FRANKFORT, Ky. – The Kentucky Arts Council recently awarded $1,085,436 in matching General Operating Support grants to enrich arts and cultural life across the Commonwealth. The Arts Council approved panel recommendations for operational support funding for 66 non-profit organizations, based in 29 different counties, whose primary purpose is to provide arts opportunities for Kentuckians.
The Arts Council’s competitive General Operating Support I and II awards are based on the size of an organization’s operating budget combined with their ability to meet specific performance expectations in the areas of arts delivery, networking and collaboration, diversity, and promoting the value of the arts.
“The reach of the General Operating Support program is very diverse – both geographically and in the type of arts and cultural programming the funding provides,” says Lori Meadows, executive director of the Kentucky Arts Council.
Among the organizations funded by the Arts Council’s operating support grants are performing arts presenters, dance companies, festivals, craft and visual arts membership organizations, public galleries, orchestras, professional and community theatre groups, museums, and educational and community development programs.
NOTE TO EDITORS: General Operating Support Grant recipients and contact information are listed below, by county.
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The Kentucky Arts Council is a state agency in the Commerce Cabinet. Working in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts, the Arts Council invests in programs that develop vibrant communities, provide lifelong education in the arts and support arts participation. Every $1 in grant funds awarded by the Kentucky Arts Council helps grantees secure $15 in earned income and matching funds from individuals, philanthropic sources and other levels of government.
General Operating Support I
Boyd
Paramount Arts Center $76,841
Paramount Arts Center’s mission is to inspire, educate and entertain its community with outstanding performing arts and diverse cultural experiences. That is paired with the artistic vision to create a cultural environment that reaffirms the area’s Appalachian traditions while broadening its aesthetic parameters. It accomplishes these goals by presenting several interdisciplinary series of arts programming in its historic theatre in identified outreach areas, and by exposing school-age children to a series of live theatre, musical concerts, cross-cultural exchanges and creative workshops.
Contact: Kathy Timmons, Executive Director
kathyt@paramountartscenter.com
606-324-3175
Campbell
Kentucky Symphony Orchestra $26,168
The Kentucky Symphony Orchestra was founded with the mission to create a new audience for symphonic music by making it socially and economically attractive to diverse audiences. It strives to culturally enrich, educate and entertain the residents of Northern Kentucky and Greater Cincinnati through unique and innovative presentations designed to make symphonic music attractive, accessible and affordable.
Contact: James R. Cassidy, Executive/Music Director
info@kyso.org
859-431-1137
Christian
Pennyroyal Arts Council $8,764
The Pennyroyal Arts Council encourages, develops and promotes the appreciation of the arts through education, support, service and presentation. It presents quality performances in all disciplines to reach diverse and underserved populations; develops and promotes arts in education programming through performances and hands-on activities; utilizes professional artists and touring companies; promotes local artists and arts organizations by providing technical, financial, administrative and marketing assistance and provides a performance arts venue for the community at the Alhambra Theatre.
Contact: D. Carol Barta, Executive Director
paci@bellsouth.net
270-887-4295
Clark
Leeds Center for the Arts $4,878
The Leeds Center for the Arts is an organization that serves as an informational resource and educational center as well as a visual and performing arts center for citizens within a 50-mile radius. It presents regional and national entertainers, provides space for community dance organizations, choral ensembles and theatre groups to perform and provides educational programming including professional development opportunities for teachers.
Contact: Sheila Vaughn, Theatre Director
sheila@leedscenter.com
859-744-6437
Daviess
International Bluegrass Music Museum $22,327
The International Bluegrass Music Museum is a local, national/international cultural center for musicians and fans to gather and research the history of bluegrass music, learn to play it, attend legendary concerts, view its artifacts and collections and participate in unique programs, including the Video Oral History Project, Bluegrass in the Schools, free group music lessons, Bill Monroe-Style Mandolin Camps, and bluegrass concerts and festivals.
Contact: Gabrielle Gray, Executive Director
gabriellegray@bluegrass-museum.org
270-926-7891
Owensboro Dance Theatre $6,091
The Owensboro Dance Theatre is dedicated to quality dance performance and education. It provides professional dance instruction and quality dance performance to the tri-state area in a variety of dance disciplines and also strives to educate and expand the community’s knowledge and appreciation of dance as an art form. It also provides clinics and workshops available and open to all young aspiring dancers in the western Kentucky and southern Indiana region.
Contact: Karen Carothers, Co-Artistic Director
odt@owensboro.net
270-684-9580
Owensboro Museum of Fine Art $38,338
The Owensboro Museum focuses on the visual arts in all forms as a way to strengthen and inspire aesthetic and humanistic values. Through its programming and involvement in the community, the Museum increases public knowledge, expands awareness and creativity, and develops a concern and appreciation for the arts. Exhibitions encompass the entire field of the visual arts and educational programs designed for broader constituencies interpret these exhibits.
Contact: Mary Bryan Hood, Director
mail@omfa.museum
270-685-3181
RiverPark Center, Inc. $114,349
The RiverPark Center improves the quality of life by hosting and presenting diverse arts and civic events and focusing on arts in education. Recently, it has attracted and created new programs designed to help economic development such as festivals and the production of Broadway touring shows, which have been highly successful and well received throughout the community.
Contact: Roxi Witt, General Manager
rwitt@riverparkcenter.org
270-687-2770
Theatre Workshop of Owensboro $5,072
The Theatre Workshop of Owensboro provides opportunities and promotes interest in all areas of community theatre. It performs theatre of the highest quality for a diverse and expanding audience while offering artistic experiences for performers, musicians, directors, choreographers, costumers, make-up technicians and educators within the region.
Contact: Mike Filbin, Executive Director
twodrama@bellsouth.net
270-683-5003
Fayette
Actors’ Guild of Lexington $17,790
The Actors’ Guild of Lexington is a professional theatre that presents a season of six productions including new works, classics, comedies, dramas and musicals. Actors’ Guild also presents the New Horizon Project, a new play reading and development initiative. It serves as an incubator for plays written by early career playwrights and it provides additional opportunities for the local theatre community to ply their craft in Lexington.
Contact: Richard St. Peter, Artistic Director
rstpeter@actorsguildoflexington.org
859-233-7330
Central Kentucky Youth Orchestras $7,129
The Central Kentucky Youth Orchestras is one of the fastest growing arts organizations in the area having doubled its membership, currently with 270 student musicians in three orchestras and several smaller ensembles. The organization fosters, in cooperation with public and private schools, quality musical opportunities for talented young musicians in the central Kentucky region and provides affordable, family-friendly concerts for the community.
Contact: Barbara Nobbe, Office Manager
ckyo@ckyo.org
859-254-0796
Headley-Whitney Museum $23,999
The Headley-Whitney founded by the late George W. Headley, a philanthropist and talented lapidarian, continues at his bequest to exhibit decorative arts objects for the enjoyment, education and understanding of diverse cultures in which the art originates. The educational programming of the Museum encourages intellectual inquiry and appreciation of art objects by a wide range of individuals, from specialized collectors, scholars and historians to the general public.
Contact: Sarah E. Henrich, Executive Director
she@headley-whitney.org
859-255-6653
Kentucky Ballet Theatre $7,939
The Kentucky Ballet Theatre’s mission is to establish through performances and education, a professional company and academy committed to the art of dance and to promote this art form in the central Kentucky region and provide service to the Commonwealth, where needs and interests exist. The organization’s artistic objective is to be true to the art form of ballet while performing and producing traditional, neo-classical and new works that are accessible, entertaining and creative.
Contact: Jan Foody, President
info@kyballet.com
859-252-5245
Lexington Art League $19,941
The Lexington Art League is central Kentucky’s oldest and largest non-profit visual arts organization, providing exhibition and educational opportunities for artists, patrons, and the public. The artistic objectives of the organization include challenging and stimulating the public with excellence in art, promoting nascent and rising artists, and developing context for the art exhibited through dialogue sessions, panel discussions, lectures, workshops and artists demonstrations.
Contact: Allison Kaiser, Executive Director
akaiser@lexingtonartleague.org
859-254-7024
Lexington Ballet Company $11,054
The Lexington Ballet Company is a non-profit ballet school that offers high quality dance instruction for pre-professional students. It operates for the purpose of promoting interest in ballet, maintaining a performing ballet company and operating a ballet school.
Contact: Mark Roozen, Executive Director
roozy1@aol.com
859-233-3925
Lexington Children's Theatre, Inc. $39,505
The Lexington Children’s Theatre, Inc. provides young Kentuckians with professional quality theatre experiences, theatre arts education and promotes theatre for young audiences. It is a fully professional theatre employing full-time and part-time actors, educators, directors, designers, administrators and technicians.
Contact: Brenda Psotka, Development Director
bpsotka@lctonstage.org
859-254-4546
Lexington Philharmonic Orchestra $54,998
The Lexington Philharmonic Orchestra contributes to cultural and artistic life of central Kentucky through performances, events and educational opportunities. Programs include a MasterClassics Series, POPS! -- the series, Family Concerts, Coffee Concerts, Peanut Butter and Jelly Concerts (for toddlers-young children), Instrument Petting Zoo and free community concerts.
Contact: Peter Kucirko, Executive Director
pkucirko@lexphil.org
859-233-4226
Lexington Shakespeare Festival $5,269
The Lexington Shakespeare Festival provides opportunities for artists and thousands of participants to experience Shakespeare and the classics in an outdoor format and in various public venues. Educational workshops, youth programs and productions, auditions, planning and rehearsals have made the Festival a year-round attraction for those interested in theatre. The organization’s mission is to provide heightened awareness for the community’s understanding of classical literature by the production of quality Shakespearean plays and other classical playwrights.
Contact: Derik R. Mannon, General Manager
dmannon@iglou.com
859-266-4423
Living Arts & Science Center $19,941
The Living Arts and Science Center provides creative and unique opportunities for exploration and education in the arts and sciences. It annually presents more than 300 arts classes and workshops for children 18 months old to adult. Classes and exhibits include a wide variety of two- and three-dimensional art forms such as pottery, printmaking, painting, drawing, photography, model building, sculpture, collage and others.
Contact: Heather Lyons, Director
Hlyons@LASLEX.org
859-252-5222
Music Institute of Lexington $9,101
The mission of the Music Institute of Lexington is to provide quality musical enrichment programs for central Kentuckians of all ages and abilities with an extensive outreach effort aimed at traditionally underserved populations, including those who have disabilities and children and youth who are from disadvantaged backgrounds. The organization’s emphasis on diversity and community participation is aptly expressed in the vision that “our weakest hands may someday make the strongest music.” Students receive individual and group instruction in piano, guitar, strings, woodwinds, brass, percussion and voice.
Contact: Mylinda Dockery, Executive Director
mylinda@musicforlexington.org
859-273-9991
Floyd
Jenny Wiley Theatre $30,103
Jenny Wiley Theatre provides enrichment to the regional community through the performing arts by producing and presenting live theatre in a wide range of dramatic genres and is one of the few remaining outdoor theatres in the country to produce major musicals in rotating repertory. Jenny Wiley Theatre provides employment opportunities for artists, preserves local culture and heritage and contributes to regional tourism and economic development. Educational programs include school matinees, a tour for schools, year-round educational workshops for youth, and professional development for teachers.
Contact: Martin Childers, Managing Director
marty@jwtheatre.com
606-886-9274
Mountain Arts Center $48,482
The Mountain Arts Center is a publicly owned cultural arts center that serves 23 counties and 33 school districts throughout the eastern region of the state. The Center, home of the Kentucky Opry, operates both as a tourist destination and a performing arts center with a focus on featuring local musicians, artists and performers while offering a variety of programming and instruction in the artistic disciplines. Education and outreach programs include arts education classes in various disciplines, individual instruction in voice, guitar, violin/fiddle, mandolin and banjo, master classes, school matinee performances and festivals.
Contact: Keith Caudill, Executive Director
keith@macarts.com
606-889-9125
Hart
Kentucky Repertory Theatre at Horse Cave $29,362
Kentucky Repertory Theatre (formerly Horse Cave Theatre) was founded to bring both cultural and economic growth to the region. Its purpose is to challenge, inspire, teach and entertain the audience and the artist. In addition to a variety of plays presented in rotating repertory format, Kentucky Repertory Theatre provides Workshops on the Road (in public schools), Young Performer’s Productions, Kentucky Voices (annual readings of new plays by or about Kentuckians), Project Heat and Childsplay (for kindergarten and elementary age children).
Contact: Robert Brock, Artistic Director
staff@kentuckyrep.org
270-786-1200
Jefferson
Portland Museum Inc $9,638
Community-based programming has always been at the heart of the Portland Museum that is deeply committed to serving its core constituency; the people who live in the Portland neighborhood. The Museum has four galleries of exhibition space with permanent exhibitions and temporary exhibitions featuring local art and history. It also offers cultural programming for neighborhood families, adult and youth.
Contact: Nathalie Andrews, Executive Director
pmuse@iglou.com
502-776-7678
Walden Theatre $19,648
The Walden Theatre provides young people the opportunity to grow and develop through the professional study of theatre. At Walden Theatre, young people cultivate their love of theatre and literature, while becoming self-confident, learning life skills and forging lasting friendships. Major programs are the Conservatory Program, summer camps and the school-based Outreach Program.
Contact: Gina Elliott
gelliott@waldentheatre.org
502-589-0084
Kenton
Behringer-Crawford Museum $11,405
The Behringer-Crawford Museum is the only museum in Kentucky that has accepted the unique responsibility of chronicling the natural, cultural, and artistic heritage of the tri-county area that makes up the northern Kentucky region. The Museum presents the community with fun and interactive educational arts programs that bring history to life and create opportunities for personal enrichment for all ages.
Contact: Laurie Risch, Executive Director
lrisch@bcmuseum.org
859-491-4003
Carnegie Visual & Performing Arts Center $23,047
The Carnegie Visual and Performing Arts Center, with the recently restored Otto M. Budig Theatre, provides a venue for emerging and established artists to create, perform and exhibit and educational opportunities for the discovery and enhancement of creativity. The Center offers a variety of free or low cost year-round art education programs for youth and their families, especially those at-risk and utilizes the five galleries to showcase emerging and recognized local and regional contemporary artists. The theatre is used for performance events and programs for school youth, families and the larger community – for artistic expression in every art form.
Contact: Nancy Henry Chadwick, Executive Director
nchadwick@thecarnegie.com
859-491-2030
Center for Great Neighborhoods of Covington $6,994
Center for Great Neighborhoods of Covington (formerly Covington Community Center) is a non-profit community development organization, serving residents of Covington. The Center’s arts and cultural objectives are to involve community residents in the life-transforming process of creating art, to elicit active and creative cultural expression of people in the community and to advance the community’s cultural development.
Contact: Jean St. John, Director of Community Arts
jean@greatneighborhoods.org
859-491-2220 ext. 17
Letcher
Appalshop $84,820
Appalshop is a multi-disciplinary arts and cultural center, started in 1969 as a federally funded film workshop project to train youth in filmmaking so they could find jobs in the national cultural industry. However, most of the youth chose to stay and use documentary film as a method to explore their homeplace, and others joined them to work with storytelling, music and radio. Today the organization is an internationally acclaimed cultural center revitalizing, documenting, and disseminating the lasting traditions and contemporary creativity of Appalachia. All of Appalshop’s work is arts-centered, and the organization encourages community input and active participation in its media, performance, visual arts, and music productions.
Contact: Tom Hansell, Board Chairman
thansell@appalshop.org
606-633-0108
McCracken
Luther F. Carson Four Rivers Center $101,993
The Carson Center is a new regional multi-purpose performing arts center, opened in 2004 after a decade of work by a community that envisioned an exquisite performance venue remote from metropolitan areas. The Carson Center presents a variety of nationally and internationally acclaimed performing artists that are affordable and accessible to the public as well as educational programming for school children in the region.
Contact: Debbie Wattier, Director of Development
dwattier@thecarsoncenter.org
270-443-9932 x 2283
Market House Theatre, Inc. $25,004
The Market House Theatre began when community volunteers transformed an abandoned market house building into a theatre. The mission of the Theatre is to enhance the quality of life in the community by providing a ‘hands-on’ artistic experience for people of all ages. Programming includes a five-production Main Stage season, a Youth season, a Studio season, five separate youth acting troupes, regional school outreach programs, workshops, residencies and pre-school elementary touring productions.
Contact: Michael Cochran, Executive Director
m.cochran@mhtplay.com
270-444-6828 ext. 114
Museum of the American Quilter's Society $30,935
The Museum of the American Quilter’s Society is a visual arts museum featuring art made with needle, thread and fabric. It is the largest quilt museum in the world, exhibiting more than 100 quilts daily and the only museum whose collecting is focused on contemporary quilts. The Museum’s mission is to educate the local, national and international public about the art, history and heritage of quilt making, including the diversity of quilts and their quilt makers.
Contact: May Louise Zumwalt, Executive Director
mzumwalt@quiltmuseum.org
270-442-8856
Maiden Alley Cinema/Paducah Film Society $3,113
The Paducah Film Society was established to bring high quality, independent and foreign film to audiences in Paducah. Its mission is to use film to provide entertainment, promote cultural literacy, create cross-cultural awareness and promote filmmaking as an art form. The Paducah Film Society offers 52 weeks of film presentation in a very broad cultural scope, auxiliary programming and the River’s Edge Film Festival.
Contact: Jason Turner, Executive Director
jturner@maidenalleycinema.com
270-442-7723
Paducah Symphony Orchestra $10,199
The Paducah Symphony Orchestra was established to provide the highest quality orchestral and choral music to area residents, and to provide employment to professional musicians in western Kentucky. It offers performance experience, music education and outreach activities in the region. There have been over 120 ensemble performances in 20 communities since the outreach program was started in the early 1980s.
Contact: K. Jeff Voigt, Executive Director
jvoigt@paducahsymphoy.org
270-444-0065
Yeiser Art Center $4,462
The Yeiser Art Center was established for the purpose of promoting the appreciation of the visual arts and their creation. The Center, with a permanent exhibition space and collection, serves adults and children of all ages through the region. It provides arts experiences for children while advocating for stronger arts education in the schools and helps interpret the visual arts to the regional community by promoting established and emerging local artists as well as regional and national artists.
Contact: Bentley Utgaard, Gallery Administrator
yacenter@paducah.com
270-442-2453
Montgomery
Montgomery County Council for the Arts $3,883
The Montgomery County Council for the Arts began in 1991 to address the lack of arts programming in the Mt. Sterling/Montgomery County community in a climate of high unemployment rates, factory closings, and general community apathy. The purpose of the Council is to promote, enhance and contribute to the educational, artistic and cultural lives of those living in central and eastern Kentucky and to serve as a resource and supportive agency for organizations that affect or alter the cultural climate of the community.
Contact: Cay Lane, Executive Director
CayLane@bellsouth.net
859-497-1209
Pendleton
Kincaid Regional Theatre $4,525
Kincaid Regional Theatre is a non-profit organization whose mission is to provide musical and comedy entertainment of the highest quality to the surrounding areas of northern and central Kentucky. In doing this, the Theatre affirms its commitment to artistic excellence, and the advancement of theatre arts. Kincaid Regional Theatre came into existence in 1982 as a joint venture of artistic minded community leaders and the Pendleton County Board of Education. It creates an artistic outlet for professional and local talent in a rural location where few artistic or theatrical opportunities are available.
Contact: Shirley L. Merrill, General Manager
krtshows@fuse.net
859-654-2636
Perry
Greater Hazard Area Arts Council/Performing Arts Series $6,069
The Greater Hazard Area Arts Council and Performing Arts Series is a not-for-profit organization that is community focused. The Council assists in the development of the arts and arts education in the southeast Kentucky region. The purpose is to develop an awareness and appreciation of the arts by presenting and producing diverse arts programs and arts education activities that are both unique and familiar to the upper Kentucky River area of southeast Kentucky. Through this exposure, the organization strives to develop an arts educated community that will in turn promote the importance of the arts to all.
Contact: Tammy Duff, Performing Arts Director
Tammy.duff@kctcs.edu
606-487-3067
Warren
Bowling Green Chamber Orchestra $12,857
The Bowling Green Chamber Orchestra is the only professional chamber orchestra in Kentucky and employs only the finest musicians to perform a busy season of subscription concerts, run-outs and special events performances. It also fills a pressing need in the region for quality string instruction by forming the Bowing Green String Academy with over 130 students, three youth orchestras, the Chamber Singers and the Chamber Players.
Contact: Darrell G. Edwards, Executive Director
info@bgchamberorchestra.org
270-846-2426
Capitol Arts Alliance $15,763
The Capitol Arts Alliance works to enrich the quality of life in south central Kentucky through arts experiences as a presenter, an art educator, and a leader. The Alliance operates the Capitol Arts Center, which accommodates a variety of arts, educational and civic events. The Alliance also offers off-site arts programming for the Bowling Green Chamber of Commerce, the Health and Wellness Center/Greenwood Mall and the Southern Kentucky Cancer Center/Bowling Green Medical Center.
Contact: Mike Thomas, Executive Director
mike.thomas@capitolarts.com
270-782-2787 ext. 101
Public Theatre of Kentucky $4,209
The Public Theatre of Kentucky’s mission is to promote and encourage the art of theatre throughout the community. In addition to presenting a main stage season of five to six plays a year, the organization also has Sunburst Youth Theatre, a children’s theatre organization, which includes training and performance by and for the youth. Public Theatre of Kentucky also offers an After Hours series featuring local musicians, which supports artists and attracts new audiences to the theatre.
Contact: Delia Brown, Producing Director
ptk@bowlinggreen.net
270-781-6233
VSA arts of Kentucky $9,337
VSA arts is an international organization headquartered in Washington D.C. with affiliates in forty-nine states and sixty countries. Each affiliate is governed by its own board of directors and offers programming unique to its own needs. VSA arts of Kentucky is the Kentucky affiliate whose mission and objective is to promote arts, education and creative expression for all with an emphasis on persons with disabilities. VSA arts of Kentucky helps to create a society where people with disabilities can learn from, participate in and enjoy the arts by providing programs, projects and services that enable individuals with disabilities opportunities to experience integrated educational, cultural and personal benefits from the arts.
Contact: Ginny Miller, Executive Director
vsaky@bellsouth.net
270-781-0872
TOTAL GOS I $1,015,342
General Operating Support II
Boyd
Arts Council of Northeastern Kentucky $1,283
The Arts Council of Northeastern Kentucky works to improve the community’s connection with the arts. It provides partnership and support for cultural events in the area as well as distributing information about upcoming events through its local newsletter and website.
Contact: Patricia Hall, Executive Director
trishhall@artscouncil-neky.com
606-326-1308
Boyle
Arts Commission of Danville/Boyle County $1,588
The Arts Commission of Danville/Boyle County is an umbrella organization that strives to represent and serve all artists and arts organizations within the community. It provides a bridge between the arts and the community by promoting and encouraging the work of artists and arts organizations and fostering partnerships among the arts, businesses and local government.
Contact: Ann M. Nichols, Executive Director
email@arts-dbc.org
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