National Council on the Arts Convenes for 157th Meeting

		Contact: Victoria Hutter 682-5692 hutterv@arts.gov

March 22, 2006

Washington, D.C. -- The National Council on the Arts, the Presidentially-appointed advisory body of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), will meet in a public session on Friday, March 24 in Room M-09 of The Nancy Hanks Center, 1100 Pennsylvania Avenue NW.

In addition to agency updates, votes on funding recommendations, and guidelines review, there will be four presentations. Two presentations in honor of the agency's 40th anniversary look at NEA support for design (including the Mayors' Institute on City Design and Your Town workshops) and for music and opera (including the highly successful Chamber Music Rural Residencies program and decades of support for music festivals throughout the country.)

A third presentation focuses on the progress and plans for the NEA's national initiative, The Big Read. This exciting program seeks to encourage Americans to explore, as a community, classic American novels. Teacher guides, reader guides, and radio programs developed by the NEA enhance the reading experience. Public events (such as film showings and panel discussions) organized by the host communities further explore the novels' themes and characters. Finally, the Council will hear about briefing papers recently distributed by the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices that examine state efforts to promote reading and literacy activities.

The complete schedule is as follows:

Members of the National Council on the Arts
James Ballinger, Museum Director, Phoenix, AZ
Don V. Cogman, Patron/Trustee, Scottsdale, AZ
Mary Costa, Opera Singer, Knoxville, TN
Katharine Cramer DeWitt, Patron/Trustee, Cincinnati, OH
Makoto Fujimura, Visual Artist, New York, NY
David H. Gelernter, Author/Critic/Educator, Woodbridge, CT
Mark Hofflund, Theater Administrator, Boise, ID
Teresa Lozano Long, Patron/Trustee, Austin, TX
Maribeth Walton McGinley, Art Director/Designer, Glendale, CA
Jerry Pinkney, Artist/Illustrator, Croton-on-Hudson, NY
Deedie Potter Rose, Patron/Trustee, Dallas, TX
Gerard Schwarz, Symphony Conductor, Seattle, WA
Terry Teachout, Author/Critic, New York, NY
Dr. Karen Lias Wolff, Music Educator, Ann Arbor, MI

Ex-Officio Members, U.S. Congress

House of Representatives
Rep. Betty McCollum, (D-MN)
Rep. Howard "Buck" McKeon, (R-CA)
Rep. Patrick J. Tiberi (R-OH)

Senate
Sen. Robert Bennett (R-UT)
Sen. Mike DeWine (R-OH)
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT)

The National Council on the Arts advises the Chairman of the NEA, who also chairs the Council, on agency policies and programs. It reviews and makes recommendations to the Chairman on applications for grants, funding guidelines, and leadership initiatives. For more information about the National Council on the Arts and its members, visit www.arts.gov/about/NCA/About_NCA.html

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National Endowment for the Arts · an independent federal agency
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