Touchstone Center for Crafts is a unique three-seasons craft school located in the beautiful Laurel Highlands, only 60 miles southeast of Pittsburgh. This unique craft school has expanded to include contemporary and experimental techniques in addition to traditional and historical methods in disciplines such as blacksmithing, ceramics, metals, textiles, glass, oil and watercolor painting, photography, printmaking, and sculpture.
Three Rivers Young Peoples Orchestras provides well-rounded music education programs and performance opportunities for young people to foster lifelong passion, appreciation, and support of music.
Bricolage Production Company envisions theater not as a passive experience, but as a vehicle for heightened involvement for artist and audience alike. Their approach encourages artists to take the creative risks necessary to create full-blooded, high-quality theatrical experiences that challenge audiences to engage in new ways, react, and express openly their opinions about our work – to have a stake in the creative discussion.
The word Bricolage means “making artful use of what is at hand.” What excites them is the connection and interaction between seemingly disparate elements, and the potential for these components to resonate as one cohesive event. They use the distinctive resources of the Pittsburgh region to create theatrical experiences that stimulate a heightened sense of involvement for the audience. “What is at hand” is the city’s changing landscape, its plentiful human and material resources, and the salient political, cultural, and ethical issues we all encounter and react to each day. By combining different artistic mediums, nourishing local talent, producing provocative work, and facilitating audience engagement, Bricolage seeks to revitalize live performance for a new era.
$5,000 to support a 4-concert series that showcases jazz as an art form by featuring the region’s most talented artists who are committed to mentoring the next generation of musicians and serving as ambassadors for jazz to the broader community.
Lighthouse Arts, Inc. was established to improve the quality of jazz education by making accessible the opportunities for students and the community at large to learn and experience the many dimensions of jazz music and the creative artists who play it. Lighthouse Arts, Inc. differentiates itself from other small and large jazz organizations by focusing on the artist. Their mission is to acknowledge, celebrate, document and support those individuals who creatively represent jazz by utilizing broadcast and print media along with concerts that shall be held in the areas best performance venues. Their founders represent a cross-section of the region’s jazz, education, and business leaders.
Attack Theatre builds community with artists and audiences through the process and production of personal, accessible dance-based performance. Blending varied art forms with dynamic contemporary dance, Attack Theatre creates passionate portrayals of everyday life.
Kamratōn exists to challenge the boundaries of music performance, expand the contemporary chamber music repertoire, and celebrate the role of women as leaders in the arts.
$5,000 to New Sun Rising to support the development of the Wilkinsburg Youth Steel Orchestra.
Barrels to Beethoven focuses on the preservation, education, and innovation of the steelpan. The Wilkinsburg Youth Steel Orchestra will provide music, culture, and arts education to children in Wilkinsburg and surrounding communities. The program will develop young people into well-rounded musicians with a focus on technical ability, music theory, arranging, and performance.
Ujamaa Collective is an organization of women of African descent who are entrepreneurs, artisans, artists and individuals who are committed to serving their community through leadership. Through Ujamaa, artisans have an economic outlet for their work, micro-enterprises have the support to grow, customers gain access to locally-produced items, and Pittsburgh has a regional destination to draw customers and visitors to the Historic Hill District. “We lift as we climb.”
$12,000 to support the Lighthouse Project, a year-round performing and media arts program at the Homewood-Brushton YMCA, serving high school teens in the distressed communities throughout the east end of Pittsburgh.
YMCA of Greater Pittsburgh‘s Lighthouse exists to develop young people that are creative, connected and ready for college and career. The Lighthouse Project is a safe and exciting place for young people to explore their interests in music, film, photography, art and fashion. In each of the arts programs, experienced teaching artists empower young people to find their voice while building technical and transferable skills that position them for success after high school.
$5,000 via fiscal sponsor The Pittsburgh Cultural Trust to support 50 Cities, 50 Traces, an international peace exhibit and related programming that works for the elimination of nuclear weapons and raises awareness of the dangers of nuclear energy.
Remembering Hiroshima, Imagining Peace exists to create events in Pittsburgh in remembrance of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.