Tang Teaching Museum, Arthur Zankel Music Center, and Skidmore Jazz Institute receive NYS Council on the Arts funding
Skidmore College鈥檚 Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery, Arthur Zankel Music Center, and Skidmore Jazz Institute are the recipients of 2025 grants from the .
The awards reflect Skidmore鈥檚 important contributions to creativity, arts, and culture in New York state.
鈥淲ith this funding, we can keep pushing the boundaries of what鈥檚 possible at Skidmore, bringing innovative arts programming to our students, the campus community, and beyond,鈥� said Zhenelle LeBel, director of Arthur Zankel Music Center. 鈥淭hese resources allow us to create cultural experiences that inspire and connect, and we鈥檙e excited to keep building on that momentum.鈥�
The 'Ernest and Ruth' speech bubble sculpture outside Tang Teaching Museum is part of the exhibition 'Establish, Insure, Provide, Promote: Election 2024.' The sculpture is on loan from the Ann and Mel Schaffer Family Collection.
The , which has been awarded $40,000, has distinguished itself as an internationally recognized art museum and a vital part of Skidmore鈥檚 liberal arts mission. Since opening in 2000, the Tang has welcomed nearly 900,000 visitors, including K-12 students and teachers; community groups, including from under-resourced rural and urban areas; residents from throughout the region; and artists, scholars, and tourists from across the country and the world.
To help remove barriers to participation, the Museum offers free admission to its galleries and all public programs. It also continues to expand its collections area on its website with high-resolution images, artists interviews, and new scholarship.
This fall, the Tang hosted the exhibition and became a community gathering space for talks, panels, concerts, voter registration, debates, town meetings, class sessions, club events, and more related to the election.
'What鈥檚 next? Postelection Community Debrief' at the Tang Teaching Museum was one of many election-related events the museum hosted in 2024.
The NYSCA funding will be used to support at the Tang.
Arthur Zankel Music Center, the recipient of $20,000, is home to Skidmore鈥檚 Music Department and the state-of-the-art Helen Filene Ladd Concert Hall. As a vibrant and inclusive space that presents transformative opportunities for students, artists, and audiences, it offers a robust schedule of public programming that includes faculty and student recitals; performances by world-renowned guest artists who engage with Skidmore鈥檚 curriculum, often accompanied by master classes and talks; and a culturally diverse series of curated artistic events prioritizing BIPOC performers.
Skidmania, which featured music from 1974 this year, is a well-loved annual concert held in Arthur Zankel Music Center's Helen Filene Ladd Concert Hall that raises funds for the Skidmore Cares community service program.
This past spring, Zankel Music Center continued a collaboration with Collectiveffort and Brooklyn-based composer, singer, and multi-instrumentalist Melanie Charles through the project Make Jazz Trill Again, which invited Skidmore students and members of the greater Capital Region community to participate in an open jam session. Charles and her team returned for a residency at Skidmore this fall, working with students and faculty to generate content and conversation that will culminate in a multimedia and multidisciplinary performance premiering in February 2025. The project, titled Make Jazz Trill Again: Trill 101, will interrogate the evolution of jazz within institutions and contextualize the art form within the culture that created it.
Skidmore students and members of the greater Capital Region community take part in an open jam session led by Melanie Charles, center in the red jumpsuit, this past spring at Arthur Zankel Music Center.
The NYSCA grant will support a wide variety of .
The Office of Special Programs鈥� Skidmore Jazz Institute, also awarded $20,000, is a celebrated two-week summer program designed to educate young musicians from around the country in the technique and history of jazz through master classes, rehearsals, private lessons, recording and music production seminars, and concerts with a faculty of top jazz practitioners and guest artists.
The Institute鈥檚 public concert series in Arthur Zankel Music Center presents renowned jazz musicians 鈥� many of them Grammy Award winners 鈥� as well as the rising stars of today. The concerts contribute to the program's mission of bringing diverse artistry of the highest caliber to the region. Free ticket prices and virtual broadcasts encourage attendance and provide accessibility to wider audiences.
Each summer, renowned musicians such as the John and Gerald Clayton Quartet, seen here in 2023, visit as part of Skidmore Jazz Institute.
The grant will support multiple aspects of the 2025 Summer Jazz Institute.
In addition to the three 吃瓜爆料 for Organization grants, NYSCA has awarded Distinguished Writer-in-Residence Greg Hrbek, in Skidmore鈥檚 English Department, a $10,000 吃瓜爆料 for Artist literature grant to support a novel he鈥檒l be working on next year.
The mission of the New York State Council on the Arts is to foster and advance the full breadth of New York state鈥檚 arts, culture, and creativity for all.
Through the state鈥檚 continued investment in arts and culture, NYSCA has awarded grants to 509 artists and 1,497 organizations across the state, totaling $84 million for fiscal year 2025.
