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After 10 Days of Hard Work at the Hermitage, Suddenly, the Play Wrote Itself!

In February 2011, the directors of the theater production company Phantom Limb, Jessica Grindstaff and husband Erik Sanko, came to the Hermitage exhausted after their successful run of 69° South at Brooklyn Academy of Music. Their work has been described as a series of dynamic tableaux vivants, narrative installations in motion that meld theatrical performance, puppetry, photography and film with unconventional original music. 69° South was a collaboration with the Kronos Quartet inspired by Sir Ernest Shackleton’s Antarctic expedition.

Jessica and Freya at the Hermitage

In February 2011, the directors of the theater production company Phantom Limb, Jessica Grindstaff and husband Erik Sanko, came to the Hermitage exhausted after their successful run of 69° South at Brooklyn Academy of Music. Their work has been described as a series of dynamic tableaux vivants, narrative installations in motion that meld theatrical performance, puppetry, photography and film with unconventional original music. 69° South was a collaboration with the Kronos Quartet inspired by Sir Ernest Shackleton’s Antarctic expedition.

Three months later at a sunset dinner on the beach to welcome them back for the second part of their residency, they surprised us with a bottle of champagne and an announcement. We had the privilege to be the first to hear their news (even before they told their own parents). Jessica was three months pregnant. Now they are back again with their daughter Freya, a true daughter of the Hermitage, as part of the Hermitage’s new family residency program.

While here for the third time they are writing the second of a trilogy that started with 69° South. The piece, Memory Rings, uses the oldest living tree in the world as the center of its narrative.

“The trilogy is united by the theme of ecology and the human relationship with nature through poetry and image. We are exploring the psychology of a collective future using history, legacy, and cultural memory,” said Erik.

They returned to the Hermitage following a residence at Harvard with global warming expert Dan Schrag, head of the Harvard Center for the Environment. Dr. Schrag had been impressed by their work because it moves people into the topic in a way they aren’t used to. Their plays touch audiences at an emotional level with a refreshing absence of the usual didactic lecturing.

Erik described audience reactions as unconscious at first. Then the slow burn of realization sets in. He and Jessica see attitudes change when they tour places like the Midwest where people are not yet convinced to take action on global warming. “Art has the ability to help people see the long arc of 40 to 80 years it may take to recover from climate change,” he explained.

They each have beautiful studios in New York City but they say their work benefits from the open mindedness and wide horizons that come with a place like the Hermitage where there are no expectations, no obligations, and the only distractions are the sea and nature (which is what their play is about).

Jessica said “After 10 days of hard work on Memory Rings at the Hermitage, suddenly, the play wrote itself!”

69° South

Learn more about PhantomLimbCompany.com

Thoughts On Writing with Award Winning Irish Playwright Ronan Noone

At the first meal of his residency, playwright Ronan Noone shared a parking lot epiphany. He was enraged by someone in the theater business who was forcing the business side of art to intrude on the making of art. He recalls the very spot in a parking lot where he realized it was more important to be a craft person than to be known. And he chose his craft over the attention associated with being a playwright. He recognized some selfishness is needed to be an artist – that you must sacrifice something, but not craft.

At the first meal of his residency, playwright Ronan Noone shared a parking lot epiphany. He was enraged by someone in the theater business who was forcing the business side of art to intrude on the making of art. He recalls the very spot in a parking lot where he realized it was more important to be a craft person than to be known. And he chose his craft over the attention associated with being a playwright. He recognized some selfishness is needed to be an artist – that you must sacrifice something, but not craft.

At the end of his stay, our conversation again veered to revelations about writing as he shared what he experienced while here at the Hermitage. As an artist he said he feels a constant desperation because he only has a certain amount of time between teaching, family, and development of existing plays. That desperation affects the craft.

“Staying here at the Hermitage is not just in writing, but seeing who you are as an artist. Here your body slows down and you become aware.” In his life he has experienced the times when the art comes out at its own pace, but often desperation intrudes on the making of art. With age, and with being at the Hermitage, comes an understanding that craft is something that comes from somewhere. If you force it, it won’t work.

He came here to finish a play he started three weeks earlier. Real life disrupted his writing, the desperation set in and “the window to the play closed” with two scenes left unwritten. At the Hermitage he faced a problem with the play’s ending and began feeling desperate again. But as he walked the beach, he thought “What’s the rush?” His years of working with the craft had taught him “The answer is always in the scene”. At his walk’s end he returned to his desk in the writer’s cottage where he typed the last scene.

Ten years ago, when he watched Bergman’s Scenes from a Marriage, he knew he would use it someday. The play he wrote at the Hermitage was Scenes from an Adultery, based on the Bergman film. After he wrote the end, he viewed Bergman’s film again for the first time in ten years. “ I watched it again last night” he said with a smile that looked like he had eaten something sinfully delicious.
Referring to his Hermitage experience the smile widened “Just in terms of process, I could live off this for two months.”

Find more at RonanNoone.com, including his thoughts on playwrighting called 36 Points or More

STARs Just Want to Have Fun

Five teachers walked into a bar… Actually these five teachers, the current crop of Hermitage/Florida Alliance for Arts Education STARs, have walked into a bar, a bowling alley, a pizza place, another bar and a spin class.

Left to Right 2013 winners of the State Teacher Artist Residency program; Rocky Bridges, Polk County visual artist, Ramiro Malagon, Broward County composer, Melanie Webb, Duval County writer, Kristen Rodriguez, Broward County writer, and Beverly Williams, Polk County visual artist.

Five teachers walked into a bar… Actually these five teachers, the current crop of Hermitage/Florida Alliance for Arts Education STARs, have walked into a bar, a bowling alley, a pizza place, another bar and a spin class.

Teachers, you see, tend to get up early (out of habit) and work during the day (also out of habit). With their nights freed from grading papers, planning lessons and data entry, and with no family obligations, the STARs are finding themselves in a very unusual situation. They have time on their hands.

It doesn’t hurt that Beverly, Kristen, Melanie, Rocky and Ramiro instantly bonded at their welcome dinner and have eaten together as a group almost every evening and hung out at the Hermitage or elsewhere around town, after that. They’ve brought folding tables to the Gulf to enjoy the dinners they’ve been preparing for each other, converting their “personal” food shelves into one big communal fridge. They’ve salsa danced on the porch, sung karaoke in the Pump House (sorry no video of either) and even bought an outdoor game set complete with a volleyball net and Smashminton. And apparently their students aren’t the only ones who enjoy temporary tattoos, squirt guns and colored chalk from the Dollar Store. “Teachers are fun-loving people,” said Beverly, in that understated teacher’s way.

I got the chance to hang with the STARs at a weekly trivia game, because why stay in on a Monday night when you can go out and play right? When it came to choosing a team name, there was no hesitation because apparently, these STARs have a group “word” and thus we were the STAR Secretions (don’t ask, I didn’t).

I did however ask why four out of five of these teachers came to trivia night with no pen. That was the first question at trivia night they couldn’t answer.

It became apparent early that the STAR of this team was Kristen, when she snatched the game sheet to scribble the answer to an early question. I should say that Kristen is the youngest STAR and her correct answer was The Andrews Sisters.

She also got the name of a character from West Side Story, a Charles Dickens novel and just about every wacky answer in a puzzle of mixed up TV show titles. Kristen is very “enthusiastic” said Melanie, who added that the dance she did after every strike she got on bowling night was “the cutest thing ever.” Oh did I mention that when they went bowling, and that they all chose fake names for the score sheet.

Alas, even after successfully naming all five children on the Cosby Show (way to go Beverly) for the 20-point bonus question, our team came in third and out of the money by just two points. (If we had a history teacher we’d have been home free).

But winning wasn’t the goal of the game. It was obvious the STARs were just looking for one more way to hang out together and have a good time. Teachers, more than anyone, except maybe their students, realize that before you know it summer will be over. When it’s a summer this special, you’ve got to get the most out of every minute, whether it’s writing, creating sculptures or grilling kabobs and dancing on the porch while you watch the sun set.

–Sharyn Lonsdale

You can meet our STARS at 6 p.m. Friday, August 9 when they open their studios, read from their work and play their music on the Hermitage beach. Open Studios and tours of the campus begin at 6 p.m. and the beach program at 7 p.m. Bring your own chairs and refreshments. The program is free and open to all but it is weather permitting so if the weather looks questionable or threatening, call our office at 941-475-2098 or visit our Facebook page. Hope to see you there.

Artists Reunite at the Hermitage

As you can imagine with dozens of artists invited to the Hermitage every year and dozens more from previous years coming back for Part II or III (or sometimes IV) of their residency, there are as many artists-in-residence combinations as shells on our beach.

Terry Adkins and Tameka Norris fly a kite on the Hermitage beach

As you can imagine with dozens of artists invited to the Hermitage every year and dozens more from previous years coming back for Part II or III (or sometimes IV) of their residency, there are as many artists-in-residence combinations as shells on our beach.

Some artists who meet at the Hermitage hit it off so much they try to arrange their schedules so they can return together. Others just happen to book the same week the second time around as in “Didn’t I see you here last May?”

At their welcome dinner at the Hermitage, Tameka Norris, Will Villalongo and Terry Adkins talked and joked as if they’d known each other for ages. That’s not unusual at this place but in their case, they actually had known each other and their arrival at the same time wasn’t exactly a coincidence.

When visual artist Will spent his first week at the Hermitage he mentioned to Program Director/Co-founder Patricia Caswell that we (as in our National Advisory Committee) should invite more performance artists. Patricia told him that NAC member Franklin Sirmans had just submitted the name of Tameka Norris, a visual and performance artist. She also just happened to be a former student of Will’s at Yale. Will decided not to tell Tameka so her invitation would be a surprise.

When Tameka received her shell and Hermitage invitation in the mail in New Orleans, she had remembered seeing Will mention his stay at the Hermitage on his Facebook page and contacted him to share the “surprise”. “I didn’t know he knew,” said Tameka.

Meanwhile she and Terry Adkins happened to be part of the same exhibition, “Radical Presence,” that debuted in November 2012 in Houston. As they talked about their future plans, Tameka mentioned the Hermitage. “I think I got that too,’” Terry told Tameka.

Tameka already knew Will’s dates and scheduled her visit so some of their time would overlap. For Terry, it was just a matter of trying to fit his Hermitage time in “I had other things happening and this was about the only time I could come.”

When Will found out Terry was headed to the Hermitage, he recalled meeting him many years earlier under much different circumstances. “Terry doesn’t remember but he gave me a crit when I was in art school,” Will said shooting Terry a smile across the room. The two had run into each other in passing as artists do in NY. It was however a coincidence that they booked the same flight from New York to the Hermitage.

Their past experience allowed the three to settle in quickly. “It’s been nice getting to know Terry and Tameka in a different dynamic,” said Will. “And he’s not dodging me because I have questions,” shot back Tameka, referring to their teacher/student days. Their stay included kite flying on the beach, July 4th fireworks, road trips and watching horror movies on a taped up white sheet in the main room of the Hermitage House. And yes, they did get plenty of work done.

“I find this concentrated quality time quite rewarding,” said Terry, who’s literally gearing up for a project that will take him to the North Pole this fall. A constant stream of packages with new photo equipment followed him to the Hermitage where he spent a lot of time getting familiar with the gear.

Tameka and Will also used their residency time in untraditional ways. Both visual artists, she is writing, and he is reading stories by James Baldwin, something he has long planned to do but said he never had the time for.

Tameka believes her stay here was greatly enhanced by the company, including Mimi Herman, a writer and poet from North Carolina. She said hearing what the others think, even if it’s about current events has all been part of “the artistic process.”

And part of that process was a presentation at Art Center Sarasota. Ironically Will had planned to do the talk but had to leave the Hermitage early so Terry and Tameka stepped in with great success. Community outreach by the artists is part of the Hermitage experience.

Lounging on the Hermitage couch Terry called his stay “A mutually nourishing exchange, quite rewarding,… unforgettable.” We hope he flashes back to his weeks in the sun while he’s taking photos and creating art at the North Pole.

Tameka Norris – Family Values, a solo exhibition at the Contemporary Arts Center in New Orleans, opens August 3. Will Villalongo’s work can be seen in The Shadows Took Shape opening November 14, 2013 at the Studio Museum in Harlem in NYC and, in another cool coincidence, Radical Presence – Black Performance in Contemporary Artfeaturing Tameka Norris and Terry Adkins, begins its run at the same museum on the same day.

First the Storm then the Shells

Tropical Storm Andrea hit Manasota Key last week, and as named storms go, she was noisy and a bit persistent, but aside from tearing a screen and relocating a couple of deck chairs, Andrea mainly served as nature’s entertainment for our artists in residence.

Tropical Storm Andrea hit Manasota Key last week, and as named storms go, she was noisy and a bit persistent, but aside from tearing a screen and relocating a couple of deck chairs, Andrea mainly served as nature’s entertainment for our artists in residence.

For us, Andrea served another purpose. This is the time of year when our National Advisory Committee chooses the artists they want to invite for a residency. They give us the names and we send the invitations, which the artists aren’t expecting, always with a single, perfect shell from our beach, which they really aren’t expecting.

Part of my job is to scour the beach for those shells. I know, life is tough.

Lately the shells have been scarce, and the perfect ones that fit into our clear round box, even more so. But the day after Andrea hit – Shellapalooza!! Right in front of the Hermitage. At lunch time I threw off my sandals, grabbed my beach pail and hit the beach. Then I got to “work” (Hey it’s an assignment) and started sifting through the layers to find as many perfect shells as I could.

After a few years, I’ve gotten pretty good at sizing up the shells but I bring a sample box with me to make sure they fit. From the looks I get, I can tell my fellow shell seekers think it’s a bit odd that I make my finds pass a test before I toss them in my pail.

I left the beach after, well I’m not sure how long I was there, with about 60 “artist shells” and one extra cool, “I should keep it for myself but I won’t” shell.

Usually I decide where the shells end up since I put the mailing together. In order to make the process more entertaining, I’ll say, choose a more interesting shell to send to a writer in the Midwest because, I figure they don’t get to see that many (until they come here of course). If I notice on an artist’s website that they use a lot of color, I’ll pop them a more colorful shell. And sometimes I just shut my eyes and leave it up to shell destiny.

So, if you’re reading this and you get a shell in the mail in the next, let’s say 2-4 weeks, or if you are a Hermitage Fellow and still have your perfect shell in the box (and I hope you do), now you know how it got there. And if you are on this year’s list of Fellows and your name happens to be Andrea, have I got a shell for you!

Welcome Linda Mansperger

The Hermitage Artist Retreat and its Board of Directors is pleased to announce that it has added a Development Director to its staff. Beginning Monday, June 10, 2013, Linda Mansperger will be the first to hold this newly created position.

The Hermitage welcomes its first development director, Linda Mansperger

The Hermitage Artist Retreat and its Board of Directors is pleased to announce that it has added a Development Director to its staff. Beginning Monday, June 10, 2013, Linda Mansperger will be the first to hold this newly created position.

In this capacity, Mansperger will assist in all aspects of fund raising for the organization, including grant writing and reporting, special events and donor relations. “Since it officially began bringing in artists in 2005, the Hermitage Artist Retreat has been growing by leaps and bounds,” explained Board President Larry Bold. “Our local, state and national impact has gone beyond what any of us could have anticipated, with more on the horizon. With that in mind, the board is pleased to add Linda Mansperger as our first Development Director. Her experience in not-for-profit is extensive and we know she will be a great addition to our staff.”

Linda Mansperger has had only two consecutive positions in her 37-year career. From 1976 to 1985, she was the Assistant Director of the Historical Museum of Southern Florida in Miami. In 1985 she moved to Sarasota and was hired as the Executive Director/CEO of Gulf Coast Heritage Association, Inc., more commonly known as Historic Spanish Point. She held that position through February, 2013. Over the years, Mansperger has been a successful grant writer and reviewer, fundraiser, published author, public speaker and collaborator.

Linda is joining us at the perfect time. The Hermitage is poised to continue its growth and impact. To go to the next level we also needed to grow our professional staff . Linda will be a terrific addition to the team and we welcome her and her invaluable experience as we strive to reach all of our objectives.

How do you get into the Hermitage?

Getting an invitation to work at the Hermitage isn’t easy – intentionally so. As artist communities go, we’re about average size, but that size is small. We issue between 40-60 new invitations each summer. Each invitation awards an artist a “bank” of 6 weeks time at the Hermitage, and two years to spend that time in weekly increments of his or her choosing.

Getting an invitation to work at the Hermitage isn’t easy – intentionally so. As artist communities go, we’re about average size, but that size is small. We issue between 40-60 new invitations each summer. Each invitation awards an artist a “bank” of 6 weeks time at the Hermitage, and two years to spend that time in weekly increments of his or her choosing. Further limiting is the fact that we support many disciplines; writers, painters, poets, playwrights, choreographers, videographers, composers, sculptors, and endless combinations of the above.Therefore, invitations go out to about 10 visual artists, 10 composers, 10 writers, etc. In all, not very many people in each discipline given the vast numbers of worthy artists practicing their art in each.

Our admission policies were formed in 2005 when we decided to curate all our residencies – that is, to make them by invitation only. That decision came from playing with the question “how do we increase the significance of a Hermitage residency?” Well one answer was, make it the “coolest place you can’t get into.” If it’s hard to get into, when you do receive an invitation, it’s more meaningful. A second answer to the question of increasing the importance of a residency is to have the people issuing the invitations be significant people in each field we support. So if our invitation comes from someone with recognized importance in your field, it’s more meaningful. It means you’ve been recognized – and not just by your mother, or boyfriend, or wife, but by someone who knows.

So the first decision we made was to not have any application process. You can’t apply to work here. You have to be invited. The second decision was to constitute an advisory committee to issue the invitations, a committee of the most respected people in each of the disciplines we support. You can see the current National Artist Advisory Committee here.

To many artists, this is very frustrating. We hear it all the time. And frustrating artists was never our goal in creating the Hermitage. BUT it was our goal to make it special. Important. Exciting. And that means, we’ve learned, many people will not be happy with us. And those who receive an invitation are thrilled. And that’s good enough for us.

Why Trenton Doyle Hancock?

Trenton Doyle Hancock was selected to receive the 2013 Greenfield Prize at the Hermitage Artist Retreat. Why Trenton?

Trenton Doyle Hancock was selected to receive the 2013 Greenfield Prize at the Hermitage Artist Retreat. Why Trenton?

To get to the answer, let me backtrack to the founding of the prize for a minute. The prize was created by Bob Greenfield and me over the summer of 2008. Funded by the Greenfield Foundation, now of Philadelphia, the prize was the vision of Bob, patriarch of the Foundation. I got to work with his vision, and translate it into practical terms and scale it to a level that it would meet the goals of the prize.

In going through some old emails, I came across this one from Bob about the goal of the prize.

An artist may merit our support simply on the basis of his/her ability to create a work of artistic merit, even though not socially significant, or of social significance even though short of the top in artistic merit. Our objective is impact, artistic, or social, or both.

Whether you connect with Trenton’s work or not, it’s work that is powerful in its authenticity. It’s real. And it’s really Trenton. Deeply so. And the work derives its enormous impact from this uniqueness.

While we lost Bob Greenfield this year, it’s my job to carry forward the vision along with Joni Greenfield on the Foundation board. Trenton’s work is what Bob was talking about when he wrote “Our objective is impact, artistic, or social, or both.” His work embodies the values that drove Bob to create the prize – work that pushes forward, intrepid, authentic, and fearless. And this is why Trenton is the right choice for the 2013 Greenfield Prize at the Hermitage Artist Retreat.

To see more of Trenton’s work follow this link:

http://www.jamescohan.com/artists/trenton-doyle-hancock/

You can see a video of Trenton speaking about his work here:

http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/trenton-doyle-hancock

Art critic Jerry Saltz takes on the 40,000-headed beast

Jerry Saltz, Senior Art Critic for New York magazine, wants you to like him—but only if you are willing to engage in a dialogue about art. When I got the opportunity to sit down with this charming and self-effacing art critic extraordinaire, I was immediately swept up in his love of art, writing and conversation. Saltz was part of a panel of experts in a Creative Conversation on contemporary art in America during the Greenfield Prize Weekend for the Hermitage Artist Retreat. He gave the keynote address at the Greenfield Prize dinner, where artist Trenton Doyle Hancock received the 2013 award.

Post by Bonnie Silvestri

TWIS Contributor Bonnie Greenball Silvestri sat down with New York magazine art critic Jerry Saltz. Photo by Cliff Roles.

Jerry Saltz, Senior Art Critic for New York magazine, wants you to like him—but only if you are willing to engage in a dialogue about art. When I got the opportunity to sit down with this charming and self-effacing art critic extraordinaire, I was immediately swept up in his love of art, writing and conversation. Saltz was part of a panel of experts in a Creative Conversation on contemporary art in America during the Greenfield Prize Weekend for the Hermitage Artist Retreat. He gave the keynote address at the Greenfield Prize dinner, where artist Trenton Doyle Hancock received the 2013 award.

was already a fan of Saltz from his weekly appearances on Bravo’s TV show Work of Art, a reality show seeking the next top artist. He was widely criticized for pandering to the public and derided for “destroying art” in becoming a part of the show, and I liked that he was willing to continue in spite of his detractors. But his on-screen persona was a bit edgy. What I didn’t know was that he would be so easy-going and spirited in person and that we would be so squarely on the same page that the arts need to become more accessible.

The art world, especially the gallery scene in New York City, often gets a bad rap. Outside the tiny circle of artists, gallerists, curators and collectors, contemporary art can seem like an impenetrable wall to the general public. But Saltz is dedicated to tearing down that wall. In contrast to his detractors, Saltz believes that “art will do just fine” if it becomes more democratized.

“All you good little humanists, you want art to be understood and embraced by the public,” Saltz said, but then these same folks panic the minute the process of art making and art criticism is opened up for popular consumption.

To some extent, Saltz is a one-man show who allows art criticism to “cross this divide” between art makers and art consumers. In addition to his work for the magazine, he lectures regularly for art programs of the top universities in the country. Perhaps it is his training as an educator that makes him want to go beyond the confines of the four corners of his magazine. He responded with a personal note to every person who commented on his Work of Art recap blogs, which in the end garnered over 100,000 comments. Furthermore, Saltz said he resisted the magazine’s attempt to put up a firewall between him and his audience because he doesn’t want to “dance naked” alone. He wants to be understood. His “skin is like an elephant,” and he loves communicating with the public about his writing, art criticism and the art world itself.

Saltz wants to move away from the vertical model in which the art critic tells everyone else what to think about a painting, a sculpture or an exhibit, and that goes for the artists as well. Rather, he wants to create a “more horizontal platform” in which everyone has a voice in the creative process. He calls it the “40,000 headed beast” that seeks to engage in a conversation about art through online media.

“I’m not interested in power, I’m interested in credibility and in respect,” Saltz said. As he opens himself up to public critique, he makes himself a more valid critic. By pulling back the veil on the mysteries of contemporary art, he may be dragging the whole art world with him. Much like Web MD began to level the playing field in the doctor/patient relationship, Saltz has validated our particular tastes.

“My 15 percent may not overlap with your 15 percent,” Saltz said. But without public connossieur-ship, the art world may go the way of the dinosaurs. And with a richer understanding, we can begin to rely on the vehicle of the creative arts to help us communicate more meaningfully with one another. Three cheers to Saltz for taking on the establishment and winning!

******

Bonnie Silvestri is Senior Fellow for Arts, Culture and Civic Engagement and an instructor teaching law classes in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee. Prior to moving to Sarasota, she lived in New York City from 1996 to 2006. She received her Bachelor of Arts magna cum laude in English with a minor in Art History from Vanderbilt University and her Juris Doctor from The Michael E. Moritz College of Law at The Ohio State University. Most importantly, she is mom to the beautiful Daphne and wife of Michael Silvestri.

Hermitage Work Touches the World

Work created at the Hermitage is being produced, performed, published, and exhibited at major venues around the world.

Gogol by Lera Auerbach

Work created at the Hermitage is being produced, performed, published, and exhibited at major venues around the world. Here are a few examples of what our Fellows are doing:

  • Lera Auerbach’s opera Gogol saw a major production at the Theatre An Du Wein in Vienna, Austria last November.
  • Christopher Merrill’s latest non-fiction book The Tree of the Doves: Ceremony, Expedition, War was published in 2012.
  • Anna Clyne, Resident Composer for Ricardo Muti and the Chicago Symphony performed Prince Of Clouds in Chicago on December 13, 2012 (It will be performed at a total of five cities around America in 2012/2013).
  • Craig Lucas’ play The Lying Lesson will premiere at the Atlantic Theatre in New York City in March, 2013.
  • Craig’s opera, Two Boys, written with Hermitage composer Nico Muhly, premiered in London at the English National Opera and opens December 12, 2013 at New York’s Metropolitan Opera.
  • Pulitzer-winning composer Bernard Rands wrote a piano concerto that will see its premiere with the Boston Symphony in April 2014.
  • The Hermitage commissioned visual artist Sanford Biggers for a installation through awarding him the 2010 Greenfield Prize. That installation was exhibited at the Ringling Museum of Art for almost seven months, seen by tens of thousands, and now we are seriously exploring a national tour where it will be seen by many thousands more.

All this work was created at the Hermitage yet this is still just a sampling of the work and level of artistry that is being created every day on our campus by artists from all over the world. It’s not only our privilege to serve these wonderful creators, it’s our work. The impact, in the end, touches audiences, viewers, readers by the thousands. Of this, we couldn’t be more proud.