FY 2009 Grantees

American Masterpieces: Three Centuries of Artistic Genius

American Masterpieces: Three Centuries of Artistic Genius is a major initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). The intended outcome is to give audiences throughout the nation opportunities to experience a wide range of art forms and activities that represent the best of our American cultural and artistic legacy.

Number of Eligible Applications: 13
Number of Grants Awarded: 8
Dollars Awarded: $53,750

Ballet Minnesota, Saint Paul
$7,500 – To incorporate American Masterpieces as a new component to our annual Minnesota Dance Festival, featuring Concerto Borocco by George Balanchine.

Guthrie Theater, Minneapolis
$7,500 – Guthrie Theater requests support for "An Evening of Short Plays" by Tony Kushner. These five rarely produced one-acts offer insight into Kushner's larger works while being innovative and inventive in their own right.

Illusion Theater, Minneapolis
$7,500 – Illusion Theater will work with playwright Allison Moore to bring Willa Cather's "My Antonia" to the stage and will tour the new play about immigration in rural America in Fall 2009 to five communities in Minnesota.

Mankato Area Community Band, Mankato
$2,750 – The Mankato Area Community Band to present an American Masterpiece concert of music honoring Abraham Lincoln's life, ideals, and era.

Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis
$7,500 – MIA to present "Noble Dreams & Simple Pleasures: American Masterworks from Minnesota Collections," the first exhibition of its kind to celebrate key masters of pre-modernist American art through the compilation of wks from private collector.

Minnesota Youth Symphonies, Saint Paul
$6,000 – To collaborate with Wisconsin composer Kevin McMullin and Pipestone, a Native American drum group from the Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe reservation in northern WI for educational activities and performances of "One Nation".

Penumbra Theatre, Saint Paul
$7,500 – Penumbra and the Guthrie Theater will collaborate on a special theatrical production of "A Raisin in the Sun" by Lorraine Hansberry, which captures how the American Dream can be a nightmare for black Americans.

The Rose Ensemble, Saint Paul
$7,500 – The Rose Ensemble will present "And Glory Shone Around" a touring performance and workshop series of vocal music from influential early Amerian composers and classic American 19th century songbooks.