Birch Creek Music Performance Center in Egg Harbor is proud to announce that they have received a grant of $26,825 from the Wisconsin Arts Board (WAB) – all of Door County benefits.
2010 Jazz session students take the stage in a Big Band performance at Birch Creek’s Dutton Concert Barn, named after co-founder James Dutton.
This WAB grant, awarded through the Creation & Presentation Program, supports Birch Creek’s mission of providing intensive, performance-based instruction to promising young musicians. Birch Creek has been a Door County education and entertainment center for 35 years.
This ongoing commitment from the State of Wisconsin to fund the arts in local communities is vital. Birch Creek continues to serve more than 11,000 people in Door County with performances and educational programs in 2010.
Additionally, local school students in all five Door County public schools benefit from Birch Creek’s annual “Artists in the Schools” outreach program, which has already served more than 3,000 students since its inception in 2001-2002. “Artists in the Schools” engages youth in learning a wide variety of music from professional faculty members of Birch Creek and in the ethnic and social lessons that surround each genre’s history.
Birch Creek’s evening concerts and daytime outreach concerts, made possible by Arts Board funding, allow the Egg Harbor center to bring nationally-known musicians to Door County such as Robert Hanford, Concertmaster of the Lyric Opera Orchestra, Chicago; as well as honored Wisconsin artists, like Vicki Peterson Jenks, Percussion Program Ensemble Director with the Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras, Madison.
The Wisconsin Arts Board grants program was retooled in 2008 so that meaningful funding could be provided to the greatest number of Wisconsin communities, including ones with rural populations like Door County. The State of Wisconsin recognizes that all communities, regardless of their populations, bring enjoyment and value to Wisconsin citizens.
Wisconsin Arts Board grants are awarded on a matching basis. Organizations that receive Arts Board funds are required to match state tax dollars with additional public and private funds. The Wisconsin Arts Board is the state agency that nurtures creativity, cultivates expression, promotes the arts, supports the arts in education, stimulates community and economic development, and serves as a resource for people of every culture and heritage in Wisconsin’s communities.
