DALLAS MUSEUM OF ART PREMIERES “STATE OF THE ARTS,” A NEW LECTURE SERIES CELEBRATING DALLAS ARTS LEADERS

DALLAS, November 2, 2009—As part of the Dallas Museum of Art’s celebration of its 25th anniversary in the Arts District and to welcome its newest neighbor, Dallas’s AT&T Performing Arts Center, the DMA will launch a new series, State of the Arts. Introduced by Bonnie Pitman, The Eugene McDermott Director at the Dallas Museum of Art, and moderated by Jeff Whittington, KERA host and producer, State of the Arts will present conversations with Dallas’s key artistic leaders about the future of the city’s cultural landscape and what lies ahead for the organizations that make up the nation’s largest urban arts district.

State of the Arts is part of a full season of diverse, dynamic and comprehensive programming surrounding two new DMA exhibitions, All the World’s a Stage: Celebrating Performance in the Visual Arts and Performance/Art, both of which celebrate the vibrant connections between the performing and visual arts. Over the course of six months, the Museum is offering more than 200 special programs for visitors of all ages as an interactive and entertaining companion to the Museum experience. The schedule features more than 50 artists, 65 performances, 25 talks and lectures, and 110 film screenings to showcase connections between the visual and performing arts in entertaining and unusual ways.

State of the Arts will be held at 7:00 p.m. in the Museum’s Horchow Auditorium on four different evenings. Each lecture will present a pair of arts leaders and will be moderated by KERA’s Jeff Whittington.

The lectures are free with general admission to the Museum, but reservations are encouraged. To reserve tickets, call 214-922-1826 or visit www.tickets.DallasMuseumofArt.org.

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The State of the Arts season will feature:

Friday, November 20, 2009

Ann Williams, Founder/Artistic Director, Dallas Black Dance Theatre
Ann Williams has directed the Dallas Black Dance Theatre for thirty-two years. She is a graduate of Prairie View A&M University and holds a Master of Arts Degree in Dance and Related Arts from Texas Woman’s University. As a dancer, Williams trained with Barbara Hollis and Alvin Ailey, among others. Ms. Williams is the recipient of numerous awards, including the TACA Award for Excellence in the Performing Arts. She serves as a member or advisor to many local, statewide and national arts organizations, including the Dance Council of North Texas, the Texas Commission on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Veletta Forsythe Lill, Executive Director, Dallas Arts District
Veletta Forsythe Lill has been a champion for the arts in her role as Executive Director of the Dallas Arts District and previously as a member of the Dallas City Council, where she served for eight years. As Chairwoman of the council’s Arts, Education and Libraries Committee, Ms. Lill played an instrumental role in the creation of new cultural facilities and programming initiatives, including the AT&T Performing Arts Center, the Latino Cultural Center, and ArtsPartners. She is the recipient of a number of awards, including the Dallas Center for Contemporary Art’s Legends Award and the American Planning Association’s Distinguished Leadership Award for an Elected Official.

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Charles Santos, Executive Director, TITAS
Charles Santos has served as Executive Director of TITAS since 2001. He previously was the Managing Director/Producer for the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council in New York, producing the acclaimed Evening Stars series at the World Trade Center, and has worked with a wide range of international artists. He began his career as a dancer with the Sharir Dance Company and founded the nationally recognized Austin Festival of Dance. He currently serves on several local boards as well as the Board of Trustees for Dance/USA.

Arlington Jones, Musician
Arlington Jones is a pianist, composer and producer who has performed with legendary musicians including Red Holloway, David “Fathead” Newman, and Chaka Khan, among others. Jones received his Bachelor of Music in Music Composition from Texas Tech University and his Master of Music in Music Performance, specializing in Jazz, Theory and Composition, from Southwest Texas State University. He was named Jazz Artist of the Year by the Sammons Center for the Arts, and The Arlington Jones Trio performs frequently at the Dallas Museum of Art’s award-winning Thursday Night Live Jazz in the Atrium series.

Thursday, January 28, 2009

Kim J. Campbell, Founder and Executive Director, Dallas Wind Symphony
Kim Campbell co-founded the Dallas Wind Symphony in 1985, and he has served as Associate Producer of thirteen albums with the group for the Reference Recordings, Crystal Records and Widget Records labels.  A native Texan, Campbell majored in music performance at North Texas State University (the University of North Texas). As a professional trombonist, Campbell was a regular member of symphony, ballet and opera orchestras in Dallas, Fort Worth and Mexico City, and he toured throughout North America and Europe with ensembles as a freelance musician.

Frances Bagley and Tom Orr, Artists featured in Performance/Art at the DMA
Dallas-based artists Frances Bagley and Tom Orr were commissioned by the Dallas Opera to create the sets and costumes for the Dallas premiere of Verdi’s Nabucco in 2006. Bagley and Orr created a gallery-scaled installation based on that production for the Museum’s current special exhibition Performance/Art, on view through March 21, 2010. Frances Bagley received her M.F.A. from the University of North Texas and an M.A. and B.F.A from Arizona State University. Her work has been exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibitions and is included in the collection of the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C., among many other private, public and corporate collections. A native of Dallas, Tom Orr holds a B.F.A in Sculpture from the Rhode Island School of Design. Orr has been commissioned for a number of public art projects, including Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport’s Terminal D and the Dallas Area Rapid Transit Plano Station. His work is included in private collections throughout Texas, the U.S. and abroad.

Thursday, February 11, 2009

Kevin Moriarty, Artistic Director, Dallas Theater Center
Kevin Moriarty joined the Dallas Theater Center as Artistic Director in 2007, and he previously served as Artistic Director of the Hangar Theatre in Ithaca, New York. In Ithaca, Moriarty directed world premieres of plays written by Itamar Moses, Robert Aguierre-Sacassa, and others, as well as a number of classic dramatic and musical productions. He also directed the national tour of the Broadway production of Jesus Christ Superstar. Kevin Moriarty is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin and the recipient of a Drama League directing fellowship.

Graeme Jenkins, Music Director, Dallas Opera
Graeme Jenkins has served as the Dallas Opera’s Music Director since 1994. He has conducted more than forty productions in Dallas and over 160 operatic productions in the U.S. and abroad, including Così fan tutte for the English National Opera and Baz Luhrmann’s La bohème with the Australian Opera, among others. He holds degrees from Cambridge University and the Royal College of Music, where he was named the Adrian Boult Conducting Scholar. Jenkins has served as the chief guest conductor at Germany’s Cologne Opera and music director of the Glyndebourne Touring Company.