COIL, a dance directed by Erik Stern @ WSU (Ogden: March 29)

COIL at NCUR

WHO:     Weber State University Department of Performing Arts

WHAT:    COIL, a dance directed by Erik Stern

WHERE:   Austad Auditorium, Val A. Browning Center for the Performing Arts

WHEN:    Dance Performance : 29 March 2012• 4:15 pm

Weber State University Department of Performing Arts presents Moving Company’s production of COIL, directed by Erik Stern, Thursday, March 29 at 4:15 pm  in the Austad Auditorium, Val A. Browning Center for the Performing Arts. This performance is a featured event at the National Conference on Undergraduate Research (NCUR), being held on the WSU Ogden campus March 29-31. This is a free performance and open to the public.

Inspired by John Donne’s famous XVII Meditation, COIL is a collaboration between choreographer Stern and Choir, Theatre Design English and the 39 students (15 dancers and 24 singers) who perform the work. Stern says, “Four hundred years ago John Donne wrote, ‘No man is an island, entire of itself.’ Is this true? How connected are we to those in our society and the world? ‘COIL’ playfully explores John Donne’s provocative statement through dance, live music, and a unique prop: a two-inch thick cord.” Mark Henderson, the director of the WSU Chamber Choir and longtime collaborator with Stern, is the musical director for this feast of sound and movement.

Moving Company is the Dance Area’s outreach program.  At 1PM on March 29 & 30, COIL will be performed for bused-in 6th-9th graders. Presentation to these students and its inclusion in NCUR will be an excellent opportunity to share this original, interdisciplinary work with faculty and students from around the country, as well as community members of Northern Utah. 

Study materials will be sent to participating 6-9th grade classes. Selected schools will be eligible for a master class with Stern and dancers.  Materials are created with Professor Gary Dohrer and College of Education graduate student Jennifer Alverson. Also in conjunction with this project, WSU student ShayLynne Clark collected data for a research project she will be presenting at NCUR about the process of creativity.

Erik Stern has toured throughout North America as well as Europe as a professional choreographer, dancer and educator. In addition to being faculty at WSU, he is a teaching artist with the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, conducting workshops throughout the U.S.

COIL is funded in part by a generous grant from the John A. and Telitha E. Lindquist Faculty Fellowship for Creative and Artistic Endeavors.

For more information about this production contact director Erik Stern, estern@weber.edu

CREATIVITY RESEARCH

WHO:     Weber State University Department of Performing Arts

WHAT:   Creativity Research Project by ShayLynne Clark

WHERE: National Conference on Undergraduate Research

WHEN:   research presentation in Shepherd Union Building during the conference, Mar 29-31

performance: 29 March 2012• 4:15 pm (presentation of the work of art in Austad Auditorium, Val A. Browning Center for the Performing Arts 

Weber State University student ShayLynne Clark will be presenting research results on creativity at the upcoming National Conference on Undergraduate Research (NCUR), being held on the WSU Ogden campus March 29-31. She collected her data while working with the collaborative project, “COIL.”  Directed by Erik Stern with Musical Direction by ShayLynne faculty mentor Dr. Mark Henderson “COIL” will be presented Thursday, March 29 at 4:15 pm  in the Austad Auditorium, Val A. Browning Center for the Performing Arts. This performance is a part of NCUR. This is a free performance and also open to the public.

Clark said, “Typically, when people think of the word ‘creativity’, they think of it within the narrow confines of the individual. It is common knowledge that individuals create. . . but is it possible that without the influence of other people, these ‘creative individuals’ would have been as successful? Investigations into creativity have started to focus less on the individual, and more on the system promoting that creativity, rather than single individuals creating in solitude. Creativity, then, can be seen as resulting from the interaction of a system consisting of three elements: a culture that contains symbolic rules, a person who brings novelty into the symbolic domain, and a field of experts who recognize and validate the innovation.

“Like many researchers who set out to understand creativity, the aim of this project started out asking if a group can, in fact, create a cohesive performance piece together, especially if they are used to being confined to distinct, non-meshing groups. Over the course of my research, though, it evolved into a study of the inner-workings of the group creativity that resulted.”

Clark’s abstract, submitted to NCUR as part of the application:

Group creativity: cooperating across disciplines. Group creativity is multi-faceted; beginning with individual contributions combining to form a medium that is greater than the sum of its parts. According to the sociocognitive model of creativity, the potential for creativity depends on how group processes take place, whether it be through discussion and voting, or improvisation. The composition of the groups as well as the organizational context is key to creating a cohesive and replicatable outcome, but it is mediated through the number of individual innovations as well as the quality of those innovations. This experiment is a qualitative and quantitative journey to understand the unique interaction between Weber State University performing groups (Orchesis, dance, Chamber Ensemble), and how they came together to create the ‘Coil’ performance. . .” 

Clark will graduating this semester (after only four years) with three bachelors degrees: Anthropology, Microbiology, and a BIS with emphasis on chemistry, neuroscience and psychology. She will be applying for medical school this summer, and is hoping to get into the Ben Gurion University of the Negev, focusing on international health and medical anthropology. She worked on the research with Dr. Stern, Dr. Henderson, and a fellow student, Brett Cragun.

For more information about this Clark: 801-916-6989 or shaylynneclark@gmail.com

NCUR at WSU: http://www.weber.edu/ncur2012/

Salt Lake County Cultural Facilities Support Program Application | Deadline: April 30

Salt Lake County Cultural Facilities Support Program Application Deadline Set

The 2012 Cultural Facilities Support Program application deadline is Monday, April 30, 2012.  Electronic copies of the 2012 Guidelines and Application are available online at the Salt Lake County Center for the Arts website at www.slccfa.org/cultural-facilities-support-program.  For more information, please call 801-323-6803. 

The Support Program will accept applications from March 6 – April 30, 2012 for consideration in the 2013 County budget cycle.  Applicants should plan to attend a workshop to assist in understanding and completing the application.  Workshops will be held on Monday, March 19, and Monday, April 2, from 3:30 – 4:30 p.m. in room S1002 at the Salt Lake County Government Center at 2001 S. State Street.  

The Cultural Facilities Support Program encourages any qualified Salt Lake County-based arts group, cultural organization or business to apply and be considered for possible County matching support, based on available funding, for the construction, renovation, or study of an arts or cultural facility.  

###

2012 Poetry Out Loud finals @ Utah Arts & Museums (SLC: March 13)

**The body of this e-mail is also in the attachment**

For immediate release                Alyssa Hickman Grove, 801.533.5760

7 March 2012                            Constituent Relations & Media, Utah Arts & Museums

Geoffrey Fattah, 801.386.4755

Communications Director, Utah Dept. of Community and Culture

2012 Poetry Out Loud finals

Students compete to represent Utah at national poetry competition

SALT LAKE CITY — Utah Arts & Museums announces the state finals for Poetry Out Loud, the national poetry recitation competition. The state finals will be held on March 13, 2012, at 7 p.m. at the Black Box Theatre in the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center. The champion will go to Washington, D.C., in May to represent Utah in the national finals and compete to win a $20,000 scholarship.

More than 1,800 students from nearly 20 high schools around the state participated in the Poetry Out Loud curriculum and participated in preliminary competitions. At the Black Box Theatre, finalists will recite works they selected from an anthology of nearly 600 classic and contemporary poems.

Currently, students from these schools will compete in the state finals:

Bountiful High School

Box Elder High School (Brigham City)

East High School (Salt Lake City)

Gunnison Valley High School

Herriman High School

Judge Memorial Catholic High School (Salt Lake City)

Karl G. Maeser Preparatory Academy (Lindon)

Layton High School

Logan High School

Manti High School

Merit College Preparatory Academy (Springville)

Monticello High School

Navigator Pointe Academy (West Jordan)

North Sanpete High School (Mount Pleasant)

Provo High School

Rowland Hall–St. Mark's High School (Salt Lake City)

Syracuse High School

“These talented teens who engage in Poetry Out Loud relate to the poetry on a personal level and hone their public-speaking skills,” said Margaret Hunt, Utah Arts & Museums Director. “The final state competition is a very exciting evening, and for the past several years the state champion has also honored us with a recitation at the Mountain West Arts Conference/Governor’s Leadership in the Arts Awards."

Utah has had three finalists in the national top ten. One finalist received a $5,000 scholarship award and was contacted by noted Beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti to congratulate her on her recitation of his poem, I Am Waiting.

Poetry Out Loud, presented in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation, is part of a national program that encourages high school students to learn about great poetry through memorization, performance, and competition. Poetry Out Loud seeks to foster the next generation of literary readers across the nation by capitalizing on trends in poetry recitation and performance. The program builds on the resurgence of poetry as an oral art form by inviting the dynamic aspects of slam poetry, the spoken word, and theatre in the English classroom. Through Poetry Out Loud, students master public-speaking skills, build self-confidence, and learn about their literary heritage.

The Poetry Out Loud Utah state finals event is free and open to the public. For more information, please visit Utah Arts & Museums at artsandmuseums.utah.gov.

About Utah Arts & Museums

Utah Arts & Museums is a division of the Utah Department of Community and Culture with a goal to promote innovation in and the growth of Utah’s arts and culture community. The division provides funding, education, and technical services to individuals and organizations statewide so that all Utahns, regardless of race, gender, ethnicity or economic status, can access, understand, and receive the benefits of arts and culture. Additional information on the programs and services can be found at www.artsandmuseums.utah.gov or by calling 801.236.7555.

About Poetry Out Loud

The National Endowment for the Arts, the Poetry Foundation and state arts agencies work together to bring Poetry Out Loud to high schools across the United States.  After successful pilot programs in Washington, DC, and Chicago, the second phase of Poetry Out Loud was launched nationwide in the spring of 2006 with tens of thousands of students participating.  In 2009 nearly 325,000 students participated.  More information about Poetry Out Loud can be found at www.poetryoutloud.org.

Alyssa Hickman Grove

Constituent Relations & Media

Utah Arts & Museums

617 East South Temple

Salt Lake City, UT 84102

Phone: 801.533.5760

www.artsandmuseums.utah.gov

SALTY CRICKET PRESENTS ITS FIRST CONCERT OF WORKS FOR ORGAN AT LIBBY GARDNER HALL (SLC: March 12)

Contact:

Crystal Young-Otterstrom

801.652.0737

crystal@saltycricket.org

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

SALTY CRICKET PRESENTS ITS FIRST CONCERT OF WORKS FOR ORGAN AT LIBBY GARDNER HALL

___________________________________________________________________

SALT LAKE CITY -- Bringing the works of Utah Composers to the limelight, the Salty Cricket Composers Collective will host its first-ever concert of works for organ on Monday, March 12, 2012 at the Libby Gardner Concert Hall at the University of Utah.  The performance begins at 7:30pm.

Organists Neil Thornock and Haruhito Miyagi will perform ten works by Utah composers, half of which are world premieres. Dr. Neil Thornock is an assistant professor of composition at Brigham Young University and received his DMA from Indiana University. Haruhito Miyagi is a Ph.D candidate in composition at the University of Utah and holds a BM in Organ Performance from Brigham Young University and an MM in organ performance from the University of Notre Dame. Miyagi has performed extensively as a recitalist in Germany, Hungary, Romania, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

“Organ is an incredible instrument, physically the largest of them all,” said board president M. Ryan Taylor. “It is thrilling to address the challenges and advantages of the organ. You’ll hear works that nod to traditional organ literature -- Bach, toccata, fugue, fantasia -- and you’ll also hear new sounds and effects that you didn’t know were possible on the instrument!”

Additionally, Salty Cricket will have copies available for purchase of the recently released cd ORG, a CD retrospective of Christian Asplund’s organ music played by Neil Thornock on Libby Gardener’s Lively-Fulcher organ and produced by Comprovise Records. Packaging is designed by graphic novelist and painter, Danijel Zezelj.  Of this recording, Boston-based composer-organist Carson Cooman said, "Tremendously inventive organ music. Some of the most creative writing for the instrument I know. Beautiful, compelling works brilliantly realized by organist-composer Neil Thornock." Copies of the CD will be available at the Salty Cricket event for only $5 for ticket holders.

Tickets for the performance are $15, $10 for students. Organ and composition majors may take $5 off. Advance tickets may be purchased by calling 801.652.0737 or at the door. More information can be found at www.saltycricket.org

________________________________________________________________

Program Order:

M. Ryan Taylor: The Necromancer, a fugue macabre 

John Newman: The Penitent (world premiere)

Crystal Young-Otterstrom: Homage-ish in the Key of 8-9 (world premiere)

Christian Asplund: Miltenberg Suite

Haruhito Miyagi: Franciscan Flour (world premiere)

Intermission

Scott Wasilewski: ...and you'll find naught but a spectre (world premiere)

Neil Thornock: Perpetual Undulation

Joseph Sowa: Marginalia (world premiere) 

M. Ryan Taylor: Fantasy for Organ on a fractal algorithm

Christian Asplund | Org

Neil Thornock: Restless Iteration

PERFORMER BIOS

Haruhito Miyagi was born in Japan and is currently a Ph.D. candidate in composition at the University of Utah.  He received his B.M. in Organ Performance from Brigham Young University, Provo and M.M. from the University of Notre Dame, du lac with studies under Douglas Bush, Craig Cramer, and David Dahl, respectively.  Miyagi is also certified through the Organization of American Kodály Educators and was a visiting researcher at the University of Debrecen Conservatory of Music in 2010.  Miyagi currently serves as the member-at-large and composer liaison for the Utah Fellowship of Local Kodály Specialists. 

As a recitalist, Miyagi has performed extensively throughout Germany, Hungary, Romania, the United Kingdom, and the United States.  He is currently the assistant organist at the Cathedral of the Madeleine and has served as the interim assistant organist at Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church.

In 2010, Miyagi was selected as the first non-Hungarian composer to be published with the exclusive Kontrapunkt Music Publishing, Budapest.  Miyagi has been a featured composer on WSND radio and has had works commissioned by Musica Nostra Kórus for their 15th anniversary concert, the Von Trapp Children for their 2012 Asia tour, the 2011 International Tuba and Euphonium Association Conference, and various other ensembles.

Neil Thornock was born in Washington State – the rural, agricultural side – in 1977. He received degrees in organ performance and composition from Brigham Young University and a Doctor of Music degree from Indiana University.

Current projects include a full opera about the Biblical figure Enoch, a work for seven trumpets, narrator, and orchestra, an all-saxophone CD for Innova Records, and an accordion trio for Eric Bradler. Recently completed works include Plutoids for orchestra, Fractured Compound for the U.S. Coast Guard Saxophone Quartet, and movements for piano with electronics.

Neil Thornock is assistant professor of music composition and theory at Brigham Young University. He and his wife Tammy are the parents of five children.  He is also a recently recovered unicyclist turned bicyclist.

COMPOSER STATEMENTS:

Christian Asplund: Org (2008)

When I discussed the possibility with Neil Thornock of his doing a recording of my complete organ music, he said he would do it if I composed a new piece for the project.  Org, a virtuoso one-movement work was the result.  It begins with a plaintive imitative introduction, followed by the toccata-esque body of the piece.  Endings of pieces have always been my favorite parts, so I have ended Org with a series of codas. 

Christian Asplund: Miltenberg Suite (2005) was commissioned by Doug Bush and the Vleugel organ building company of Germany for the rededication of the organ in the St. Jakobus Church, Miltenberg, Germany.  Each movement was inspired by elements of the architecture and décor of the church from different eras of its existence and renovation:

I. Conductus (9th century)

II. Canon (15th century)

III. Motet and Dance (16th century)

IV. Toccata (17th century)

V. Fugue (18th century)

VI. Chorale (20th century)

Haruhito Miyagi: Franciscan Flour is a sonic sketch depicting the organ in the Grand Liszt Ference Hall at the Debreceni Egyetem, Conservatory of Music in Debrecen, Hungary.

John Newman: The Penitent uses an extrapolation of the name of Mary Magdalene as the basis for the main themes. She is also known as Mary the Penitent because she repented of her sinful life and was frankly forgiven by Jesus Christ. Her continued faith and actions make one of the most important women in Christendom.

M. Ryan Taylor: Fantasy for Organ on a fractal algorithm was written with the help of the fractal plotting software FractMus 2000 which allows you to choose from various algorithms, tweek their variables, choose scales to apply them to, and much more. Each section of the piece represents different tweeks that were made along the way, in addition to choices of voicing, etc. Once the basic form of the piece was realized, I took to carving away and editing at the block of music that was generated to craft a piece that has a lot of forward energy. I am grateful to Neil Thornock, who not only gave the Utah premiere of this work over a decade ago, but also made a point to resurrect it for this concert.

M. Ryan Taylor: The Necromancer, a fugue macabre is based solely an the octatonic pitch set. I was trying to evoke the playfulness of the famous Danse Macabre of Saint-Saens. Much thanks goes out to Stephen Jones, my 20th century counterpoint teacher back in 2000, who not only gave the fugal assignment that spawned this work, but also kept prodding me to take it further; what you'll hear is the work's fifth incarnation. I am also grateful to Haruhito for playing the role of the necromancer and bringing the 'dead page' of music to life.

Neil Thornock: Perpetual Undulation & Restless Iteration

Perpetual Undulation and Restless Iteration are part of a set of three pieces based on poetry by Wallace Stevens.  All three pieces are intended as virtuosic show-pieces for the organist.  Perpetual Undulation makes particular use of textures familiar to Romantic-period French toccata, while Restless Iteration is inspired by the bizarre, unstable forms of Italian Baroque toccata by such composers as Claudio Merulo.

Joseph Sowa: Marginalia

I love libraries. Big ones filled with old books. And the best books are the ones with notes scribbled in the margins. Not only do you get to read whatever the authors intended, but you also get to eavesdrop on their dialogue with readers long gone. Some readers simply nod their assent, underlining passages and adorning them with affirmative check marks or—when particularly swept away—offering a "true" or a "yes." Other readers like to debate the author, answering his or her assertions with salvos of their own arguments that lay siege to the printed page. Still others leave hidden messages ("I love Tony Robbins!") or cultivate the pages' bare ground into gardens of doodling.

What I think I value most about marginalia is the sheer humanness of it. In contrast to the black, precise type, you see rainbows of ink and pencil and their corresponding personalities: tidy, graceful, innocent, effusive, indifferent, sloppy, angry, or inquisitive. You find a friend, sometimes two or three, with whom to travel from Foreword to Epilogue and along the way, trade thoughts about the seven habits, debate aspects of social justice, or listen to how something the author said reminded your companion of her (of his?) favorite cat Smokey.

Marginalia creates a space to dwell, to reread, and to ponder. It sweetens all those times when you savor special passages only to realize, ten minutes later, that you’ve been stuck on the same line the entire time. 

Marginalia was commissioned by Neil Thornock.

Scott Wasilewski: ...and you'll find naught but a spectre

I wrote this piece a few years ago as a piano trio, and having just relocated to Utah, I didn't know any performers, so I did what most composers do with their un-performed work; I forgot about it, moved on, and lost most, if not all evidence that the piece ever existed.

Luckily for me, I rediscovered my notes for the piece at a time when I was struggling to write down even a single note for organ and decided it would make great source material for an organ piece. Whether I was right or wrong, it drove me to finish a four handed organ piece which I stripped down further until the version you're hearing tonight emerged.

For better or for worse, this piece has very little resemblance to the pieces I had written before it and even less resemblance to the music I have written since then, making it a unique experience for me, and I hope it will be a unique experience for you, the audience, as well.

Crystal Young-Otterstrom: Homage-ish in the Key of 8-9 (2011)

I’m fairly obsessed with the organ. In fact, I think I was an organ groupie as an undergraduate. Pretty sure. Two of my best friends (one of whom is now my sister-in-law) were organ majors, so not only did I hang around them and their practice rooms a lot, I regularly attended their group master classes for fun. On Sundays, I pretend to play the organ. Hence I wanted this piece to show my deep and abiding love for the instrument and its literature. In my piece, there are several references to different types of music for organ (fugue, chorale, german/french improvisation, toccata, etc.), some reverential, some poking fun. On an organizational level, I decided to play with the idea of a set of notes as a key or tonal center to connect the sections. Nothing earth shattering, but fun. My tonal center is the set that is in Forte notation, 8-9 which is: [0,1,2,3,6,7,8,9]. There is a rather cool effect used throughout the piece, which is a wooden board placed on the bottom few notes in the foot petal, which makes for a fantastic tone cluster. This is actually a baroque invention, but it sounds so wild and modern. I am largely a contrapuntal composer with a penchant for complex rhythm so major thanks and kudos to Haruhito for bringing this bad boy to life with his mad skills. 

--

Crystal Young-Otterstrom

Vice-president & Marketing Director

crystal@saltycricket.org

M: 801.652.0737

The Salty Cricket Composers Collective

www.saltycricket.org

450 E 100 S #29

SLC, UT 84111

SENIOR BFA SHOW @ SUU (CC: March 22 - May 5)

FOR CALENDAR EDITORS: SENIOR BFA SHOW 

WHAT:                         This two-part exhibit is the culmination of the work done by Senior Art and Design BFA candidates and features a variety of mediums from printmaking to painting to ceramics and graphic design.  

WHO:                           Senior BFA Show Southern Utah University, Department of Art and Design

WHEN:                         Graphic Design: March 22 - April 14, 2012

                                    Other Medium: April 19 - May 5, 2012

TIME:                           Tuesday - Saturday, Noon to 7:00 p.m.

WHERE:                       SUU Campus, Braithwaite Fine Arts Gallery, Braithwaite Liberal Arts Center, lower level

PRICES:                       Free and the General Public is encouraged to attend.

MORE INFO:                 http://www.suu.edu/pva/artgallery/

SUU's Braithwaite Fine Arts Gallery Presents

Senior BFA Show

March 22 – May 5, 2012

Southern Utah University, Cedar City, Utah: Each spring the creative visions of graduating seniors from Southern Utah University’s Department of Art and Design thrive and bloom at the Senior BFA Show. This remarkable exhibition offers a chance to see the culmination of the work done by the senior Bachelor of Fine Art candidates. This culmination of student’s work features a wide variety of mediums from printmaking to ceramics to oil painting to illustration and graphic design.  This year’s exhibit is divided into two segments to accommodate all the talent of the 16 talented students with a range of interests within the arts. The first exhibit showcasing the graphic designers opens with a reception on Thursday, March 22, 2012 7 pm - 9 pm at SUU’s Braithwaite Fine Arts Gallery and will continue through Saturday, April 14, 2012. The second segment featuring a variety of medium runs Thursday, April 16 through Saturday, May 5, 2012. The gallery hours are Tuesday - Saturday, noon to 7 pm. Admission is free and the general public is encouraged to attend.

The vibrant work of five graduating graphic design students will be showcased in the first part of the Senior BFA Show. Kurtis Hansen, Tori Leavitt, Melissa Moyle, Whitney Spear and Alex Walter will have their work displayed in the Braithwaite Gallery. Jeff Hanson, SUU Assistant Professor of Graphic Design, is looking forward to the community’s reaction to the high quality of work that will be shown. “This is a high level of work by people who have a future in this community as artists. This exhibit is a great opportunity to see up and coming work by talented professionals.” said Hanson. This exhibition will run in conjunction with SUMA – The Preview, an overview of the forthcoming Southern Utah Museum of Art, which also closes on Saturday, April 14, 2012.

The Braithwaite Gallery explodes with color and creativity in the second segment of the Senior BFA Show. Painting/Drawing/Printmaking students Cheri Johnson, Ashley McNew, Annie Mertlich, Heather Miller, Lindsay Miller and Bram Stults will be featured along with Illustration students Rhonda Fisher and Stacie Pitt, and Ceramics/Sculpture students Nick Jacobsen and Hannah Zander. In addition, Art Education student Mandy Beck will also be included in the exhibition. The exhibition runs April 19 through May 5, 2012  

Each year the Senior BFA Show gets bigger and better and is an exhibit that should not be missed! For more information about this exhibit, visit www.suu.edu/pva/artgallery or call (435) 586-5432. The Braithwaite Fine Arts Gallery’s mission is to exhibit, collect and preserve historic and contemporary works of art significant to the interior American West. In addition, the Gallery hosts art exhibitions that represent the principal artistic styles and periods of world cultures.

ABOUT THE COLLEGE
The Southern Utah University College of Performing and Visual Arts is comprised of nationally accredited departments of Art and Design, Music, Theatre Arts and Dance, as well as a graduate program in Arts Administration. The College offers 16 different degree areas, including liberal arts Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science degrees; professional Bachelor of Music and Bachelor of Fine Arts in art and theatre degrees; and a Master of Fine Arts in Arts Administration degree. More than 60 full- and part-time faculty and staff are engaged in teaching and mentoring over 550 majors in the College. Over 1100 students enroll each year in over 195 arts classes on the SUU campus. The College presents 100 performances, lectures, presentations, and exhibitions each year. The College’s affiliate organizations include the Braithwaite Fine Arts Gallery, American Folk Ballet, Utah Shakespeare Festival, and the SUU Ballroom Dance Company. For more information about the College of Performing and Visual Arts, contact the Office of the Dean at (435) 865-8561, or by e-mail at cpvamktg@suu.edu.

Director of Major Gifts @ Thanksgiving Point Institute

Thanksgiving Point Institute

Director of Major Gifts

Job Description

Department:  Fundraising

Reports to:   President/CEO  

Supervises:  None

FLSA Status: Exempt

Salary:  Competitive and commensurate with experience and accomplishments

Date of Last Revision:  03/08/12

Position Summary: The Director of Major Gifts will manage a portfolio of 100 major, capital and planned gift prospects capable of making major gifts of $25,000 and above; manage the completion of the major gifts phase of the Museum of Natural Curiosity Capital Campaign; develop a planned giving program; identify, qualify, cultivate, solicit and steward donors and prospects; enthusiastically and accurately represent Thanksgiving Point to a variety of constituents including board members, major donors, prospects and other friends of Thanksgiving Point Institute.

Essential Functions:

1. Collaborate with CEO, Director of Annual Giving, and the entire Senior Management Team as necessary to formulate strategies and implement programs to achieve capital campaign goals secure major gifts.
2. Oversee capital campaign, major gift acquisition and management, prospecting, stewardship and all functions associated with major gifts.
3. Develop, cultivate, manage, solicit and secure major gifts ($25,000+) from individuals, families, foundations, and corporations.
4. Develop and manage a plan to cultivate and maintain relationships and ongoing contact with donors.
5. Collaboratively prepares comprehensive annual and three-five year strategic plans for resource development.
6. Development of planned giving/endowment programs.
7. Build new donor audiences by developing partnerships and by identifying, researching, qualifying and cultivating individual prospects from existing database and outside sources.
8. Develop and systematize comprehensive donor stewardship initiative; work collaboratively with Thanksgiving Point leadership to create donor strategies and multi-year strategic objectives; direct donor communications including updates, invitations, solicitations, tours, acknowledgements, etc.
9. Coordinate with other development employees to strategically cultivate lower level members into donors.
10. Work closely with program department to pursue necessary funding and to assist the development team in better aligning donor interests with projects.  
11. Assists with planning the departmental budget.  
12. Ensures comprehensive gift and donor information is properly stored and managed in fundraising database.
13. Other duties as assigned by Chief Executive Officer

Required Skills and Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in related field and a minimum of 3 years demonstrated success in fundraising.
• Ability to plan strategically, think creatively, and build long-term relationships with donors along with excellent writing and interpersonal communication skills.
• Experience in creating successful fundraising campaigns, cultivating prospects and building donor base.
• Ability to work well under pressure and time constraints
• Must enjoy working in a collaborative, fast-paced, entrepreneurial environment.
• Computer proficiency in Microsoft Office applications.
• Must be able to work a flexible schedule; general schedule will be 8 a.m. – 5 p.m., Monday – Friday, but regular early morning, late evening and weekend assignments are required.

 To apply: http://thanksgivingpoint.applicantpro.com/jobs/

FAX Exhibit @ UMOCA (SLC: March 2 - June 23)

Utah Museum of Contemporary Art Announces:

FAX

Opening March 2, 2012 with a First Friday celebration

Contact: Emily Brunt | emily.brunt@utahmoca.org | 801.328.4201 x 115

(Danica Farley replaces Emily on March 1. Reachable at: danica.farley@utahmoca.org)

www.utahmoca.org | 20 S West Temple, Salt Lake City, UT 84101
Tue-Thu & Sat 11 AM – 6 PM, Fri 11 AM – 9 PM

For Immediate Release:  February 24, 2012

SALT LAKE CITY, UT –  Utah Museum of Contemporary Art announces the opening of traveling exhibition FAX, Guest curated by João Ribas and co-organized by The Drawing Center and Independent Curators International.  FAX has grown and morphed since it’s opening at The Drawing Center in New York in 2009, and has travelled world-wide, amassing faxes in Europe, Asia, and the Americas. UMOCA hosts a comprehensive presentation of the exhibition, and will open with a First Friday celebration on March 2, 2012, and close June 23, 2012.

“FAX challenges our notion of where an art exhibition can wind up and what form it takes when it gets there. This presentation teleports to the ends of the earth riding on the technological whimsy of this thought-to-be obsolete mode of communication. As an artistic medium, the 500+ artists have created a material legacy that will keep fax machines transmitting for generations to come,” says Aaron Moulton, Senior Curator of Exhibitions, Utah Museum of Contemporary Art.

Moulton has added the following artists to FAX: Mike Bouchet, Salotto Buono, Roisin Byrne, Keren Cytter, Sejla Kajmeric, Daniel Kingery, Forniture Pallotta, Bertrand Planes, Jared Steffensen, and Ignacio Uriarte.  Other artists will be added over the course of the exhibition and will be included in future presentations at other institutions world-wide.

FAX invites a multigenerational group of artists, as well as architects, designers, scientists and filmmakers, to re-conceive of the fax machine as a tool for thinking and drawing. Although the technology for transmitting

printed images and texts dates from the nineteenth century—a machine by Scottish mechanic Alexander Bain patented in 1843—it was the introduction of the modern fax through commercially available machines in the 1970s that turned facsimiles into a ubiquitous communications medium for international business. Artists readily exploited its immediate, graphic, and interactive character, making it an important part of the history of media art, nestled between the legacy of Fluxus and the nascent practices of new media. But with the fax machine now fast becoming a technology of the past, how do artists see the potential of the fax transmission today?

Faxes by nearly 100 artists that were sent to the initial showing of FAX at The Drawing Center form the core of the exhibition, including seminal examples of early telecommunications art. Each institution on the tour is encouraged to invite up to twenty additional artists to submit works, which will be presented at all successive venues. These works are transmitted to each participating institution’s working fax line throughout the duration of the exhibition. The active accumulation of information—received in real time, in the exhibition space—includes drawings and texts, and even the inevitable junk faxes from telemarketers and local businesses as well. All the transmitted pages are archived or displayed together with the active fax machine, which may produce new faxes from invited artists at any moment. The result—an ongoing cumulative project—is a show concerned with ideas of reproduction, obsolescence, distribution, and mediation.

Since the first showing of FAX at The Drawing Center, the exhibition has been presented in 14 galleries in Europe, Latin America and Asia, as well as North America, with over 200 artists from all over the world invited to participate by each host curator. At times, the exhibition has also been shown simultaneously, and at one point was even in three different countries: Para/Site Art Center in Hong Kong, Burnaby Art Gallery in British Columbia, and Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil in Mexico City. Recently, FAX was exhibited at the South London Gallery in the U.K. and the Knoxville Museum in Tennessee, where the two institutions had kept in contact throughout the duration of the exhibition. Subsequently, FAX has the ability to explore the potential of simultaneous and real-time exhibitions – furthering the unlimited possibilities of developing international collaborative exchange.

ABOUT THE GUEST CURATOR

João Ribas is curator at the MIT List Visual Arts Center and a widely published critic. He was previously curator at The Drawing Center in New York, and has organized over thirty exhibitions in the U.S. and abroad. Ribas is the winner of an Emily Hall Tremaine Exhibition Award (2010) and two consecutive AICA Awards for Best Exhibition (2008/2009). He has contributed essays to numerous exhibition catalogs and monographs, and has been a visiting lecturer for institutions and organizations worldwide. He was previously adjunct faculty at the School of Visual Arts, New York, and currently teaches at the Rhode Island School of Design.

EXHIBITION ITINERARY

The Drawing Center

New York, New York

April 17, 2009 – July 23, 2009

Contemporary Museum, Baltimore

Baltimore, Maryland                                     

September 12, 2009 – December 20, 2009                           

Plug in ICA

Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

December 12, 2009 – February 21, 2010

Torrance Art Museum

Torrance, California

January 14, 2010 – February 20, 2010

Para/Site Art Center

Hong Kong

February 2, 2010 – April 1, 2010

Burnaby Art Gallery

Burnaby, British Columbia,

March 16, 2010 – May 23, 2010

Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil

Mexico City, Mexico

March 24, 2010 – June 20, 2010

Dowd Gallery, State University of New York,

College of Cortland

Cortland, New York

October 7, 2010 – December 10, 2010

New Galerie

Paris, France
November 6, 2010 - December 18, 2010

Apex Gallery, South Dakota School of Mines and Technology

Rapid CIty, South Dakota
February 15, 2011 - April 3, 2011

Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts

Cambridge, Massachusetts
March 7, 2011 - April 10, 2011

St. Paul St Gallery

Auckland, New Zealand
April 8, 2011 - April 30, 2011

Knoxville Museum of Art

Knoxville, Tennessee
August 26, 2011 - November 6, 2011

South London Gallery

London, United Kingdom

September 22, 2011 – November 27, 2011

DeVos Art Museum

Marquette, Michigan
January 13, 2012 - February 24, 2012

University of Hawaii Art Gallery

Honolulu, Hawaii

February 26, 2012 – April 15, 2012

Utah Museum of Contemporary Art

Salt Lake City, Utah

March 2, 2012 – June 23, 2012

San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery

San Francisco, California

May 4, 2012 – July 22, 2012

CREDIT LINE

FAX is a traveling exhibition curated by João Ribas, and co-organized by The Drawing Center, New York, and Independent Curators International (ICI), New York. The exhibition and the accompanying publication were made possible, in part, by members of the Drawing Room, a patron circle founded to support innovative exhibitions at The Drawing Center; and by support to ICI from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Arts, The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation, and ICI’s Board of Trustees, as well as the ICI Access Fund.

ABOUT ICI

Independent Curators International (ICI) is a non-profit headquartered in New York that produces exhibitions, events, publications, and training opportunities for audiences around the world. Working across disciplines and historical precedents, since 1975 the organization has connected emerging and established curators, artists, and institutions, to forge international networks and bring behind-the-scenes curatorial discourse to new publics.

In the last two years, 12 ICI exhibitions have been presented by 66 venues in 20 countries profiling the work of over 350 artists worldwide; 103 curators and artists from the U.S. and abroad have contributed to ICI’s talks programs, online journal, and conferences; and 80 emerging curators from 27 countries and 14 U.S. states have participated in the Curatorial Intensives, ICI’s short-course professional training programs. Through online resources and the creation of a new Curatorial Hub in New York, ICI’s fast-growing Curator’s Network provides members with up-to-date information on jobs and other curatorial opportunities, as well as access to articles, books, and round-table discussions addressing the latest curatorial debates.

UMOCA
Utah Museum of Contemporary Art (formerly Salt Lake Art Center) was recognized as Best Museum in the State of Utah for 2011.  Founded in 1931 and now located in the heart of Salt Lake City, UMOCA exhibits groundbreaking work by leading local and international artists. UMOCA is currently exhibiting 2012 Sundance Film Festival New Frontier.  Coming up in June is Play Me I’m Yours, inviting the people of Salt Lake to show off their piano skills on street corners all over Salt Lake.  Recent exhibitions include Kim Schoenstadt, winner of the 2011 Catherine Doctorow Prize for Contemporary Painting; Fallen Fruit of Utah, a state-wide collaboration with museums and individuals about the role of fruit in Utah’s history, led by artist collective Fallen Fruit; Lawn Gnomes Eat Your Hearts Out, a community public sculpture initiative designed to move the very best in contemporary art outside the four walls of the gallery and into places where people work, live, and play; Robert Fontenot’s The Place This Is, a conceptual exploration of the stories and histories of Utah and America through materials commonly associated with the domestic realm; and Contemporary Masters: Artist-Designed Miniature  Golf.  UMOCA rounds out its offerings with a lively mix of award-winning educational programs, film screenings, panel discussions, and events celebrating Salt Lake’s vibrant local art scene. UMOCA is located at 20 S. West Temple, just off the intersection with South Temple. Admission is free year-round. Business hours are Tuesday-Thursday: 11 am - 6 pm; Friday: 11 am - 9 pm; Saturday: 11 am - 6 pm; closed Sunday and Monday. For more information call (801) 328-4201 or visit www.utahmoca.org.

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For additional information regarding ICI, please contact Mandy Sa at mandy@curatorsintl.org or at 212.254.8200 ext. 121.

Emily Brunt

Director of Communications, Utah Museum of Contemporary Art
801.328.4201 x115 | m: 801.232.7362 | emily.brunt@utahmoca.org  | www.utahmoca.org