Arts

Last week, I attended the "Sing and String" concert at Roland Park Elementary/Middle School. The energy in the room was extraordinary. As a conductor and parent, I was immensely proud of our music programs. It is not coincidental that so many of the students advancing to the most rigorous academic programs are also linchpins of their school's music programs. But dwelling excessively on this correlation severely limits the value of the arts and their potential place in our lives. Anecdotes about the link between the arts and intellectual achievement are legion.

The Baltimore arts and cultural community had been buzzin for the past few weeks, anticipating the release of a thoughtful, far-reaching report by the Baltimore Community Foundation.With considerable pizazz, the foundation made public "Building Community: The Arts & Baltimore Together" at a reception for more than 300 guests at Center Stage last week."The Arts & Baltimore" is a report on a study conducted by Ernest L. Boyer, former U.S. commissioner of education, former chancellor of the State University of New York, former president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, and a board member of several nationally renowned arts organizations.

Young Audiences of Maryland, the nonprofit arts-in-education program, recently received the National Medal of Arts in a ceremony at the White House -- the only arts group to receive the honor this year.Young Audiences of Maryland, which began in 1950, is the founding chapter of the national organization, which began two years later. It was created by Baltimorean Nina Wood Collier, who was concerned that many young people were completing school without seeing a live performance.Young Audiences of Maryland employs 43 performing-arts ensembles to present 80 different programs in the arts to schoolchildren of all ages.

About 350 artists, photographers and craftsmen from throughout the Mid-Atlantic region will showcase their work at the 41st annual Bel Air Festival for the Arts. The event will be held from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sept. 17 in Shamrock Park behind Bel Air Town Hall on Hickory Avenue, rain or shine. Admission is free. In addition to the exhibition and selling of art, the festival will feature performances by the Harford Ballet at 9:30 a.m.; Bay City Seven at 10 a.m.; Members of Applause at 11:30 a.m.; Starlighters at noon; Sounding Brass at 12:30 p.m.; Upper Chesapeake Chorus of Sweet Adelines at 1:30 p.m.; Chuck Baker Orchestra at 2:30 p.m.; Silver Eagle Cloggers at 3:15 p.m.; and the Bel Air Community Band at 4 p.m. Vendors also will sell food.

A farewell evening for Robert P. Bergman, director of the Walters Art Gallery, and the Annapolis Brass Quintet is scheduled for 7 p.m. Feb. 28 at Second Presbyterian Church, 4200 St. Paul St.Dr. Bergman, who joined the Walters in 1981, will assume his new post as director of the Cleveland Museum of Art in July. During his directorship, the Walters renovated the 1904 building and opened Hackerman House, the gallery's museum of Asian art. He will present some of his personal art slides of the Passion and Resurrection as the first part of the evening's program.

IN THE CLAMOR over financing for the arts one group has been overlooked as an economic resource: artists.While the majority of writers, actors, painters, musicians and dancers in this country are unable to make a living at their craft, a small but powerful minority are earning vast sums.By establishing an alternative endowment to the arts, these artists could create a source of financing that would be immune to political agendas and public opinion.According to Forbes magazine in September, some American artists did quite well in 1990 and 1991.

Washington -- THE GREAT Depression was under way and Franklin Roosevelt was president. So a federal make-work agency called the Works Progress Administration came to the rescue of thousands of idle talented musicians by funding a score of symphony orchestras in cities throughout the land.One of the best of them was the Buffalo Philharmonic. Soon, however, the Philharmonic may be playing a final funeral dirge for itself. In recent years, federal, state and city subsidies have dried up, leaving the county government as its sole sugar daddy.

Martin O'Malley, full-time Baltimore mayor and part-time rock musician, was honored yesterday by a national arts organization for his understanding of "the value of an arts education to a child's life." The 2004 National Award for Arts Leadership, sponsored by Americans for the Arts and the United States Conference of Mayors, was presented to O'Malley during a break in the conference yesterday afternoon. Robert L. Lynch, president and CEO of the nonprofit advocacy group Americans for the Arts, also praised O'Malley for understanding "the importance of using the arts to help enhance Baltimore's quality of life, while at the same time, realizing its economic potential."

WASHINGTON -- America's besieged arts community fought back yesterday against threats ranging from cuts in music classes in financially pressed public schools to conservative critics who want to abolish the National Endowment for the Arts.On Capitol Hill, arts advocates released a national poll showing that most Americans support continued federal funding of the arts and believe that music and other arts courses should be part of a public school curriculum. Several hundred members of the American Council for the Arts, a national coalition of cultural groups, buttonholed members of Congress in a push for federal support.

OVER THE years, I've watched Baltimore struggle with a host of urban ills, from a shrinking tax base and poor schools to epidemics of homicides and drug addiction. For a while it seemed no city could overcome such intractable problems and that our future was one of inevitable decline. Yet that has not happened, and one of the reasons I suspect it has not is because somehow we have managed to maintain, even expand, a vibrant arts scene that may be unique in the nation. The arts in Baltimore are alive and well.