Past
Grantees

Photographer JoAnn Verburg was awarded $1,222 to spend two weeks in Cuba, New Mexico, to move her photographic investigations in a new direction. Verburg will visit a close friend living on a Navajo reservation. The pictures she intends to take will be about the confluence, overlap and distinctions between two cultures.

Orchestra conductor Jeannine Wagar received $4,000 to spend five months in New York City, to continue intensive private study with David Gilbert, former associate conductor of the New York Philharmonic and current director of conducting at the Manhattan School of Music. Her work with Gilbert will focus on the major standard and contemporary orchestral and operatic repertoire, with an emphasis on advanced gestural training and stylistic interpretation from major conducing legacies and traditions. She also plans to observe rehearsals and attend concerts of the New York Philharmonic and other orchestras, and research new orchestral repertoire at music libraries in the city

Sitarist, composer and teacher David Whetstone received $4,500 toward six weeks of travel and study in Madras, India. Whetstone plans to learn about South Indian music so he may apply deeper understanding and creativity to his collaboration with South Indian Bharatnatyam dancer Ranee Ramaswamy. Whetstone will investigate the traditional format of Bharatnatyam performance, its use of rhythmic cycles, themes and stories, and become acquainted with the terminology of the form. He'll study with Ramaswamy's master teacher Allarmel Valli, vocalist Raja Shekaran and others.

Book artist Karen Wirth was awarded $1,000 to spend a week in Mexico City and Patzcuaro, Mexico, to gather information and materials for an artist's book dealing with US/Mexico intercultural relations. She'll visit the Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City; the pyramids at Teotihuacan, and Casa de los Ona Patios the Regional Museum of Popular Art in Patzcuaro.