Articles

Artists Blossom at the Hermitage on Manasota Key
Sarasota Scene Magazine, September 2021

Velvet Bulldozer: As Visionary Arts Advocate Patricia Caswell Retires, She Leaves Behind Monuments to the Creative Process
SRQ Magazine, September 2021

Sarasota Arts Champion Patricia Caswell Retires from Hermitage Artist Retreat
Sarasota Herald-Tribune, May 19, 2021

The Hermitage Artist Retreat Continues to Blossom
Venice Gondolier, January 20, 2021

Artists Returning to Hermitage Retreat in Englewood
Sarasota Herald-Tribune, July 3, 2020

Hermitage Artist Retreat Receives $100,000 Matching Gift
Sarasota Herald-Tribune, April 12, 2020

Adventure Chef Sophie Hollingsworth Brings Her Urban Fire Feast to the Hermitage Artist Retreat
Sarasota Magazine, April 7, 2020

Act Two: The Hermitage Artist Retreat Finds Tony Award-winning Leadership in Theater Maven Andy Sandberg
SRQ Magazine, April 2020

Painter Jennifer Packer Wins Greenfield Prize
Sarasota Herald-Tribune, February 16, 2020

Hermitage Artist Retreat’s Andy Sandberg Putting Best Foot Forward
Observer, February 12, 2020

An Artist Retreat with Old Florida Charm Offers an Escape-to-create
WEDU Arts Plus, February 6, 2020

Hermitage Artist Retreat is Crafting a Place for Artists to Create
Sarasota Herald-Tribune, January 25, 2020

Interview with Andy Sandberg
The Native Influence, January 20, 2020

New York Writer, Producer and Director Named New Leader of Hermitage Artist Retreat
Sarasota Herald-Tribune, December 3, 2019

Doing Time at the Hermitage
SRQ Magazine, October 2019

Artists Use Inspiration from Abolitionists in Their Music and Poetry
Observer, October 1, 2019

Who Are You Calling Old? Age Is but a Number for These Senior Athletes
ESPN The Magazine, May 16, 2019

Songwriter Adam Gwon Samples New Work in Hermitage Program
Sarasota Herald-Tribune, May 12, 2019

Photojournalist David Burnett’s Ringling Museum Exhibit Turns the Lens on Senior Athletes
Sarasota Magazine, April 4, 2019

Hermitage Artist Retreat Director to retire in December after 15 Years
Sarasota Herald-Tribune, March 26, 2019

Singer, Composer, Actress Helga Davis Wins 2019 Greenfield Prize
Sarasota Herald-Tribune, February 3, 2019

“Love Story” Star Ali MacGraw Talks about Her Career and Friendship with Ryan O’Neal before Sarasota Visit
Sarasota Herald-Tribune, January 18, 2019

Free Tours of Hermitage Artist Retreat Set for Sept. 7, 14 and 21
Sarasota Magazine, August 23, 2018

Hermitage Presents Two Music Programs in August
Florida Weekly, August 2, 2018

Arts Teachers Become STARs in Hermitage Retreat Program
Sarasota Herald-Tribune, July 18, 2018

Rising Playwright Martyna Majok Named Greenfield Prize Winner
Sarasota Herald-Tribune, January 26, 2018

Pulitzer Winner Donald Margulies Works on New Plays at Hermitage Artist Retreat
Sarasota Herald-Tribune, January 26, 2018

Visionary Artist Bill T. Jones Seeks to Expand His Reach
Sarasota Herald-Tribune, January 11, 2018

Hermitage Artist Retreat Makes Plan for Manasota Key Campus
Sarasota Herald-Tribune, November 26, 2017

Actor Denis O’Hare Collaborates on New Play at Hermitage Artist Retreat
Sarasota Herald-Tribune, October 12, 2017

Inside the Making of Composer Alan Fletcher’s New Piano Concerto for Inon Barnatan, Premiering Sunday in Aspen
Aspen Times, July 27, 2017

Hermitage Artist Retreat Hosts Florida Teachers
Sarasota Herald-Tribune, July 23, 2017

Film Festival Partners with Hermitage for Screenwriter Residencies
Sarasota Herald-Tribune, April 7, 2017

Greenfield Prize Honors Photographer with New Commission
Sarasota Herald-Tribune, February 24, 2017

The Hermitage Finds Its Muse
Sarasota Herald-Tribune, January 19, 2017

The Hermitage to Add Land to Artist Retreat
Sarasota Herald-Tribune, January 2, 2014

The Hermitage property is owned by Sarasota County and is leased to the Hermitage Artist Retreat, Inc.
The property is maintained by the Hermitage Artist Retreat, Inc. and the Sarasota County Department of Parks and Recreation.

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Dec

Thu

“The People and Places that Make Us” @ Johann Fust Community Library

Tickets

Dec 14 @ 4:00 pm – 5:00 pm

“The People and Places that Make Us”
with Hermitage Fellow Cleyvis Natera

Presented in partnership with The Johann Fust Library Foundation

Thursday, December 14 at 4pm

Johann Fust Community Library (entrance at 1040 10th St. W., Boca Grande, FL 33921)

Register here.
Registration is required.

Hermitage Fellow Cleyvis Natera’s “earnest and provocative” debut novel Neruda on the Park is “refreshingly direct and declarative” (The New York Times). Based in a Dominican community in New York City on the brink of the seemingly inevitable gentrification process, Natera’s novel charts the varied reactions to this new reality: some are willing to accept it, some may even benefit, but others are planning to risk everything to fight to keep their home. Offering no easy answers, the story ultimately asks: who are the people and where are the places that make us who we are? Hear the author read and discuss her work and gain insight into what’s up next for this much praised writer.

Hermitage Fellow Cleyvis Natera is an essayist, short fiction writer, critic and novelist. Her debut novel Neruda on the Park was named an “Anticipated Book of 2022” by TIME, the Today Show, Good Morning America’s Zibby Owens, ELLE, Ms Magazine, Bustle, Goodreads, Book Riot, Entertainment Weekly, The Millions, Electric Literature, Lit Hub, and The Rumpus. Upon publication, Neruda on the Park was selected as a May 2022 New York Times Editor’s Choice and as the June 2022 pick for Nobel Laurate Malala Yousafzai’s Fearless Literati Book Club. Natera was born in the Dominican Republic and raised in New York City. In addition to receiving a Hermitage Fellowship, she has received honors from PEN America, Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and Voices of Our Nation Arts Foundation (VONA). She holds a Bachelor of Arts from Skidmore College and a Master of Fine Arts from New York University. Cleyvis worked a corporate job in insurance for two decades ascending to the executive level before pivoting her career to become a full-time writer. She lives with her husband and two young children in Montclair, New Jersey.

Jan

Fri

“Merman’s Apprentice: Musical Theater’s Golden Age” @ Hermitage Beach

Tickets

Jan 12 @ 5:00 pm – 6:00 pm

“Merman’s Apprentice: Musical Theater’s Golden Age”
with Hermitage Fellows Stephen Cole and David Evans

Friday, January 12 at 5pm

Presented in partnership with Venice Theatre

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

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

It’s 1970 and the “Golden Age” of musical theater is drawing to an end… but twelve-year-old Muriel Plakenstein doesn’t know that! So she runs away from home to become a theater star and meets the Queen of Broadway, Ethel Merman. What ensues is a musical fable created by Hermitage alumni Stephen Cole and David Evans that recreates that magic nostalgia of the brightest stages in the country. Join this collaborative team on the Hermitage beach to hear selections of this original work and to learn more about what inspired the musical’s journey.

Book writer, lyricist, and Hermitage alumnus Stephen Cole is an award-winning musical theater writer whose shows have been recorded, published, and produced from New York City to London to the Middle East and Edinburgh, Scotland. Cole’s creations include After the Fair, The Night of The Hunter (Goodman), Saturday Night at Grossinger’s, Casper (with Chita Rivera), Dodsworth (with Dee Hoty and Hal Linden) and The Road to Qatar. In 2014, Cole wrote and directed Inventing Mary Martin, which played Off-Broadway. Other produced shows include two family musicals commissioned by Walden Media: Merlin’s Apprentice (Music by Matthew Ward) and Rock Odyssey (Music and Lyrics by Billy Straus). Rock Odyssey has been annually produced the last ten years. Cole is also a published author with four books to his credit including That Book about that Girl and I Could Have Sung All Night, the autobiography of the late Marni Nixon, and Noel Coward and Charles Strouse’s memoir Put on a Happy Face. In addition, Cole has written special material for Marlo Thomas, Phil Donahue, Liz Smith, Liza Minnelli, Michelle Lee, and Bernadette Peters, to name a few. He is honored to be the winner of the prestigious Edward Kleban Award for his musical The Night of the Hunter, written with the late composer Claibe Richardson. StephenColeWriter.org

Hermitage alumnus David Evans received a Drama Desk Nomination for his score for Birds of Paradise (written with Winnie Holzman, directed by Arthur Laurents), which ran Off-Broadway in 1987 and has since had many regional productions. His Drama Desk nominated musical Children’s Letters to God (written with Doug Cohen and Stuart Hample), completed an Off-Broadway run at the Lamb’s Theater, and has had subsequent productions around the world. Bye, Bye Big Guy (written with Faye Greenberg and Michael Slade) was part of The New York International Fringe Festival. Another show, Love Comics (with Sarah Schlesinger) has had several regional productions since its premiere at the George Street Playhouse. He has presented a star-studded concert of his music at Lincoln Center, featuring Barbara Walsh, J.K. Simmons, Marybeth Peil, Jose Llana, and others. He has written songs for many Off-Broadway revues, including A… My Name is Alice, and for television shows, including Sesame Street and Square One TV; also scores for animated films, two shows for TADA, and nine shows for TheatreworksUSA. Current projects: Super Sunday (with Sarah Schlesinger), Bed (with Faye Greenberg), Merman’s Apprentice (with fellow Hermitage alumnus Stephen Cole). A prominent musical director and conductor, Evans is currently Associate Conductor of Wicked on Broadway. His conducting credits include revivals of Flower Drum Song and Bells are Ringing on Broadway, Marie Christine and Hello Again at Lincoln Center, and Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh, Sills and Company, and As Thousands Cheer Off-Broadway. He has conducted at major regional theaters around the country, with many shows at the Goodspeed Opera House and Sacramento Musical Theater. He is the Artistic Director of ASCAP’s Marvin Hamlisch Broadway Conductor’s Program and Co-Artistic Director of Broadway Triple Threat, a musical theater summer program.

Jan

Thu

“Voice, Vision, and Verbs” @ Hermitage Beach

Tickets

Jan 18 @ 5:00 pm – 6:00 pm

“Voice, Vision, and Verbs”
with Hermitage Fellows Joan La Barbara, Laura Kaminsky and Jacquelyn Reingold

Thursday, January 18 at 5pm

Hermitage beach (entrance at 6660 Manasota Key Road. Englewood, FL )

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

In a trifecta of innovative musical and theatrical creation, three gifted Hermitage Fellows share how their voice and vision inform their artistic practice across disciplines. Jacquelyn Reingold is a writer for stage and screen whose works include String Fever (Ensemble Studio Theater, NY), “Smash,” “Grace & Frankie,” and “The Good Fight.” Composer and performer Joan La Barbara’s ground-breaking vocal stylings have been heard across the country and around for over four decades. Laura Kaminsky is one of the most-produced composer-librettists in contemporary opera whose work dives into the pressing matters of our time. Together, they represent a profound collective knowledge of the human experience and the multitude of ways it can be expressed in art. Hear some of these insights as well as selections of work spanning medium and style.

Composer/performer and Hermitage Fellow Joan La Barbara is renowned for her unique vocabulary of experimental and extended vocal techniques (her “signature sounds”: multiphonics, circular singing, ululation, glottal clicks), influencing generations of composers and singers. Awards and prizes: Foundation for Contemporary Arts’ John Cage Award (2016); DAAD-Berlin Artist-in-Residency; Civitella Ranieri, Guggenheim and 7 NEA Fellowships; numerous commissions for chamber ensembles, theater, orchestra, chorus, interactive technology, soundscores for dance, video and film, including an electronic/vocal score for Sesame Street. Her multi-layered textural compositions premiered at Festival d’Automne à Paris, Brisbane Biennial, Lincoln Center, MaerzMusik Berlin, Warsaw Autumn, and many other international venues. Exploring ways of immersing the audience in her music, La Barbara placed the American Composers Orchestra around and among the audience in Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall, building her sonic painting “in solitude this fear is lived”, inspired by Agnes Martin’s minimalist art. Her music from “Erin” features prominently in the score co-composed with Jóhann Jóhannsson for the feature film “Arrival” (2016). “Eyes of an Eagle; Ears of a Hawk: In the Vortex” for voice, chamber ensemble and fixed media, commissioned by The New York Philharmonic Project 19, premiered in The Appell Room, Jazz @ Lincoln Center, NYC, February 10, 2020. Artist faculty member of NYU and College of Performing Arts/Mannes/The New School. www.joanlabarbara.com

Possessing “an ear for the new and interesting” (The New York Times), Hermitage Alum and Trustee Emeritus Laura Kaminsky frequently addresses critical social and political issues in her work with a distinct musical language that is “full of fire as well as ice, contrasting dissonance and violence with tonal beauty and meditative reflection. It is strong stuff.” (American Record Guide). Her first opera, As One, (2014; co-librettists Mark Campbell and Kimberly Reed) is among the most produced contemporary operas since its 2014 premiere with 50+ productions to date in the U.S., Europe, Canada, South America and Australia. The As One team has since been commissioned twice—by Houston Grand Opera for Some Light Emerges (2017) and Opera Parallèle/American Opera Projects for Today It Rains (2019). Hometown to the World (libretto: Reed; Santa Fe Opera) premiered in 2021, Finding Wright in 2022 (libretto: Andrea Fellows Fineberg; Dayton Opera). She is co-librettist (with novelist Lisa Moore) and composer for February, commissioned by Newfoundland’s Opera on the Avalon for 2023. Awarded the 2016 Polish Gold Cross of Merit (Zloty Krzyż Zasługi RP) by the President of Poland for exemplary public service or humanitarian work, Kaminsky has been recognized by the National Endowment for the Arts, Koussevitzky Music Foundation, Opera America, Chamber Music America, USArtists International, CEC ArtsLink International Partnerships, Likhachev-Russkiy Mir Foundation Cultural Fellowship, and has received six ASCAP-Chamber Music America Awards for Adventuresome Programming. Head of composition at Purchase College Conservatory of Music, and a composer mentor for the Juilliard School Blueprint Fellowship program, she leads The American Opera Project’s Artistic Advisory Council and sits on the boards of Opera America and the Hermitage Artist Retreat. Her music is recorded on the Affeto, Albany, Bridge, BSS, Cedille, CRI, Capstone, Mode, MSR, and Navona labels and is published by Bill Holab Music. Kaminsky is a BMI composer.

Hermitage Fellow Jacquelyn Reingold writes for theater and television. Her plays, which include Kiss Me Somewhere Else, String Fever (starring Cynthia Nixon and Evan Handler), Acapulco, I Know, A Story About a Girl, Girl Gone, A Very Very Short Play, 2B (Or Not 2B), and Freeze Tag, have been seen in New York at Ensemble Studio Theatre, Naked Angels, The Working Theater, MCC Theatre; at the Actors Theatre of Louisville; Portland Center Stage, Oregon; Theater J, Washington DC; PlayLabs, Minneapolis; and in London, Dublin, Berlin, Hong Kong. Honors and awards include: Kennedy Center‘s Fund for New American Plays, New York Foundation for the Arts, EST/Sloan Foundation Commissions, New Dramatists’ Whitfield Cook Award, finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, the Oscar Reubhausen Commission, plus MacDowell, Ucross, and Hermitage Artist Retreat Fellowships. Her work has been published in two Women Playwrights: The Best Plays, several Best American Short Plays, and by Samuel French, Vintage Books, and Smith & Kraus. She wrote the Forward to Applause Books’ 10 Minute Plays by Women+ over 40 and 100 Monologues by Women+ over 40. A collection of her one-acts Things Between Us is published by DPS. Four of her short plays have been recorded for radio/podcast by Playing On Air. In television, Jackie was a Writer/Executive Producer for Paramount+’s critically acclaimed The Good Fight. Other TV writing includes Best of Both Worlds, a pilot for John Wells, East New York, BrainDead, Grace and Frankie, Smash, and all the Mia episodes for Emmy nominated Gabriel Byrne and Hope Davis for HBO’s In Treatment. A member of Ensemble Studio Theater, an alum of New Dramatists, Jackie is also a founding member of Honor Roll! an advocacy group for women+ playwrights over 40, whose goal is inclusion in theater. She has taught dramatic writing at NYU, SUNY Stonybrook-Manhattan, Columbia University, and has been a guest TV or Playwriting teacher, often. She is currently a mentor with Laura Cahill’s Playwriting Workshop for Ukrainian teens, writing about the war.

Jan

Fri

“Songs from the Sand: A Hermitage Cabaret” @ Longboat Key Town Center

Tickets

Jan 19 @ 5:00 pm – 6:00 pm

“Songs from the Sand: A Hermitage Cabaret”
Featuring Original Works from Hermitage Fellows Performed by the Greatest Talents in Sarasota

Presented in partnership with the Town of Longboat Key

Friday, January 19 at 5pm

Longboat Key Town Center (entrance at 501 Bay Isles Road, Longboat Key, FL 34228)

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

From Jeanine Tesori, Adam Gwon, Michael R. Jackson, and Gavin Creel to Kit Yan, Zoe Sarnak, Rona Siddiqui, and more, the Hermitage has provided space and time to some of the most exciting musical theater writers working today. Hear selections from some of these composers and lyricists, performed by Sarasota’s finest talents at one of the area’s newest and most beautiful outdoor stages, Town Center at Longboat Key. In addition to the works themselves, hear little known stories about the creation of some of New York theater’s recent success stories and insights into the creative process.

(Details of the composers and performers to be announced at a later date.)

Jan

Thu

“Hermitage Sunsets @ Selby Gardens: Music on the Wind” @ Marie Selby Botanical Gardens (Downtown Campus)

Tickets

Jan 25 @ 5:00 pm – 6:00 pm

“Hermitage Sunsets @ Selby Gardens: Music on the Wind”
with Hermitage Fellows Emi Ferguson and James M. Stephenson

Presented in partnership with Marie Selby Botanical Gardens

Thursday, January 25 at 5pm

Marie Selby Botanical Gardens (entrance at 1534 Mound St, Sarasota, FL 34236)

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

Originally from the Chicago area, Hermitage Fellow James Stephenson earned his stripes over 17 seasons in the Naples Philharmonic to become a celebrated composer whose work has covered multiple genres, age groups, instruments, and oceans. From his award-winning compositions for the Marine Band to residences and world premieres with some of the best orchestras across the country, his music speaks to something universal in us all. Juilliard-trained Flutist Emi Ferguson, who Hermitage audiences may recall from her entrancing performance at this year’s Artful Lobster, redefines what it means to be a contemporary musician: mastering not only her instrument, but its history and impact on the broader artistic landscape. Hear selections from both gifted musician composers and gain direct insight into the composition process from the artists themselves at Selby Gardens’ downtown Sarasota campus.

Hermitage Fellow and acclaimed Chicago-based composer James M. Stephenson has had his work presented by leading American orchestras, instrumentalists, and wind ensembles around the world. The Boston Herald raved about “straightforward, unabashedly beautiful sounds,” adding that “Stephenson deserves to be heard again and again!” A formal sense of melody and tonality characterize his music, embedded in a contemporary soundscape. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra premiered Jim’s “astonishingly inventive” (Musical America) bass trombone concerto in June, 2019, with Charles Vernon as soloist. Also in 2019, Jim’s Symphony #3 – VISIONS premiered at the University of Miami, and was subsequently recorded by the Lake Forest Symphony. Stephenson has been commissioned by the San Francisco Ballet for a new 30-minute piece which premiered in 2021, and he was named “Musical Collaborator” with the Grand Rapids Symphony for the 20-21 season, which includes the creation of a special concert with violinist Joshua Bell and soprano Larissa Martinez. Upcoming commissions include the Portland Youth Philharmonic, Cincinnati Pops, and Buffalo Philharmonic. Jim originally hails from the Greater Chicago area, as does his wife Sally. In 2007 the couple, along with their four children, returned to the region to pursue the life they now share.

Hailed by critics for her “tonal bloom” and “hauntingly beautiful performances,” English-American performer and composer Emi Ferguson stretches the boundaries of what is expected of modern-day musicians. Emi’s unique approach to the flute can be heard in performances that alternate between the Silver Flute, Historical Flutes, and Auxiliary Flutes, playing repertoire that stretches from the Renaissance to today. Emi is very proud to be named a 2023 Avery Fisher Career Grant Awardee and can be heard live in concerts and festivals around the world as a soloist and with groups including AMOC, the New York New Music Ensemble, the Handel and Haydn Society, and the Manhattan Chamber Players. She has spoken and performed at several TEDX events and has been featured on media outlets including The Discovery Channel, Vox’s Explained series on Netflix, Amazon’s The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and Julliard Digital’s TouchPress apps talking about how music relates to our world today. Her debut album, Amour Cruel, and indie-pop song cycle inspired by the music of the 17th-century French court was released by Arezzo Music in September 2017, spending four weeks on the Classical, Classical Crossover, and World Music Billboard Charts. Her 2019 album Fly the Coop: Bach debuted at #1 on the iTunes classical charts and #2 on the Billboard classical charts and was called “blindingly impressive… a fizzing, daring display of personality and imagination” by The New York Times. In addition to her solo recordings, Emi has also been featured on recordings for New Focus Records, Old Focus Records, Canteloupe Music, National Sawdust Tracks, Brontosaurus Records, Coro, and MSR Classics. Emi was a 2022 member of WQXR’s Artist Propulsion Lab where she developed the podcast series “This Composer Is Sick” with Max Fine, exploring the impact of Syphilis on composers Franz Schubert, Bedrich episodes of WQXR’s Young Artists Showcase where she featured musicians awarded the Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans, grantees of the Salon de Virtuosi Career Grant, artists pioneering music by contemporary composers, and young musicians reinvigorating music of the past for today. Emi was a featured performer alongside Yo-Yo Ma, Paul Simon, and James Taylor at the 10^th Anniversary Memorial Ceremony of 9/11 at Ground Zero, where her performance of Amazing Grace was televised worldwide. Her performance that day is now part of the permanent collection at the 911 Museum. A passionate chamber musician of works new and old, Emi has been a featured performer at Marlboro, Lucerne, Ojai, Lake Champlain, Bach Virtuosi, and June in Buffalo festivals and has premiered works by many of today’s leading composers, working most recently with composers Michael Hersch, Roscoe Mitchell, Emily Koh, Gabriela Ortiz, and Georgina Derbez. Emi can often be found dreaming up programs that collide various musical disciplines, composers, and that feature her as a flute player, singer, arranger, and composer. Upcoming projects include Microcosms, the music of Telemann and Ligeti, with Ruckus, The Enchanted Dawn, with harpist Ashley Jackson, and Pastures of Plenty, a program developed for Frankly Music that features music of Franz Schubert, Woody Guthrie, Harry T. Burleigh, and Thomas A. Dorsey. A historical Flutist, in addition to her appointment as Principal Flute of the Handel and Haydn Society, Emi is a frequent guest soloist with period ensembles including Tafelmusik, Voices of Music, the American Classical Orchestra, and Trinity Baroque Orchestra. She was the only flutist accepted to Juilliard’s inaugural Historical Performance Class and was the first person to graduate from Juilliard with Undergraduate and Graduate degrees with Scholastic Distinction (awarded for her simultaneous studies in Epidemiology) in flute performance, as well as a second Graduate degree in Historical performance as a Paul and Daisy Soros Fellow. Emi is currently on the faculty of the Juilliard School, the Bach Virtuosi Festival, and has taught on the faculty of the University of Buffalo. Born in Japan and raised in London and Boston, she now resides in New York City.

Feb

Fri

“Hermitage Sunsets @ NBP: Musical Moods” @ Nathan Benderson Park

Tickets

Feb 2 @ 5:00 pm – 6:00 pm

“Hermitage Sunsets @ NBP: Musical Moods”
with Hermitage Fellows Amie ElSaffar and Chris Ryan Williams

Presented in partnership with Nathan Benderson Park Conservancy

Friday, February 2 at 5pm

Nathan Benderson Park Finish Tower (entrance at 5851 Nathan Benderson Cir, Sarasota, FL 34235)

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

Growing up in Chicago in a home where Arabic, Spanish, and English were all commonly heard as the Beatles played on the turntable, jazz trumpeter and multi-instrumentalist Amir ElSaffar has always been interested in the most expansive range of music possible. Exploring the complex forces shaping the simultaneous realities of trauma and power in all Black Americans, Chris Ryan Williams’ multidisciplinary works have been seen across the United States and Europe. Both composers have a love for collaboration, improvisation, and experimentation and a deep interest in how music builds community. These two celebrated composers and performers will be sharing the ‘stage’ at Nathan Benderson Park. Join the Hermitage for an incredible evening of music and conversation with these internationally renowned talents.

Returning Hermitage Fellow, composer, trumpeter, santur player, and vocalist Amir ElSaffar is an important voice in an age of cross-cultural music making. He has been described as “one of the most promising figures in jazz today” (Chicago Tribune). A recipient of the Doris Duke Performing Artist Award and a 2018 US Artist Fellow, ElSaffar is an expert trumpeter with a classical background, conversant not only in the language of contemporary jazz, but has created techniques to play microtones and ornaments idiomatic to Arabic music but not typically heard on the trumpet. Additionally, he is a purveyor of the centuries old, now endangered, Iraqi maqam tradition, which he performs actively as a vocalist and santur player. As a composer, ElSaffar has received commissions from the MAP Fund, Arab Fund for Arts and Culture (AFAC), Newport Jazz Festival, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Chamber Music America, Jazz Institute of Chicago, and was composer-in-residence at the Royaumont Foundation in France. Described as “an imaginative bandleader, expanding the vocabulary of the trumpet and at the same time the modern jazz ensemble” (All About Jazz).

Hermitage Fellow Chris Ryan Williams is an interdisciplinary artist, musician, and educator based in Brooklyn and is most at home collaborating with contemporary improvisers and experimentalists. He has toured extensively throughout the U.S. and Europe. His work explores the dyad of ancestral trauma and power existing in all Black Americans. Williams has been commissioned by WasteLAnd and International Contemporary Ensemble and has been in residence or with BANFF Centre for the Arts, Foundation of Contemporary Arts, Atlantic Center for the Arts, Musik Installationen Nürnberg and others. He has collaborated with creators including Hermitage Fellows Fay Victor and Luke Stewart, as well as Eyvind Kang, Joanna Mattrey, Miriam Parker, Patrick Shiroishi, Bennie Maupin, Nicole Mitchell, Wendy Eisenberg, Pink Siifu, and Marjani Forte-Saunders.

Feb

Mon

“Music Mondays: Hermitage Alum Doug Wright Writes Broadway” @ Church of the Palms

Tickets

Feb 19 @ 10:30 am – 11:30 am

Please note this program is not part of the Hermitage’s traditional free programming. This event is hosted by the Sarasota Institute of Lifetime Learning as part of the “Music Mondays” series.

“Music Mondays: Hermitage Alum Doug Wright Writes Broadway”

Presented in partnership with Sarasota Institute of Lifetime Learning

Monday, February 19 at 10:30am and 3:00pm

Church of the Palms (entrance at 3224 Bee Ridge Rd, Sarasota, FL 34239)
Venice Presbyterian Church (entrance at 825 The Rialto, Venice, FL 34285)

$15 single tickets are available at the door for this special event with Doug Wright: 10:30am at Church of the Palms (Sarasota) and 3pm at Venice Presbyterian Church (Venice).

One of the most lauded theater creators of our time returns to Sarasota to share insight into the creation process with iconic numbers from his acclaimed Broadway musicals, performed by some of the best talent in Sarasota. Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning Hermitage Fellow Doug Wright’s works on Broadway include I Am My Own Wife, Grey Gardens, Disney’s The Little Mermaid, Hands on a Hardbody, War Paint, and the recent smash comedy success Goodnight, Oscar. Alongside stellar performances, Wright will offer his perspective on the vital role of a musical librettist, diving into the uniquely collaborative process of bringing a musical to life and the nuances of the various musical styles he has used throughout his celebrated career.

Hermitage Fellow and Trustee Doug Wright is a Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning playwright. He is a proud Hermitage alumnus and also served as a juror for the inaugural Hermitage Major Theater Award in 2021. He has remained an engaged and active member of the Hermitage alumni community. Most recently, his play Goodnight, Oscar, starring Sean Hayes opened at the Goodman Theater in Chicago under the direction of fellow Hermitage alum Lisa Peterson before transferring to Broadway. Wright’s play Quills premiered at Washington, D.C.’s Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in 1995 and subsequently had its debut Off-Broadway at New York Theatre Workshop. Quills garnered the 1995 Kesselring Prize for Best New American Play from the National Arts Club and, for Wright, a 1996 Village Voice Obie Award for Outstanding Achievement in Playwriting. In 2000, Wright wrote the screenplay for the film adaptation of Quills, which starred Geoffrey Rush. Wright’s play I Am My Own Wife was produced Off-Broadway by Playwrights Horizons in 2003. It transferred to Broadway where it won the Tony Award for Best Play, as well as the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. In 2006, Wright wrote the book for the stage musical adaptation of Grey Gardens, which opened on Broadway to critical acclaim. He has adapted the Disney film The Little Mermaid as a Broadway musical, which opened in 2007. In 2009, he was commissioned by the La Jolla Playhouse to adapt and direct Creditors by August Strindberg. In another La Jolla commission, he wrote the book for the musical Hands on a Hardbody, with the score by Amanda Green and Trey Anastasio. The musical had a run on Broadway in 2013 after premiering at the La Jolla Playhouse in 2012. He has also written the book for the musical War Paint, with a score by Scott Frankel and Michael Korie, and starring Patti LuPone and Christine Ebersole. For television, Wright worked on four pilots for producer Norman Lear and teleplays for Hallmark Entertainment and HBO. In film, Wright’s credits include screenplays for Fine Line Features, Fox Searchlight, and DreamWorks SKG. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild, where he served as President for many years. In addition to his role a a Hermitage trustee, he also serves on the board of New York Theatre Workshop. He is a recipient of the William L. Bradley Fellowship at Yale University, the Charles MacArthur Fellowship at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, an HBO Fellowship in playwriting, and the Alfred Hodder Fellowship at Princeton University. In 2010, he was named a United States Artists Fellow. Mr. Wright lives in New York City with his partner, songwriter David Clement.

December 2023 – February 2024 Dec 2023 – Feb 2024

Articles

Hermitage Artists Respond to COVID-19.

Engage Creativity