A bass-baritone opera singer raised amid rough surroundings in a trailer park in Virginia; a violinist from a family of Philadelphia Orchestra string players; a first-generation Serbian-American actor who won acclaim in an offbeat Off Broadway musical.
These are among the seven arts fellows who will receive 2014 grants from the Leonore Annenberg Fellowship Fund for the Performing and Visual Arts, which provides $50,000 a year for up to two years to young artists of exceptional promise. In addition, the Leonore Annenberg School Fund for Children announced that eight underserved public elementary schools each will receive a grant of $50,000 or more for technology and other educational resources.
The seven arts fellows and eight schools will receive a total of $984,000 from the Leonore Annenberg Scholarship, Fellowship, and School Funds. The 2014 arts fellows and schools will join a list of honorees that includes 10 high school students whose $2.5 million in college scholarships were announced in 2013. Now in its seventh year, the 10-year Leonore Annenberg Funds initiative has awarded a total of $13.2 million to arts fellows, students, and schools. The funds are administered by the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania.
Past recipients of the arts fellowship include Misty Copeland, the first African-American female soloist in two decades with American Ballet Theatre and author of the recent autobiography “Life in Motion: An Unlikely Ballerina”; actor Bryce Pinkham, who is starring on Broadway in the musical comedy “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder”; and photographer Richard Mosse, selected to represent his home country, Ireland, at the 2013 Venice Biennale.
“The Leonore Annenberg Fellowship Fund provides support to artists during a vibrant period of transition in their professional life, enabling them to develop artistically as they realize their career goals,” said program director Gail Levin, Ph.D. Partnering with organizations such as American Ballet Theatre, the Yale School of Drama, and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the fund identifies and nurtures emerging artists of great potential with career development grants and the support of mentors.
For the complete news release, click here.
