Missoula Cultural Council – Some news and upcoming events for the week of June 20, 2005

Den Morison, longtime host of the Swing Shift, Listener’s Bookstall and Wednesday Morning Freeforms on Montana Public Radio, passed away this week after a long illness. For a story of his life and many accomplishments, visit http://www.missoulian.com/articles/2005/06/20/obits/01sun/obits3.txt

In Missoula…

This Saturday, June 25, marks the inaugural New Zealand Day, coordinated by the Missoula Cultural Council. The celebration is in conjunction with a visit to Missoula by John Wall, from our sister city of Palmerston North, NZ. Below are some events planned over the weekend:

Thursday, June 23

· Wine Tasting at Worden’s Market – La Grotta Bella. 5:00-8:00 p.m., featuring New Zealand wines. $10.00 a person. 451 North Higgins. 549-1293.

Friday, June 24

· City Club Missoula. John Wall, secretary of the Palmerston North sister-city committee, will be the guest speaker. Governor’s Room, Florence building, 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. Call 728-5279 or [email protected] for reservations. $13 for lunch, or $5 for dessert and coffee only.

· Photographs of New Zealand by Neil Chaput de Saintonge, Keith Graham and Monte Dolack at Gallery Saintonge. Free opening reception 5:00-7:00 p.m. Exhibit runs through June 28. 216 North Higgins. Gallery hours Tues-Fri 10 a.m.-5:30 p.m., Sat 10 a.m.-4:00 p.m. Call 543-0171 or visit http://www.rmsp.com A sampling of the photographs are available at http://www.missoulacultural.org

Saturday, June 25

· Croquet Clinic hosted by Missoula Parks and Recreation. John Wall of the New Zealand Croquet Council will conduct 3 workshops at Playfair Park. All workshops are free, but please call 721-PARK to pre-register.

o 10:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. – Just for Seniors – ages 50 and up

o 11:30 to 12:30 p.m. – Family Fun – ages 8 and up

o 2:00.-3:00 p.m. – Masters’ Class, all ages – 6-wicket croquet, the variety played in most international tournaments

For more information, call 721-7275 (PARK) or e-mail [email protected]. Also visit http://www.croquetamerica.com

· New Zealand Wildlife Films at Roxy Theater. The International Wildlife Media Center will be showing two New Zealand wildlife films produced by Natural History New Zealand. Both films will be followed by the New Zealand video tour Natural Wonders of New Zealand, a 45 minute tour of both islands’ natural beauty. Free admission. Call 728-9380 or visit http://www.wildlifefilms.org

o 5:00 p.m. – To save the Kakapo (50 min.) New Zealand’s kakapo is one of the world’s most remarkable birds. This film received a merit award for conservation message at the International Wildlife Film Festival.

o 7:00 p.m. – Ghosts of Gondwana (50 min.) Featuring bats, kiwi birds, and enchanted plants, this film received a merit award for excellent footage at the International Wildlife Film Festival. Produced by Natural History New Zealand.

· Missoula Osprey vs. Billings Mustangs. 7:05 p.m. Special sister-city recognition and related activities during the game. For tickets and information call 543-3300

In addition, several local video stores, including Block Buster, Crazy Mike’s, Crystal Video, Hastings, Hollywood Video and Showcase Video, are providing specials for New Zealand movies.

Interestingly enough, there are two on-line articles this week regarding cultural tourism in New Zealand. One from an on-line mag called Stuff, and another from the more traditional New Zealand Herald. You can learn about Palmerston North and the environs by visiting these websites: Palmerston North City and Manawatu District, Vision Manawatu, and Environment Network Manawatu .

Meanwhile, the Missoula Ambassador Choir will be in Palmerston North! This volunteer community chorus was established in 2004 to act as an official cultural liaison between the City of Missoula and various communities throughout the world. The MAC participates in musical exchanges that build connections between people, promote international understanding and goodwill, encourage exceptional citizenship, and enrich the lives of its membership. Sanctioned by the Missoula Cultural Council, the Ambassador Choir is particularly interested in developing and maintaining relationships with Missoula’s Sister Cities of Palmerston North, New Zealand and Neckargemünd, Germany, as well as Montana’s Sister State of Kumomoto, Japan. This tour is the Ambassador Choir’s inaugural journey. On Wednesday, June 22, a group of 33 Missoula singers and their traveling companions will depart on a 17-day tour that will take them through New Zealand and Australia. The Missoula Ambassador Choir will perform a concert in Missoula’s Sister City of Palmerston North on June 25, where they will be joined by singers from the All Saint’s Church Choir of that city. Following their stay in New Zealand, the group will fly to Sydney to participate in the Eric Whitacre Choral Festival. The Festival will bring together over 350 singers representing eight American choirs and will culminate in a major choral-orchestral concert on July 4 in the Sydney Opera House.

Opening Night for the Missoula Osprey 2005 season is Tuesday June 21. For information visit http://www.missoulaosprey.com/

The Missoula Art Museum presents Drawn West, an exhibition of landscape drawings by Bobbie McKibbin, a professor of painting at Grinnell College in Iowa. McKibbin is also a resident of Stevensville, and regularly travels from Grinnell to Stevensville by car, fueling her artistic exploration of the Western landscape. A color catalogue of McKibbin’s work accompanies this exhibition and can be purchased online for $7 or call 728-0447 to order. There are several events held in conjunction with this exhibition: Member Night Reception & Gallery Talk with Bobbie McKibbin: Thursday, June 23, 5:00 – 7:00 p.m., ARTWALK Reception: Friday, July 1, 5:00 – 8:00 p.m. Plein Air Chalk Pastel Drawing Class with Bobbie McKibbin: Saturday, July 16, 10:00 a.m.- 3:00 p.m. Cost: $65/person. Call 728-0447 or register online.

The Missoula Downtown Association presents the Garden City River Rod Run Car Show, June 24, beginning at 5:00 p.m. in Caras Park. Call 543-4238 or visit missouladowntown.com for more information.

The Clark Fork River Market, western Montana’s new farmers’ market in downtown Missoula, will open its inaugural season on Saturday, June 25, next to the river in Caras Park. The market opens at 8:00 a.m. and sales end at 1:00 p.m. For additional information, please contact Heidi DeArment at 406-542-0539 or [email protected].

The Children’s Museum is hosting their first annual Family Folf Festival in the Lolo National Forest (Patee Canyon) on Sunday June 26, from 12 noon-4:00 p.m. This fun-filled day will include frisbee golf on our exclusively designed kid-friendly folf course, face painting, Kinder Timbers, African dance and drum presentation by LEDA, raffles, prizes, silent auction, food and drink. The Children’s Museum is looking for volunteers to help with with: set-up and break down, BBQ cooks, making baked goods to be sold, helpers along the folf course, first aid/CPR station, face painting, kindertimber assistants, and bubble assistants. For more information or to volunteer call 541-PLAY or e-mail [email protected]

The International Wildlife Media Center & Film Festival will be offering a workshop for educators on Documentary Filmmaking. The workshop has been approved for the issue of 12 renewal units from the Office of Public Instruction. The 3-day workshop includes professional instruction on the filmmaking process, videography, story development & editing. The dates for the workshop are June 28-30 and July 19-21. The cost of the workshop is $250. Equipment is provided. Group size is limited to 6 teachers. To register or for more information, please contact the Media Center at 728-9380, or visit http://www.wildlifefilms.org

The Dana Gallery will feature new paintings by Great Falls artist R. Tom Gilleon and new ceramic horse sculptures by Miles City artist Sue Tirrell during the month of July. The opening reception will take place on Friday, July 1 from 5:00 – 8:00 p.m.

Elsewhere in Montana and the Region…

Chuck Duus, historian and story teller, is the presenter of the Sunday Series June 26 at the Ravalli County Museum in Hamilton. “The History of the Bitter Root: Aviation, Sheep, and Many More Tales,” is the title of this program, and organizers assure us there will be moments of down right laughter. The Museum, located on South 3rd & Bedford in Hamilton, is open from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. on Sundays, with the concert beginning at 2:12. Admission is free to members of the Historical Society, $3 for an adult, $5 a couple, and students are $1. For more information, please e-mail at [email protected], or call 363-3338 Thursday through Monday.

The Travelers Rest Preservation and Heritage Association continues the summer series of programs in western Montana with several presentations this week. Travelers’ Rest Native American Program Coordinator Rob Collier will be at Johnsrud Park at 8:00 p.m. on Tuesday, June 21 for A Change in Culture After Lewis and Clark. This program will discuss how the lives of the Native American people changed dramatically in the wake of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Johnsrud Park is on the Blackfoot River, 15 miles east of Missoula on Highway 200. Wednesday, June 22 will bring Darby Bramble, Travelers’ Rest Program Coordinator, to St. Mary’s Mission in Stevensville at 8:00 p.m. with her program From A to Z: Many Roles of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. The members of the expedition had responsibilities as varied as hunter, tailor, cook, horseman, interpreter, botanist, and cartographer in addition to their roles as a military unit. On Thursday, June 23, the Uncover Montana Speakers Series begins its second season with Salish Place Names presented by Salish tribal member and well-known speaker Louis Adams. The program begins at 7:00 p.m. at Travelers’ Rest State Park. Feel free to bring a lawn chair or camp chair. All programs are free to the public through partnerships with Travelers’ Rest Preservation and Heritage Association, the Bitterroot and Lolo National Forest, the Missoula Field Office of the Bureau of Land Management, and the Historical Museum at Fort Missoula. For more information, please call Travelers’ Rest Preservation and Heritage Association at 273-4253 or visit http://www.travelersrest.org.

Kumamoto Plaza in Helena is seeking families and individuals who would be interested in hosting in their homes either two high school students or a teacher. Twenty-five students and four teacher/chaperones from high schools throughout Kumamoto Prefecture, Montana’s Japanese sister state, will be visiting Montana as participants in the Montana Partnership 2005 Program (aka "Rocky Wings") at the end of July. After a visit to Glacier Park, the students will be involved in a series of educational excursions and workshops in the greater Helena and Great Falls areas before joining their hosts at 1 p.m. on Tuesday, July 26th in the rotunda of the Capitol Building. They will return to a motel in Helena on Sunday afternoon, July 31st, and fly back to Kumamoto on August 1st. The commitment is brief, but the memories for students, teachers, and hosts alike may last a lifetime. For information and/or an application form, call Kumamoto Plaza at 449-7904 or email Tom at [email protected] .

The Hamilton Players will be holding auditions for the adult comedy Murder At The Howard Johnson’s on tonight, June 20, at 7:00 p.m. at The Hamilton Playhouse, 100 Ricketts Road. Roles are available for two women and two men ages 25-60 years old. No experience or preparation is necessary. Auditions will be cold readings from the script. Scripts will be available for check out at Chapter One Book Store in Hamilton. Performance dates are August 12-14, 18-21, and 25-28. Murder At The Howard Johnson’s contains some adult language. For more information, call Kathy at 363-5612.

The Hamilton Players will be performing the musical comedy Guys and Dolls June 23-26 at The Hamilton Playhouse. Thursday through Saturday performances begin at 8:00 p.m. and Sunday performances begin at 2:00 p.m. Tickets are $12.00 reserved seating and are now available at The Hamilton Playhouse Box Office. For more information, or to purchase tickets with a credit card, call 375-9050.

From the Montana Associated Technology Roundtable…

Montana Congressman Denny Rehberg and Corvallis High School Vote for "MAPS"
Says Montana Congressman Denny Rehberg: “As MAPS enters into its second year, I’m proud that the Florence Prever Rosten Foundation has taken the initiative to found this organization (MAPS) and work for Montana’s middle and high school students”.

City Club Missoula – The ‘Public’ in Politics
I say heartening because the mission of the City Club is noble and just: “to inform and inspire citizens on issues vital to the Missoula area community through public forums that encourage new ideas.” And sitting here, it’s apparent that this kind of forum serves that mission well.

Collapse Author Jared Diamond will host a reading in Hamilton on June 21 at 7:30 p.m. at the Hamilton High School Performing Arts Center.

For more about the Montana Associated Technology Roundtable, visit http://www.matr.net

Nationally…

From the National Endowment for the Arts…

The Arts Endowment has announced the recipients of the 2005 NEA National Heritage Fellowships, the country’s highest honor in the folk and traditional arts. These awardees were chosen for their artistic excellence, cultural authenticity, and contributions to their field. For more information, including biographies of the recipients and samples of their work, please go to http://www.arts.gov/news/news05/HeritageAnnounce.html

As hurricane season 2005 begins, the NEA has announced grants to eight Florida arts organizations to assist them and their members recover from Hurricanes Charley, Frances, Jeanne, and Ivan that tore through the state in 2004. A total of $100,000 has been designated to eight arts organizations to support needs such as facility assessments and special programming. For a full description of the projects, visit http://www.arts.gov/news/news05/HurricaneGrants.html

To learn more about the National Endowment for the Arts, visit http://www.arts.gov

From the National Business Committee for the Arts…

The Art Institute of Chicago recently announced that JPMorgan Chase & Co. will contribute $5 million as the Founding Civic Underwriter of the Institute’s Building of the Century, which will expand the Institute’s gallery space by 30%. The Art Institute’s new $258 million wing, designed by Renzo Piano, is the largest private-sector cultural project in the history of Chicago. For information, visit http://www.jpmorganchase.com

Two young musicians, pianist Tomoko Endo of Fairfax, VA, and pianist/vocalist Patrick Henry Hughes of Louisville, KY, were honored with the 2005 VSA arts Panasonic Young Soloists Award, which recognizes outstanding young musicians with disabilities annually – age 25 and under – who have exhibited exceptional talents as vocalists or instrumentalists. It includes a $5,000 scholarship and the opportunity to perform at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington, DC. Panasonic Consumer Electronics Co. has been the major corporate sponsor of this award since 1991. For information, visit http://www.vsarts.org

To learn more about the National Business Committee for the Arts, visit http://www.bcainc.org

From the Center for Arts and Culture….

The Cultural Collaborative and ‘The Economic Impact of San Antonio’s Creative Industry’
San Antonio Current, 6/9/2005
The San Antonio City Council promised to take up the The Cultural Collaborative at its June 9 meeting. Available to boost the case of the cultural community is a new study, "The Economic Impact of San Antonio’s Creative Industry," which "concludes that the creative economy – which for this study included design and advertising, museums and art collections, performing arts, arts schools, and visual arts – contributed $1.2 billion to San Antonio’s economy last year. That’s approximately 25 percent of the local military-industrial complex’s impact." http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=14662905&BRD=2318&PAG=461&dept_id=484045&rfi=6

Teacher Education Homing In on Content
Education Week, 6/8/2005
Teachers for a New Era, a five-year, $60.5 million initiative of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Ford Foundation and the Annenberg Foundation, involves eleven institutions across the country. "The project has challenged those involved with making over their teacher-training programs in three ways: by becoming engaged with the arts and sciences, by treating teaching as a clinical-practice profession, and, perhaps most important for policymakers, by producing evidence of the effects their graduates have on student performance." https://c4.erightsweb.com/edweek/login/rale.do?rale=OrXXPvISbpzEd%2bH2K5w72O4Rf1PdoZMV8jb%2btid4broVufU4I2LUeRvMhmVY2hQs4voIR07z5vUV0p4Ven0eQuRTkpxHdEd45fQuEIc9LiAqXQ7HuYRHsMy0WbcWE%2fvtDRMeqYQDd6dsW0zgf9VUfT4Tfq%2fLtACl

Panel Would Cut Public Broadcasting Aid
New York Times, 6/10/2005
"A House Appropriations panel on Thursday [June 9] approved a spending bill that would cut the budget for public television and radio nearly in half and eliminate a $23 million federal program that has provided some money for producing children’s shows that include ‘Sesame Street,’ ‘Clifford the Big Red Dog,’ ‘Between the Lions’ and ‘Dragon Tales.’ By a voice vote, the House Appropriations subcommittee adopted a measure that would reduce the financing of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the organization that directs taxpayer dollars to public television and radio, to $300 million from $400 million." http://www.nytimes.com/auth/login?URI=http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/10/arts/television/10pbs.html&OP=2cb208b5/Q2A5XQ3FQ2Ap!HrQ23!!CQ24Q2AQ24Q26Q26Q3CQ2AQ26lQ2A-Q26Q2AOQ23CrQ2ACXvXQ3Biri!tQ2A-Q266Q3FrD9Cbv

Come On Music Biz, Embrace P2P
Wired, 6/13/2005
"File-swapping networks alone are not to blame for the recording industry’s woes and might plausibly be converted into legitimate channels for distributing music, one of Europe’s most influential economic bodies has concluded. In a report issued Monday [June 13], the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development — a Paris-based alliance of developed nations — also suggested that it’s difficult to establish a link between piracy and the music industry’s shrinking revenues."
– contributed by ArtsJournal.com http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,67820,00.html

To learn more about the Center of Arts and Culture, visit http://www.culturalpolicy.org

From Wolf, Keens and Co…

Five Years Later: Success of the Tate
International Herald Tribune

A Thames-side power plant transformed into an art museum? Skeptics abounded in London before it opened but most of them have moved on to other objects of scorn. Read about the success of this sensitive and thoughtful adaptive reuse project.

To learn more about Wolf, Keens and Co. visit http://www.wolfkeens.com.

Internationally…

Folk artists become key to cultural heritage
China Daily, 5/25/2005
"The Chinese Academy of Arts yesterday [May 24] invited 30 folk artists to become its researchers, seen as a big step by the government in the preservation of intangible cultural heritage." http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-05/25/content_445510.htm

Cultural Exchanges Help Boost Friendly Ties, Says Official
Arab News (Saudi Arabia), 6/14/2005
"An exhibition featuring 77 paintings from 44 Taiwanese artists was opened [in Riyadh] Sunday night by Dr. Saleh M. Al-Namlah, deputy minister of culture and information. The exhibition expresses the cultural and artistic heritage of eastern Asia and portrays the charm of oriental art of both past and present. After formally opening the exhibition at King Abdul Aziz Historical Center, Al-Namlah said the event, which featured Taiwan’s contemporary art, would help boost cultural links between Riyadh and Taipei." http://www.arabnews.com/?page=1&section=0&article=65409&d=14&m=6&y=2005&pix=kingdom.jpg&category=Kingdom

Finally… From Wolf, Keens and Co…

End of an Era?
DPReview.com

We knew it was coming and here it is… Kodak has stopped production of its black & white photo paper. Next step is letting go of film, but that will be a while yet. And if you are moving toward digital, check out this site – it’s one of the best for details about digital cameras, software, and other accoutrements of the new art.

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Thanks for your comments & corrections

Tom at MCC