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ETHEL quartet puts “Circus,” conceived at Hermitage, online

This article appeared in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune on May 3, 2020.

Sarasota’s circus heritage and photos from The Ringling archives provided the inspiration for the world premiere of “Circus: Wandering City” by the string quartet ETHEL at Historic Asolo Theater in 2018.

The production, which The Ringling co-commissioned with the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s 2018 Next Wave Festival, was presented for a weekend in Sarasota in January 2018. But now, the acclaimed quartet is making it available for streaming for free while the museum and live performance venues are shut down.

“Circus: Wandering City” will be available beginning at 3 p.m. Friday at ethelcentral.org. It also can be viewed through The Ringling’s website, Ringling.org or its social media sites.

The performance incorporates hundreds of images from the Ringling’s Circus Museum archives, which are set to original compositions by quartet members, who were inspired by the photos.

The idea for a circus-themed show came in 2015 when the ensemble members had a residency at the Hermitage Artist Retreat and performed their show “Documerica,” which was inspired by photos of environmental disasters from the Environmental Protection Agency’s files.

Dwight Currie, who was then Ringling’s curator for performance, suggested that Ringling’s circus photos might inspire a similar but different performance.

“I was just saying how evocative I find the images in the circus archives, and very little of it is actually on exhibit,” Currie told the Herald-Tribune before the 2018 premiere. “It’s just so foreign you just can’t help but imagine this and that. I said, how great would that be?”

The ensemble members agreed.

Cellist Dorothy Lawson said the “subject of the circus is so full of the highest and deepest aspirations of the human spirit.”

The performance is a collection of vignettes performed by Lawson, Ralph Farris on viola and violinists Kip Jones and Corin Lee.

Herald-Tribune music critic Gayle Williams described it as an “immersive, nonstop rollout of an extraordinary docu-music-theater experience,” adding that it is “an incredibly imaginative creation owing to the vision and talents of an entire team of collaborators.”

Hermitage receives $100,000 matching pledge in response to COVID-19 crisis

At a time when arts groups are facing financial challenges because of revenue losses triggered by the coronavirus, the Hermitage Artist Retreat is getting some extra support.

The Cook family, neighbors and supporters of the artist retreat on Manasota Key, have committed to matching all donations to the organization up to $100,000 through June 30.

“Rebecca Cook and her brother, Warren Cook and their family have been part of the Hermitage family and they really believe in the community and the mission of what we do on both the artistic side and the preservation of the land and nature,” said Andy Sandberg, the artistic director and CEO of the Hermitage.

The fundraising period for the matching grant covers this year’s 24-hour Giving Challenge, scheduled for noon April 28 to noon April 29, when the Patterson Foundation will also match the first $100 of every donation to any registered nonprofits.

“If someone gives $100, that gift will turn into $300 because it will be matched by both the Cooks and the Patterson Foundation,” Sandberg said. “We hope in a tricky time with the virus that this special gift will inspire people to get involved. If the creative process is stalled and isn’t allowed to find a way forward, it will be hard to find a way to production and performance and publication.”

The Hermitage owns several beachfront cottages where playwrights, composers, choreographers, painters and other artists are invited to spend six weeks over two years working on projects or just using the time to clear their minds. They are required to take part in two public programs during their residency.

The list of Hermitage fellows includes Pulitzer Prize winners, MacArthur Fellowship award winners, as well as winners and nominees of Tony, Emmy, Grammy and Academy awards.

The Hermitage also administers the annual Greenfield Prize, which provides a $30,000 commission to visual artists, playwrights and composers on a rotating basis. The virus forced the Hermitage to cancel this year’s Greenfield Prize weekend, which annually generates donations and attention.

“The visibility of our program is what inspires people to get behind the organization, and the Greenfield weekend is a big contributor to that,” Sandberg said.

Some past Hermitage fellows have reached out to the organization and offered testimonial videos of support.

Doug Wright, the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright of “I Am My Own Wife,” said the Hermitage afforded him “solace, hospitality, and natural beauty to write. I was able to sit with my thoughts and forge them like raw clay into something approximating art — that’s the great gift of the Hermitage.”

And director and playwright Emily Mann, longtime artistic director of the McCarter Theatre in Princeton, N.J., describes the Hermitage as “one of my favorite places on earth.” Mann said this is a time to reflect on why art matters and the Hermitage “lets artists dream and think deeply about the truth.”

Sandberg said the staff and board of the Hermitage is aware that the vital and impactful work of the artists who spend time at the retreat “may seem less urgent when compared to the matters of life and death amidst this horrible pandemic. Still, the arts and the creative spirit are part of what make our lives so meaningful and special.”

He said the staff is working on programming and residencies for artists to spend time on Manasota Key for the 2020-21 season.

“We are planning with the same momentum as other organizations that are announcing new seasons, and we are still strategizing for the future and how we can rise stronger than ever on the other side of this.”

This article appeared in the Herald-Tribune, April 12, 2020.

Hermitage cancels upcoming public programs and Greenfield Prize Weekend

Andy Sandberg, the artistic director and CEO of the Hermitage Artist Retreat, announced that the organization is canceling this year’s Greenfield Prize Weekend, which was scheduled for April 18 and 19, 2020. This year’s celebration was scheduled to begin with a world premiere reading of a new play by the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and 2018 recipient of the Greenfield Prize Martyna Majok (at the Asolo Rep). The weekend also included the “Artist Talk: The Work and Influences of Jennifer Packer” (at Sarasota Art Museum) with the 2020 Greenfield Prize recipient, visual artist Jennifer Packer. The organization’s signature fundraising event, the Greenfield Prize Dinner, scheduled for Sunday, April 19, is also cancelled, with plans to recognize Jennifer Packer at a future date to be determined. In addition, the organization is suspending its free community programs in April.

“In light of coronavirus concerns and in coordination with the Greenfield Foundation, we felt it was prudent to cancel all events pertaining to this year’s Greenfield Weekend, and move ahead with a scaled-back version of the award presentation in the months ahead when the situation has calmed down,” says Sandberg. “We have been in communication with this year’s Greenfield Prize winner, Jennifer Packer, who has been extremely gracious and understanding. We are also coordinating with the Asolo Rep to find a future date for Martyna Majok’s reading, and we look forward to welcoming both of these extraordinary artists back to Sarasota.”

Sandberg says that canceling one of the organization’s largest and most recognizable events could have a serious financial impact. “So many of our fellow arts leaders have had to make the same difficult decisions. In a time of crisis like this, non-profit arts organizations are often some of the hardest hit, and the support of our generous donors and patrons is more critical and meaningful than ever.”

Jennifer Packer wins 2020 Greenfield Prize

The Hermitage Artist Retreat, in collaboration with the Greenfield Foundation, has selected New York-based artist Jennifer Packer as the winner of the 2020 Greenfield Prize, given this year in the field of visual art. Packer will receive a six-week residency at the Hermitage and a $30,000 commission for a new work, which will premiere in Sarasota in 2022 with the Hermitage’s presenting partner, The John & Mable Ringling Museum of Art.

Jennifer Packer creates expressionist portraits, interior scenes, and still lifes that suggest a casual intimacy. Packer views her works as the result of an authentic encounter and exchange. The models for her portraits—commonly friends or family members—are relaxed and seemingly unaware of the artist’s or viewer’s gaze. Packer’s paintings are rendered in loose line and brush stroke using a limited color palette, often to the extent that her subject merges with or retreats into the background. Suggesting an emotional and psychological depth, her work is enigmatic, avoiding a straightforward reading. “I think about images that resist, that attempt to retain their secrets or maintain their composure, that put you to work,” she explains. “I hope to make works that suggest how dynamic and complex our lives and relationships really are.”

A Lesson in Longing, 2019, oil on canvas, 108 x 144 inches

Born in 1984 in Philadelphia, Packer received her BFA from the Tyler University School of Art at Temple University in 2007, and her MFA from Yale University School of Art in 2012. She was the 2012-2013 Artist-in-Residence at the Studio Museum in Harlem, and a Visual Arts Fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA, from 2014-2016. Packer currently lives and works in New York and is an assistant professor in the painting department at RISD.

Packer will receive her award at the Greenfield Prize Award Dinner on Sunday, April 19, 6 p.m., at Michael’s On East, 1212 East Avenue South, in Sarasota.

Check out what’s coming up in February and March

The Hermitage has some fantastic free community programs coming up in February and March. Join us here at the Hermitage, or at Boosktore1Sarasota. Reservations are required.

The Suffragist Project: Supporting Women’s Voices in Playwriting with Playwright and Hermitage Fellow Julia Jordan
February 11, 5:30 p.m.
Bookstore1Sarasota
This event is in collaboration with Florida Studio Theatre’s Supporting Women’s Voices in Playwriting program.
Playwright and Hermitage Fellow Julia Jordan will speak about advocacy to focus national attention of gender disparity in playwriting and the strides women playwrights are making. The conversation includes Catherine Randazzo, FST’s associate artistic director, and Patricia Caswell, the Hermitage’s program director and co-founder. Read more and reserve your seats here.

Literary Editing and Publishing with Poet and Editor Lisa Ampleman
February 14, 5 p.m.
Hermitage Palm House
Lisa, the managing editor of The Cincinnati Review and poetry series editor for Acre Books, will give advice about the submission process and talk about some of the challenges facing editors. Read more and reserve your seats here.

From Broadway to the Beach with Musical Theater Composer Adam Gwon
February 21, 5 p.m.
Hermitage Artist Retreat beach
Adam, hailed as “a promising newcomer to our talent-hungry musical theater” whose songs are “funny, urbane, with a sweetness that doesn’t cloy” by The New York Times, will play piano and sing his own songs, demonstrating how a musical is born and evolves from idea to stage. Read more and reserve your seats here.

Restoring Coastal Ecology and Creating a Sense of Place with Landscape Architect Michael Gilkey
February 28, 5 p.m.
Hermitage Palm House
Michael will share his vision for the restoration of the Hermitage acreage, including the “Preserve” which contains three distinct habitats: coastal hammock, dune and wetlands. Audience members will have the opportunity to learn about native Florida plants and the process of creating an Old Florida landscape. After the talk, participants are welcome to walk on the beach to enjoy the sunset. Read more and reserve your seats here.

Sonic Meditation at Sunset with Composer Evan Premo
March 6, 6 p.m.
Hermitage Artist Retreat beach
Evan (pictured) is a teaching artist, composer, and double bassist. He will lead several sonic meditations, designed to find connection and peace through deep listening and spontaneous sounding. Read more and reserve your seats here.

Andy Sandberg appointed artistic director and CEO

Following an extensive national search, the board of the Hermitage Artist Retreat announced today that the organization has chosen Andy Sandberg as its artistic director and chief executive officer. Sandberg is an accomplished director, writer, and Tony Award-winning producer, whose national and international career has been committed to new work and artist development.

Click here to read the full announcement and learn more about Andy. Events to introduce Andy to the community will be announced at a later date.

A Letter to the Community
Andy Sandberg
Artistic Director and Chief Executive Officer
The Hermitage Artist Retreat

Dear Hermitage Friends, Colleagues, Neighbors, and Alumni,

I am honored to lead the Hermitage into the next chapter of its history. Throughout my career, I have been an advocate for new work, and the Hermitage provides artists an invaluable opportunity to nurture bold ideas while planting the seeds for great works of art to sprout up around the country and throughout the world. I have been fortunate to work with so many brilliant artists over the years as a director, writer, and producer, and I am incredibly excited to be appointed the artistic director and CEO of the Hermitage, an organization that shares my longstanding commitment to artistic growth and the development of new work.

I look forward to being part of this extraordinary tradition and working with a brilliant and diverse group of artists across multiple disciplines to achieve their goals. The unique experience that the Hermitage offers is essential to our artistic landscape. The original and impactful works created at the Hermitage are going on to renowned theaters, concert halls, and galleries throughout the United States and across multiple continents.

It is a privilege to work with the board of trustees, the dedicated Hermitage staff, and our regional partners as we plan for the future of this great organization. I am grateful to Bruce Rodgers for his years of unwavering leadership, and I am eager to build on the organization’s impressive history while also reimagining what’s possible for the Hermitage in the years ahead. As we look to expand the Hermitage’s reach and impact, building new partnerships and relationships for the company, I am energized by and deeply committed to our core mission – to inspire the artists of our time.

Thank you for welcoming me into your community and into the Hermitage family.

Sincerely,
Andy Sandberg

Mar

Sun

“Impact: Contemporary Artists at the Hermitage Artist Retreat” @ Sarasota Art Museum

Tickets

Mar 10 @ 10:00 am – Jul 7 @ 5:00 pm

“Impact: Contemporary Artists at the Hermitage Artist Retreat”

Presented in partnership with Sarasota Art Museum

Sunday, March 10 – Sunday, July 7

Sarasota Art Museum (entrance at 1001 S. Tamiami Trail, Sarasota, FL 34236)

Click here for more information.

This exhibition will feature work from ten nationally and internationally renowned Hermitage alumni artists: Diana Al-Hadid, Sanford Biggers (2010 Hermitage Greenfield Prize winner), Chitra Ganesh, Todd Gray, Trenton Doyle Hancock (2013 Hermitage Greenfield Prize winner), Michelle Lopez, Ted Riederer, the late John Sims, Kukuli Velarde, and William Villalongo. A key factor these ten artists have in common is that over the past two decades, each has been a Fellow at the Hermitage Artist Retreat on Manasota Key — a unique experience that contributed to each of their creative processes in a variety of ways. Overseen by guest curator and former Hermitage Curatorial Council member Dan Cameron, Impact represents the first major exhibition in collaboration between the Hermitage and Sarasota Art Museum. The exhibit will feature work across a range of media, including sculpture, painting, installation, video, photography, printmaking, ceramics, textiles, and social practice. Sanford Biggers, a distinguished Hermitage alumnus and internationally renowned artist, is also now a member of the Hermitage’s National Curatorial Council and was a featured guest speaker at the 2023 Hermitage Greenfield Prize Dinner.

A longtime member of the Hermitage’s Curatorial Council, Dan Cameron is a curator of contemporary art who also writes about art, teaches and lectures about art, makes art, serves on art-related juries and boards, and advises both public and private collections. He has lived in Manhattan since 1979, although at times he has also been based in New Orleans and Long Beach. Throughout his 40-plus year career, Dan has steadfastly championed both the unexpected and the under-recognized. In 1982, he was the first American curator to organize a museum exhibition on LGBTQ art, and in 2008 he launched the Prospect New Orleans triennial in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Along the way, he has curated international biennials in Istanbul, Taipei, Ecuador, and Orange County, California, as well as retrospectives of such esteemed artists as Carolee Schneemann, Paul McCarthy, Peter Saul, William Kentridge, Faith Ringgold, David Wojnarowicz, Marcel Odenbach, Pierre et Gilles, Cildo Meireles, and Martin Wong. As part of the Getty Foundation’s Pacific Standard Time initiative in 2017, the Palm Springs Art Museum hosted Dan’s exhibition “Kinesthesia: Latin American Kinetic Art 1954-1969.” Dan’s core connection with art stems from its capacity to expand our collective awareness of ourselves, the world around us, and the way that humans invent ways to communicate essential values with one another. Whether in the cause of furthering social justice or challenging art history, Dan believes that the artist’s fundamental obligation to civilization is to push sensorial and perceptual engagement into new, fruitful realms of engagement. The curator’s role is to provide an appropriate platform and context for that expression, and to provide a public forum for viewers to more fully immerse themselves in the experience, and for the artists to engage in critical dialogue about the art and its meaning.

Hermitage Fellow Diana Al-Hadid is known for her practice that examines the historical frameworks and perspectives that continue to shape discourse on culture and materials today. With a practice spanning sculpture, wall reliefs, and works on paper, Al-Hadid weaves together enigmatic narratives that draw inspiration from both ancient and modern civilizations.

Sanford Biggers was the first recipient of the Hermitage Greenfield Prize in the discipline of Visual Art in 2010. His work is an interplay of narrative, perspective, and history that speaks to current social, political, and economic happenings while also examining the contexts that bore them. His diverse practice positions him as a collaborator with the past through explorations of often-overlooked cultural and political narratives from American history. Working with antique quilts that echo rumors of their use as signposts on the Underground Railroad, he engages these legends and contributes to this narrative by drawing and painting directly onto them.

Across a 20-year practice, Hermitage Fellow Chitra Ganesh has developed an expansive body of work rooted in drawing and painting, which has evolved to encompass animations, wall drawings, collages, computer generated imagery, video, and sculpture. Through studies in literature, semiotics, social theory, science fiction, and historical and mythic texts, Ganesh attempts to reconcile representations of femininity, sexuality, and power absent from the artistic and literary canons.

Hermitage Fellow Todd Gray works in photography, performance, and sculpture. Gray’s work is represented in numerous museum collections. He works between Los Angeles and Ghana, where he explores the diasporic dislocations and cultural connections which link Western hegemony with West Africa.

Trenton Doyle Hancock won the Hermitage Greenfield Prize in 2013. Influenced by the history of painting, especially Abstract Expressionism, he transforms traditionally formal decisions — such as the use of color, language, and pattern — into opportunities to create new characters, develop sub-plots, and convey symbolic meaning. Balancing moral dilemmas with wit and a musical sense of language and color, Hancock’s works create a painterly space of psychological dimensions. Trenton Doyle Hancock was the winner of the 2013 Hermitage Greenfield Prize for Visual Art.

Michelle Lopez is a Hermitage Fellow, interdisciplinary sculptor, and installation artist. As a builder, conceptualist, and manipulator of materials, Lopez inventively explores cultural phenomenon, stretching to their limits the industrial processes that craft consumerism in its many forms. Lopez examines collapsed political and social structures by inverting cultural tropes through the process of building, exploiting industrial materials to expose the hidden boundaries of embedded societal constructions.

A “one-time refugee from punk and sometime band member,” Hermitage Fellow Ted Riederer has armed himself with painting supplies, electric guitars, amplifiers, old LPs, record players, drum kits, hard disk recorders, photography equipment, a vinyl record lathe, and long-stemmed roses as he’s ambled artistically from the Americas to the Antipodes. His work has been shown nationally and internationally.

John Sims, a Detroit native and Hermitage Fellow, was an interdisciplinary conceptual artist who created multimedia projects spanning the areas of mathematics, art, text, performance, and political-media activism. His main projects were informed by the vocabulary of mathematical structure, the politics of sacred symbols and poetic reflections. As the former coordinator of mathematics at Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota, Florida, he designed a visual mathematics curriculum for artists and visual thinkers. John Sims died in 2022 at the age of 54.

Hermitage Fellow Kukuli Velerde left Peru as an adult, already aware of its racial, social, cultural and economic climate. Latin contemporary culture, its finest expression: family ties, and herself as result, are together the frame within which her work evolves. Velerde’s mediums include paining on aluminum plates and ceramic installations.

Hermitage Fellow William Villalongo’s work is concerned with stories and images of time and change in the arch of inhumanity to humanity that has marked the black experience shaping his subject and study as an artist. He often works in series where he looks for frameworks to make these concerns visible. A figure, a still life, a painting, a drawing or a sculpture are his vessels for information and sites to produce meaning.

Apr

Sun

“The Truth of the Night Sky: A Hermitage Collaboration” @ Sarasota Art Museum

Tickets

Apr 21 @ 10:00 am – Sep 29 @ 5:00 pm

“The Truth of the Night Sky: A Hermitage Collaboration”
featuring Hermitage Fellows Anne Patterson and Patrick Harlin

Presented in partnership with Sarasota Art Museum

Sunday April 21 to Sunday September 29

Sarasota Art Museum (entrance at 1001 S. Tamiami Trail, Sarasota, FL 34236)

Click here for more information.

The Truth of the Night Sky, a Hermitage collaboration, is the second exhibition of Hermitage alumni premiering at Sarasota Art Museum this spring – opening on April 21, 2024 and remaining on display through September 29, 2024. After meeting while in residence at the Hermitage Artist Retreat ten years ago and building on their friendship and collaboration, multidisciplinary visual artist Anne Patterson and composer / soundscape artist Patrick Harlin have joined forces to develop this one-of-a-kind immersive experience. Patterson, who is familiar to Sarasota audiences from previous exhibitions at The Ringling Museum and whose “Divine Pathways” is currently represented in New York at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, is widely celebrated for her grand environments that immerse the viewer and surround the senses. A distinguished Hermitage alumna with an impressive background in immersive exhibitions and theatrical design, Anne Patterson has frequently collaborated with musicians, including fellow Hermitage alum Patrick Harlin, to design mesmerizing environments. For this collaborative project, Patterson and Harlin are expanding upon Harlin’s original composition Earthrise (2022), an orchestral piece inspired by the eponymous photograph (1968) taken by Apollo 8 astronaut William Anders on humanity’s first-ever trip around the moon. The original composition by Patrick Harlin, who was also the very first recipient of the Hermitage Prize in Composition at the Aspen Music Festival, will play as visitors pass through the galleries. The exhibition will feature several works by Patterson, as well as a suspended tree and her signature satin ribbon installation work. With each step, visitors will travel imaginatively through space and time. Of their time at the Hermitage Artist Retreat, Patterson and Harlin are fond of saying that their experience was invaluable to their craft and their collaboration, allowing them to achieve new heights, find a unique environmental inspiration, and explore new possibilities in their work.

Hermitage alumna Anne Patterson is a multidisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn. She recently served as a juror for the 2023 Hermitage Greenfield Prize. Her body of work consists of paintings, sculptures, and large-scale multimedia installations that combine sculpture, architecture, lighting, video, music, and scent. Drawing from her background in theater and opera set design, she uses these modalities to create an artistic practice, hovering somewhere between the visual, experiential and immersive. Patterson’s large-scale installations have filled cathedrals, office buildings, and galleries across the country with miles of fabric, aluminum ribbon, and metal birds. Her most recent installation, “Divine Pathways” was created in concert with communities and organizations across the Morningside Heights neighborhood in New York City and is now on display at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. “Ascendant Light,” commissioned by Capital One as the centerpiece of their new corporate headquarters, is made of hundreds of hand plotted ribbons over six stories. Other recent commissions include “Art for Earth,” commissioned by the fashion house Ermenegildo Zegna, was made of thousands of lengths of fabric repurposed from Zegna fabrics. Anne has exhibited widely including solo exhibitions at The Ringling Museum and Alfstad & Contemporary. Her work has been shown at The Trapholt Museum, Denmark; Cristina Grajales, New York; Scope Art Fair, Miami; Aqua Art Fair, Miami; Building Bridges Art Exchange, Los Angeles; Valerie Dillon Gallery, New York; Denise Bibro, New York; Cade Tompkins Projects, Providence, RI and One Twelve Gallery, Atlanta. Her paintings and sculptures are in private, public, and corporate collections across the USA (Tishman Speyer, Tribune Media, Nortek, New York Presbyterian Hospital, Memorial Sloan Kettering Hospital, Rhode Island Blue Cross) and in London. Anne’s theatrical and symphonic partnerships have included Lincoln Center, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Arena Stage, The Wilma Theater, The Kennedy Center, Alliance Theater and prestigious symphonies throughout the country (San Francisco, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Chicago, Seattle). Patterson was the 2014 and 2016 CODAaward Winner for Liturgical Art and received a Creative Capital Award in 2008. She is a proud Fellow of the Hermitage Artist’s Retreat. In Sarasota, her work has been exhibited at The Ringling Museum and commissioned by the Community Foundation of Sarasota County. Patterson received her B.A. of Architecture from Yale University and her M.F.A. in Theater Design from The Slade School of Art, London UK.

Hermitage Fellow Patrick Harlin’s “aesthetics capture a sense of tradition and innovation” (The New York Times). He is the inaugural recipient of the Hermitage Prize in Composition at the Aspen Music Festival, which offered a residency at the Hermitage Artist Retreat in Manasota Key, Florida. Harlin’s music is permeated by classical, jazz, and electronic music traditions, all underpinned with a love and respect for the great outdoors. His works have been performed on subscription series concerts by the St. Louis Symphony, Kansas City Symphony, the Rochester and Calgary Philharmonic Orchestras, Collegium Cincinnati, and Calidore String Quartet, among others. CD recordings include Wilderness Anthology by the Kinetic Ensemble and American Rapture on the Grammy-nominated album by the Rochester Philharmonic. Patrick was the inaugural composer in residence with the Lansing Symphony Orchestra (2019-2023.) To date, he is the only artist-recipient of a DOW Sustainability Fellowship. While at the Hermitage, Harlin met visual artist Anne Patterson, and they have been collaborating since, including the work The Art of Flight with Anne’s art installation “Murmuration.” Patrick’s interdisciplinary research in soundscape ecology — a field that aims to better understand ecosystems through sound — has taken him to imperiled regions around the world, including the Amazon rainforest and the Book Cliffs of Utah. His baseline recordings for ecological impact studies are also the fodder for artistic inspiration. Patrick’s research on the importance of soundscapes has been supported by a Graham Sustainability Institute Doctoral Fellowship, Rackham Fellowship, Theodore Presser Award, and private support. The resulting works, the Wilderness Anthology draw parallels between the sounds of the natural world and those of the concert hall, seeking to bring awareness to the importance of sound in our environment. Patrick grew up in Seattle, holds a doctorate in music composition from the University of Michigan, and currently resides in Ann Arbor.

Apr

Wed

“Writing for the Stage: The Annette Dignam State College of Florida Residency in Literature at the Hermitage” @ State College of Florida, Venice Campus

Tickets

Apr 24 @ 3:30 pm – 4:30 pm

“Annette Dignam State College of Florida Residency in Literature at the Hermitage: Writing for the Stage”
with Hermitage Fellow Sarah Gancher

Presented in partnership with State College of Florida

Sarah Gancher’s Hermitage Artist Residency made possible by the Annette Dignam State College of Florida Residency in Literature at the Hermitage.

Wednesday, April 24 at 3:30pm

State College of Florida (entrance at 8000 S Tamiami Trail, Venice, FL 34293)

Register here.
Registration is required. $5 per person.

An Obie Award-winning playwright whose work has been produced at some of the country’s leading theaters, Hermitage Fellow Sarah Gancher is no stranger to writing for the stage. From works such as the recent Off-Broadway play Russian Troll Farm to collaborative musical projects like Hundred Days and The Lucky Ones with The Bengsons, Gancher has done it all. In this special program made possible by the support of the Dignam Family, Gancher will offer insight into how she approaches a range of projects, give updates on what is next for her, and share samples of her original works.

Hermitage Fellow Sarah Gancher is a Obie Award-winning playwright who loves epic stories, big ideas, and deep comedy. Her plays have been produced or developed at London’s National Theatre, Edinburgh’s Traverse Theatre, The Public, New York Theater Workshop, Playwrights Horizons, The Vineyard, The Atlantic, Berkeley Rep, Steppenwolf, New York Stage and Film, Ars Nova, WP Theatre, The Flea, La Jolla Playhouse, Seattle Rep, Geva Theatre, Hartford Stage, and RoundHouse, among others. She has been a Time Warner Fellow at the WP Playwrights Lab, a member of P73’s writer’s group, a Playwrights’ Realm Writing Fellow, a member of the Orchard Project’s Greenhouse Lab, and a member of the Ars Nova Play Group. She is a resident at New Dramatists. Sarah is the winner of the Richard Rodgers Award for Musical Theatre, New York Stage and Film Founder’s Award, and the Edgerton Foundation New Play Award. Her play Russian Troll Farm won a special citation Obie Award, and was named one of the year’s ten best productions of 2020 by The New York Times. Sarah has written two musicals with rock band The Bengsons: The Lucky Ones, a commission for Ars Nova, and Hundred Days, which had its New York premiere at the 2017 Under the Radar festival at the Public and went on to rave reviews at New York Theatre Workshop and a national tour. Both The Lucky Ones and Hundred Days garnered a number of Lortel, Drama League, and Drama Desk nominations and wins. Sarah was the collaborating playwright on Mission Drift, a musical about capitalism and the myth of the frontier written with director Rachel Chavkin, composer Heather Christian, and The TEAM. It was included on The Guardian‘s Top 50 Shows of the 21st Century. Her latest musical in development, Eugene Onegin, was a 2024 finalist for the Kleban Prize in Musical Theatre. She currently teaches playwriting at NYU Tisch’s Department of Dramatic Writing and The New School’s MFA Playwriting program.

May

Thu

“Hermitage Sunsets @ Selby Gardens: Sound and Silence” @ Historic Spanish Point

Tickets

May 2 @ 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm

“Hermitage Sunsets @ Selby Gardens: Sound and Silence”
with Hermitage Fellows Bill Bowers and Kavita Shah

Thursday, May 2 at 6:30pm

Historic Spanish Point (entrance at 401 N Tamiami Trail, Osprey, FL 34229)

Register here.
Registration is required. $5 per person.

We say a lot with our words, but in the hands of a gifted artist, the notes in between and the gestures underneath unlock even deeper expression. Hear from two such creators in “Sound and Silence” as part of Hermitage Sunsets @ Selby Gardens series, featuring returning Hermitage Fellows Bill Bowers and Kavita Shah. A celebrated mime by training and a master of physical theater techniques, Bill Bowers is a charismatic storyteller who is currently writing his remarkable life story in a memoir about making theater all over the world. Hailed for her “amazing dexterity for musical languages” (NPR), Kavita Shah speaks several languages and sings amazingly in them all. These two Hermitage Fellows embrace both the sounds and the silences surrounding them as opportunities for connecting through performance.

As an actor, mime, and educator, returning Hermitage Fellow Bill Bowers has traveled to all fifty of the United States, and throughout Europe and Asia. His Broadway credits include Zazu in The Lion King and Leggett in The Scarlet Pimpernel. Bowers has written and performed his own plays Off-Broadway and in theaters around the world. These plays include: ‘Night Sweetheart ‘Night Buttercup, Under a Montana Moon, It Goes Without Saying, Beyond Words, and All Over the Map. His newest solo play, The Traveler, is streaming on line and he has just completed filming an adaptation of Peter and the Wolf with the American Classical Orchestra that will air on PBS this season. A returning Hermitage Fellow, Bowers has been hailed by critics as “the great American mime,” winning top honors at festivals throughout the world. He was a student of the legendary Marcel Marceau. Bill-Bowers.com

Hermitage Fellow Kavita Shah is an award-winning vocalist, composer, researcher, and educator who makes work in deep engagement with the jazz tradition, while also addressing and advancing its global sensibilities. A lifelong New Yorker of Indian origin hailed for possessing an “amazing dexterity for musical languages” (NPR), Shah incorporates her ethnographic research on Brazilian, West African, and Indian traditions into her original music. Notable projects include “Visions” (2014), co-produced by Lionel Loueke, “Folk Songs of Naboréa” (2017), presented at the Park Avenue Armory, and “Interplay” (2018) in duo with François Moutin, which was nominated for France’s Victoires de la Musique for Jazz Album of the Year. Shah regularly performs her music at major concert halls, festivals, and clubs on six continents. She holds a B.A. in Latin American Studies from Harvard and a Master’s in Jazz Voice from Manhattan School of Music.

May

Fri

“Waves: Movements that Move Us” @ Hermitage Beach

Tickets

May 10 @ 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm

“Waves: Movements that Move Us”
with Hermitage Fellows Rebecca Crenshaw and Bess Wohl

Friday, May 10 at 6:30pm

Hermitage Beach (entrance at 6660 Manasota Key Road, Englewood, FL 34223)

Register here.
Registration is required. $5 per person.

Beach-loving Sarasotans are no strangers to the sand and sun, but that familiar environment can be transformed by the creativity of artists like Rebecca Crenshaw and Bess Wohl. A violinist whose practice is shaped by the sound waves she creates with bands like Grammy Award-winners Arcade Fire and Mumford & Sons as well as her community-oriented yoga practice, Rebecca Crenshaw is a New Orleans-based artist and educator. Hermitage audiences will remember Tony Award-nominated playwright Bess Wohl from her sharing of Camp Siegfried on the beach before its successful Off-Broadway run; her Broadway and Off-Broadway plays like Grand Horizons and Small Mouth Sounds are praised by audiences and critics alike for their poignant humor, smart characterizations, and inventive theatricality. Join these two innovative Hermitage Fellows on the Hermitage Beach as the sun sets into the Gulf of Mexico.

A New Orleans-based teaching artist and violinist/violist, Hermitage Fellow Rebecca Crenshaw combines knowledge, connection, expression, and balance in her work, whether teaching, performing on a concert stage, developing arts-integrated curricula, or leading a yoga class. Her passions and talent for building community, promoting playful expression, and healing the mind and body continue to afford her professional opportunities that benefit the local and global music communities while fostering self-awareness, enrichment, and creativity. In addition to active collaborations with New Orleans artists and musicians, Crenshaw has performed and recorded with artists such as Arcade Fire, Mumford & Sons, Hurray for the Riff Raff, Samantha Fish, Judith Owen, Ronnie Spector, and more. She has 15 years of teaching experience and, in 2021, earned an Executive Graduate Degree from the Global Leaders Program’s 360° Executive Education Program for Arts Innovators. She is registered with the Yoga Alliance as an RYT 500 instructor and has been teaching yoga since 2015.

Hermitage Fellow Bess Wohl’s plays include Camp Siegfried (developed in part at the Hermitage), Grand Horizons (Tony Nominations for Best Play; Outer Critics Circle Honor, Drama League Award nom.), Make Believe (NYTimes Critics’ Pick, Best of 2019, Outer Critics Circle Honor), Continuity, Small Mouth Sounds (John Gassner Outer Critics Circle Award, top ten lists in The New York Times, The New York Post, The Guardian and others), American Hero, Barcelona, Touched, In, Cats Talk Back, and the musical Pretty Filthy, with composer/lyricist Michael Friedman and The Civilians (Lucille Lortel and Drama Desk nominations for Outstanding Musical). Her plays have been produced or developed at theaters in New York and around the country, including Second Stage, Manhattan Theater Club, Ars Nova, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Goodman Theater, Geffen Playhouse, People’s Light, The Contemporary American Theater Festival, Vineyard Arts Project, Pioneer Theatre, Pittsburgh Public Theater, Northlight Theater, TheaterWorks New Works Festival, Ojai Playwright’s Conference, Cape Cod Theatre Project, PlayPenn, and the New York International Fringe Festival (Award for Best Overall Production). In 2015, Bess won the Sam Norkin special Drama Desk Award for “establishing herself as an important voice in New York theater, and having a breakthrough year.” Other awards and honors include the Athena Award for her screenplay, Virginia, a MacDowell Fellowship, and inclusion on Hollywood’s “Black List” of Best Screenplays. She is an associate artist with The Civilians, an alumna of Ars Nova’s Play Group, and the recipient of new play commissions from Manhattan Theatre Club, Hartford Stage, and Lincoln Center. She also writes screenplays and has developed multiple original television projects for HBO, ABC, USA, FOX, Disney, Paramount, and others. She is a graduate of Harvard and the Yale School of Drama.

May

Wed

“Seeing Oneself and Celebrating Identity” @ Asolo Repertory Theater's Koski Center

Tickets

May 15 @ 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm

“Seeing Oneself and Celebrating Identity”
with Hermitage Fellow Shayok Misha Chowdhury

Presented in partnership with ALSO Youth and Asolo Repertory Theatre

Wednesday, May 15 at 6:30pm

Asolo Repertory Theater’s Koski Center (entrance at 1009 Tallevast Rd, Sarasota, FL 34243)

Register here.
Registration is required. $5 per person.

Not only are the arts for people of all backgrounds and identities, but they have the power to shape us, and the world in which we live. Obie Award-winning Hermitage Fellow, playwright, director, and poet Shayok Misha Chowdhury’s work crosses continents, encompassing different languages, peoples, cultures, identities, and beliefs. Fresh from his critically acclaimed play at Soho Rep and Theater for a New Audience (NY Times Critic’s Pick), this Relentless Award Winner shares work and talks process in a candid and empowering program.

Hermitage Fellow Shayok Misha Chowdhury is an award-winning writer and director based in Brooklyn. A Mark O’Donnell Prize and Princess Grace Award recipient, Misha was an inaugural Project Number One Artist at Soho Rep, where his new play Public Obscenities recently premiered, co-commissioned by NAATCO. The production, which Misha also directed, was a NY Times Critic’s Pick and transferred subsequently to Theater for a New Audience. Misha was also awarded a Jonathan Larson Grant for his body of work writing musicals with composer Laura Grill Jaye; their most recent collaboration, How the White Girl Got Her Spots and Other 90s Trivia, was awarded the 2022 Relentless Award. As a Resident Artist @ HERE Arts Center, Misha is developing Rheology, a concert-memoir-physics-symposium, for which he was awarded an inaugural Sundance Asian American Fellowship. Other collaborations: SPEECH (Philly Fringe) with Lightning Rod Special; Brother, Brother (New York Theatre Workshop) with Aleshea Harris; MukhAgni (Under the Radar @ The Public Theater) with Kameron Neal; Your Healing Is Killing Me (PlayMakers Rep) with Virginia Grise. Misha was also a soloist and collaborator on the Grammy-winning album Calling All Dawns. Misha is the creator of VICHITRA, a series of sound-driven, cinematic experiments, including Englandbashi (Ann Arbor Film Festival); The Other Other (Ars Nova); An Anthology of Queer Dreams (Audio Unbound Award finalist); and In Order to Become (The Bushwick Starr), which he is developing into a live Carnatic opera. Residencies: Hermitage Artist Retreat, Rhinebeck Writers Retreat, Ucross, SPACE on Ryder Farm, Mercury Store. He has taught and directed at Stanford, Brown, NYU, CalArts, Fordham, Syracuse, UArts, Hunter College, CMU, and Williams.

May

Fri

“A Piano Performance: Sonata in Memoriam Lloyd Arriola” @ Oak Street Stage

Tickets

May 24 @ 5:30 pm – 6:30 pm

“A Piano Performance: Sonata in Memoriam Lloyd Arriola”
with Hermitage Fellow Robert Pound

Presented in partnership with Oak Street Stage

Friday, May 24 at 5:30pm

Oak Street Stage (entrance at 2050 Oak Street, Sarasota, FL 34237)

Register here.
Registration is required. $5 per person.

A chance encounter at the Metropolitan Opera in 2015 with Lloyd Arriola, a Juilliard-trained pianist, sparked a conversation for a commission to be composed by Hermitage Fellow Robert Pound. Something ambitious, evocative, and undeniably powerful was needed to satisfy Arriola’s thirst to extend the canon and Arriola couldn’t wait to perform it. When Arriola suddenly passed away in 2016 at the age of 43, this solo piano composition took on an entirely new dimension, which Pound used his residency at the Hermitage to create. Hear insights from the composer and the sweeping, complex result performed by a close friend and fellow Julliard-trained pianist, Charles Hulin IV, interpreted as only someone with such insight into the source material can.

Hermitage Fellow and composer Robert Pound’s numerous works have been featured by the Atlanta Symphony (Irrational Exuberance, 2005; Heartenings, 2011) and the Columbus Symphony which commissioned a luminous jewel lone (2002) jointly with the River Center for the Performing Arts. The St. Louis Symphony Youth Orchestra commissioned Pound’s Fêtes and Fireworks in celebration of its 35^th anniversary (2005). His recording of The Orbit of the Soul, settings of texts by Oscar Wilde, was released in October 2018 and hailed by Fanfare as “a positively revelatory release.” Albany Records released Pound’s album of song cycles, Relics of Memory, in 2020, earning acclaim from Opera News. His music may also be heard on recordings by trumpeter Jack Sutte (The Cleveland Orchestra), Fanfare Alone (2014) and Beyond the Moon (2011). Pound has received commissions from such distinguished ensembles as the Corigliano Quartet, the Amernet Quartet, the Timaeus Ensemble, Alarm Will Sound, and the Florestan Recital Project. His works have also been featured by the Verge Ensemble, the New Juilliard Ensemble, and at Fondation Bemberg. In 2011, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra commissioned Pound to compose a fanfare for the 10^th anniversary of Robert Spano as Music Director and Donald Runnicles as Principal Guest Conductor. He has composed numerous works for the theater including What Passes for Comedy (Chain Theatre, NYC), The Dance of Death (Jean Cocteau Repertory Theatre, NYC), and Oedipus at Colonus (Handcart Ensemble, NYC). His music has also been adapted for film by director Rick Hamilton. In March 2002, Pound was Composer-in-Residence at Columbus State University. In 2020, Pound was a Fellow at the Hermitage Artist Retreat. He holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of North Texas and Masters and Doctoral degrees from the Juilliard School, where he was a composition student of Stephen Albert and Milton Babbitt. Also, an active conductor, Pound has appeared as guest conductor with the Atlanta Symphony, as conductor of the Verge Ensemble at the June-in-Buffalo Festival, as a Fellow at the Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music, as Music Director of the West Shore Symphony Orchestra, and as Director of the orchestra at Dickinson College, where he is Professor of Music.

A Juilliard-trained pianist, Charles Hulin IV was a prize winner in the Hilton Head International Piano Competition and a recipient of special recognition for collaborative work in the Liszt-Garrison International Piano Competition. Hulin studied with Yoheved Kaplinsky at Juilliard and Ellen Mack at Peabody while participating in the masterclasses of Leon Fleisher. Before moving to Florida, he performed extensively in the mid-Atlantic states, frequently appearing with members of the U.S. Naval Academy Band and as a soloist for performances of the Richmond Ballet. He has participated in a wide range of festivals including University of Richmond’s Third Practice Festival of Electro-Acoustic Music, the University of Oklahoma Clarinet Symposium, and the annual conference of the Hymn Society in the United States and Canada. The recording of his own hymn-inspired concert works, Be Thou My Vision, is available online. Currently, Dr. Hulin directs the study of piano and music theory at Southeastern University and coordinates the Lasker Summer Music Festival.

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