Southborough Cultural Arts Council has announced their latest round of grant awards. In addition to sharing the news, they’re hoping the announcement will help drum up new members.
Mary Piekarz, SCAC chair announced 9 grants totaling over $4300 will support cultural programs for our community.
SCAC is part of a network of Local Cultural Councils serving all cities and towns in the Commonwealth. Funding is made possible through the Mass Cultural Council, a state agency which allocates funds for each council.
Decisions about which activities to support for Southborough are made by a board of resident volunteers appointed by selectmen. To help them with their mission, and the next round of applications this fall, SCAC is looking for new members to join them. Click here for an application to volunteer.
Below is a list of the grants awarded in this round. (Some description details are courtesy of SCAC, and others from my own background knowledge and research.):
Algonquin Regional High School – Power of a Personal Story
The freshman class will be reading the novel “Don’t Ask Me Where I’m From”, by Southborough Author Jennifer DeLeon. In April, the school will hold a day-long event featuring a visit from the author who will speak to the class as a whole about her writing process, the inspiration for the book, and writing as a form of expression. That will be followed by workshops for students to work on their own personal writing project. Students will be able to publish their own writing and/or explore different written formats to express themselves.
Art on the Trails
The annual outdoor art exhibit is hosted by Southborough Open Land Foundation on their Beals Preserve in Southborough. Each year organizers of a themed, juried exhibit post an online map to encourage the public to explore the trails and enjoy the special installations. They have also invited the public to respond to the art with poetry submissions for a chapbook. (You can check out details on last year’s exhibit here.)
Assabet Valley Mastersingers
AVM had planned to hold a special concert in Southborough at St. Mark’s School in Southborough in March. Due to the school contracting with Miramax to use their campus to film a movie, that’s no longer possible. No other large enough venues in Southborough were available for booking, so the concert was shifted to Southborough’s public high school, Algonquin.
The concert “Songs of Ecstasy” will be held at ARHS on March 20th. There is a price for admission, but children under the age of 12 can attend for free when accompanied by an adult.
AVM hopes to hold a future concert in Southborough. (Their posted schedule at this point includes a May concert in Shrewsbury and June concert in Westborough.)
Community Choruses:
The following singing groups are both open to the public to join without an audition. Both traditionally hold concerts in December and the spring. Members generally include residents of Southborough:
- Northborough Area Community Chorus – The rehearsal season has begun for their spring concert on May 15th at Algonquin. To learn about joining them, or the concert, click here.
- Westborough Community Chorus – Click here to inquire about joining them.
Discovery Museum – Open Door Connections
The children’s museum in Acton encourages children to play and explore science and nature. Support for the Open Door Connections program helps families facing financial or other barriers to visit at no or low cost.
This includes families with children on the autism spectrum, who are deaf/hard of hearing, or are blind/have low vision; $1/person admission for EBT, ConnectorCare, and WIC cardholders; free admission for educators and military families; free admission for all on select Friday evenings; and memberships donated to families for free based on need.
Hopkinton Center for the Arts – Celebrate Southborough at the HCA
HCA will present a Summer Music Series in the summer of 2022. July 15th will be “Celebrate Southborough” event.
All Southborough residents will free admission to the concert featuring a musician from the Greater Boston area. Residents will also receive a free gift, and HCA will invite some prominent people from Southborough to be part of the celebration.
Southborough Library – Celtic Chocolate Program
The Southborough Library plans to bring back Kim Larkin of Klassic Kreations who holds popular food and culture programs with an Irish slant.
In 2018, her Celtic Chocolate program at the Library highlighted the history of chocolate in Ireland, Irish chocolate pioneers, Irish lore, famous Irish foods, & Irish poetry. You can see a video of that 2018 event here. What the video can’t replicate is the samplings that come with her programs – typically including Irish tea, bread, bark, cheese and/or chocolates.
Symphony Pro Musica
The Symphony regularly holds concerts in Southborough, in St. Mark’s School’s Putnam Family Arts Center. January’s concert was cancelled due to the uptick in community Covid cases.
At a March 19th concert in Southborough, SPM is scheduled to play Mendelssohn’s Hebrides Overture and Musgrave’s Turbulent Landscapes. Violinist Inmo Yang is to perform Dvořák’s Violin Concerto.
(Note: It’s possible this concert will be cancelled for the same reason as AVM’s March concert. It is in the midst of the period Miramax will be using St. Mark’s campus for filming. But it looks like there may not be filming scheduled that specific day. SPM notes a switch in its Hudson and St. Mark’s schedules for the concert, which may have been to avoid the conflict. But a link to buy tickets isn’t yet available. So stay tuned.)
On May 15th the symphony will perform Brahms’ Academic Festival Overture and Beethoven’ Symphony No. 8 in F Major. Guest soloists are Violinist Julia Churchill (Chausson’s Poème) and Celloist Emma Churchill (Milhaud’ Cello Concerto No. 1).
Prior to each concert, SPM holds a 45 minute pre-concert talk. Find SPM’s details here.
SCAC Grants can support a variety of artistic projects and activities in Southborough – including exhibits, festivals, field trips, short-term artist residencies, performances in schools, workshops, and lectures. For grant guidelines and complete information on SCAC, visit www.southborougharts.org. Applications and more information about the Local Cultural Council Program are available online at www.mass-culture.org.
You can also find more details about SCAC on the Town’s website (here) and the MCAC site (here).
