Artist Access Grant
Artist Access Grant
To offset the fees of recording a 12-song project with Al Oikari as producer.
Tara Makinen: executive director of Itasca Orchestra and Strings, musician; Moira Villiard: visual artist, cultural programming coordinator at American Indian Community Housing Organization; Amber Burns: choreographer, dancer, actor, middle school art teacher; Margaret Holmes: visual artist, poet, and former Children’s Theatre employee; Tammy Mattonen: visual artists, co-founder of Crescendo Youth Orchestra; Kayla Aubid: Native American craft artist, writer, employee at MacRostie Art Center; Ariana Daniel: mixed media artist, arts instructor; Kathy Neff: musician, Director, Fine Arts Academy at the University of Minnesota Duluth; Ron Piercy: jeweler, gallery owner; Emily Swanson: arts administrator at Oldenburg Arts and Cultural Community; Christina Nohre: writer and arts advocate.
Tara Makinen: executive director of Itasca Orchestra and Strings, musician; Amber Burns: choreographer, dancer, actor, middle school art teacher; Kayla Aubid: Native American craft artist, writer, employee at MacRostie Art Center; Kathy Neff: musician, director, Fine Arts Academy at the University of Minnesota Duluth; Ron Piercy: jeweler, gallery owner.
ACHF Arts Access ACHF Arts Education ACHF Cultural Heritage
Treepreacher is an album written over several decades of my life. Recently, the opportunity arose in which to record this 12-song project live at the church in Hovland Minnesota, with the help of several local people including Bill Beckstrand, Pat Flack, Al Oikari, and several others who would be recorded live as a choir. Treepreacher is a spiritual but non-religious cohesive group of songs that has not been released before because I felt the need for special circumstances to arise before endeavoring to officially record and release it. I now have such an opportunity. My goal is that this project would benefit all who take part in recording it, with the outcome that those who hear the recording are inspired to believe that the power of community working live together is one of the greatest assets we possess. The prospective Treepreacher project would be reproduced starting with 1000 CD's. These CDs would be given away for promotion and sold at gigs. Selected songs from the project would be performed live on local radio. The measure of success would include CD sales, but more importantly be measured by the project's influence on creating music art that incorporates diversity of community as its strength. In this case, that includes taking a project that arose in a songwriter's mind (myself) and adding to that the ideas of others. In this case, Pat Flack heard a rough copy of the project, and it inspired him to suggest recording it in a local church that had great sound capabilities, as well as making use of a choir and other assets of that church, such as organ and piano. Upon hearing of the project, Al Oikari, along with Pat, myself, and Bill Beckstrand, visited the church and assessed its great recording capabilities and conceived a recording plan. Employing local people in the choir fulfills needs on some of the songs as well as providing community participation. Our conception is that this energy will translate very well to prospective listeners of the live recording, whether it be on CD or radio. In today's world, this sort of approach is sorely needed and can offset some of the negativity arising from politics in today's world, some of the self-centeredness so prevalent today.
1000 units of this CD are currently in production at Copycats media based in the twin cities. Project progress was waylaid by the illness of (producer) Al Oikari's mother, requiring full time care while recuperating in her home this past summer. Al Oikari was the only available caregiver, resulting in the progress of this project being pushed back several months. Public release of the Treepreacher CD and related events have been moved from JulyAugust to OctNov. I realize that this fact has limited the numbers o people affected by the project to this point. CD release is going forward but related events will not take place until NovDec 2019. because the project has turned out to be stellar in all aspects except timeliness. I request an extension of the final report deadline of three months. If this is not possible, my hope is that materials and events created to this point suffice to fulfill grant requirements.
Other,local or private