Electric Earth Concerts has received a Challenge America grant of $10,000 from the National Endowment for the Arts in support of its effort to bring musical encounters to special- needs communities in the Monadnock region.
The Challenge America category supports primarily small and mid-sized organizations for projects that extend the reach of the arts to underserved populations – those whose opportunities to experience the arts are limited by geography, ethnicity, economics or disability.
Electric Earth Concerts’ mission includes performances throughout the year at area schools, homes for people with disabilities and life-sharing communities, and community centers. These have included Jaffrey-Rindge Middle School, Franklin Elementary School in Keene, the Dublin School, Monadnock Center for History and Culture, Plowshare Farm in Greenfield, Lukas Community in Temple, Crotched Mountain Center in Greenfield and Summerhill Memory Care in Peterborough.
“We are delighted at this news. It’s our first award from the National Endowment for the Arts,” said Electric Earth Artistic Director Jonathan Bagg. “The grant will support 12 free on-site musical encounters in 2017. These range from classical to folk music, by musicians that our fans in the area know well: the Horszowski Trio, the Borromeo Quartet, Indra jazz trio, singer Jennifer Johnson Cano, to name a few. Our musicians love doing these concerts; they love bringing their music more deeply into the community, to people who can’t easily attend public events. The NEA grant allows us to better acknowledge their tremendous enthusiasm for this kind of work and their contributions to this part of our mission, by giving them adequate compensation.”
Electric Earth Concerts holds its final event of the season, a gala fundraiser featuring the Horszowski Trio, on Saturday at Reynolds Hall in Peterborough. For more information, visit electricearthconcerts.org.