 schoolchildren a
day (and total attendance in the first two months has exceeded
200,000).
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Dutch Arts Scene Is Under Siege
Nina Siegal
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The New York Times
The Netherlands’ national theater museum here contains about half a
million costumes, masks, annotated scripts, photographs, puppets, props
and other objects that tell the story of more than 300 years of theater
in the Dutch language. Founded in 1924 and refreshed with regular acquisitions, the museum is
the primary repository of the nation’s performing arts heritage, and
until now has always been financed by the state.
But on Jan. 1, the Theatre Institute Netherlands, or TIN, which houses
and maintains the collection, was one of the first victims of sweeping
new cultural budget cuts initiated by the conservative-led Parliament in
2011 and finalized last year. The TIN’s federal financing plummeted
from €4 million a year, about $5 million, to zero, forcing it to fire
about 70 full- and part-time staff, halt operations and close the museum
indefinitely.
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Anchorage Opera makes big plans
Mike Dunham
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Anchorage Daily News
Anchorage Opera's new executive director, Kevin Patterson...is bullish on both the show and the future of the organization. He recently announced an ambitious fundraising campaign and will soon announce a no less ambitious 2013-14 season that will, he said, expand the number of productions and refocus the company on opera repertoire.
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Arts Council considers opera shakeup as ENO posts £2.2m loss
Charlotte Higgins
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The Guardian
Arts Council England is considering a shakeup of the provision of opera in England, as one of the largest companies it funds, English National Opera, posted losses of almost £2.2m.
ENO
has blamed its financial woes on disappointing box-office figures and a
drop in its public subsidy – and becomes the first high-profile
national company to have fallen into the red in the wake of the economic
downturn and reductions in public spending.
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Sarasota Opera pays tribute to Danis
Carrie Seidman
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Sarasota Herald-Tribune
It came several months after she'd moved on to her new position as
CEO/general manager of the Florida Grand Opera in Miami, but when the
Sarasota Opera paid homage to Susan Danis, its executive director for
the past 13 years, Saturday night, it was with a sincere acknowledgment
of her lasting contribution to the organization.
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Tattooed opera composer runs for Czech president
Associated Press
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Fox News
Vladimir Franz, an opera composer and painter, seems the most unlikely
of candidates for a prestigious post previously held by beloved
playwright-dissident Vaclav Havel and Vaclav Klaus, a professor credited
with plotting the economic transition from communism to a free market.
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Classical Station Expands Its Opera
Pia Catton
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The Wall Street Journal
Opera will soon be getting more airtime on WQXR.
On Jan. 19, the all-classical station
will launch a 30-minute Saturday show titled "Operavore," hosted by WQXR
personality Naomi Lewin with the beloved mezzo-soprano Marilyn Horne as
a weekly featured contributor and interviewer. The show will air in a
limited run, and the station has set a fundraising goal of $600,000 to
support it.
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5 From the Nonprofit World Who Will Influence Public Policy in 2013
Suzanne Perry and Caroline Preston
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The Chronicle of Philanthropy
The Charitable Giving Coalition, which unites more than 50 nonprofit associations [including OPERA America] and other groups, has ignited strong opposition to proposals to limit the charitable deduction as part of Washington’s deficit-cutting efforts.
Thanks partly to the coalition’s work, lawmakers have been deluged with protests, the issue has received widespread news-media coverage, and the White House has been courting nonprofit leaders to seek support for its tax plans—evidence that it now views them as political players.
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