Hermitage Announces New Programs in May and June

The Hermitage Artist Retreat announced new programs throughout the months of May and June. Continuing its 20^th Anniversary Season, these events will be presented all across Sarasota County, from the Hermitage’s beautiful beachfront campus on Manasota Key to the Van Wezel Terrace overlooking Sarasota Bay, as well as virtual offerings expanding access beyond geographic limitations. Hermitage programs introduce world-renowned artists to Florida’s Gulf Coast community and audiences across the country for candid and engaging conversations, musical performances, play readings, work-in-process showings, and educational opportunities for students and adults.

Newly announced programs in May include partnerships with Urbanite Theatre, Marie Selby Botanical Gardens at Historic Spanish Point, the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall, and a new virtual program with support from Florida Humanities. Featured artists and performers include returning Hermitage Fellow and Tony Nominee Bess Wohl (Grand Horizons, Small Mouth Sounds) who provides the key-note conversation as part of Urbanite Theatre’s Modern Works Festival and whose play Camp Siegfried recently premiered Off-Broadway following development at the Hermitage; Julliard-trained violinist and 2022 Hermitage Greenfield Prize Finalist Mazz Swift, who has performed at such iconic venues as Royal Albert Hall, Carnegie Hall, and New York’s Lincoln Center; returning Hermitage alumna and internationally celebrated cellist Karen Patterson; as well as Pulitzer Prize Finalist Zora Howard (Hang Time, Stew, The Master’s Tools). June programs will spotlight the work of writer and acclaimed translator Jennifer Croft (William Saroyan International Prize for Writing, Man Booker International Prize) and author Tony Barnstone offering his literary insight through Tarot cards, plus as a showcase of original songs by Hermitage composers presented by some of Sarasota’s most celebrated performers.

On Friday, May 5^th at 8pm, the Hermitage partners with Urbanite Theatre to present a conversation with Bess Wohl as part of Urbanite Theatre’s popular Modern Works Festival. Sarasota audiences will remember Wohl from the recent production of Grand Horizons at Asolo Rep as well as the in-process showing of selections from Camp Siegfried on the Hermitage Beach prior to its recent run in New York at Second Stage Theatre. As one of the most exciting voices writing for the stage today, this Tony Award-nominated playwright and returning Hermitage alumna will discuss her works and career as part of the festival’s focus on women in theater.

The following week, Hermitage programs continue on Friday, May 12^th at 6:30pm on the Hermitage Beach with “Black Women in our Collective Culture,” an interdisciplinary program featuring the works of Hermitage Fellows Delita Martin and Imani Perry. These two acclaimed Hermitage Fellows share a common subject: redefining the role and representation of Black people and particularly Black women in our collective culture. A multimedium visual artist, Martin has been exhibited both nationally and internationally with work combining collage, painting, drawing, and sewing techniques. Perry is the author of seven books and Pen Bograd-Weld Award for Biography, the Phi Beta Kappa Christian Gauss Award, and the Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQ Nonfiction.

On Friday, May 19^th at 6:30pm, the Hermitage is pleased to welcome the return of cellist Karen Patterson for the next installment of the popular “Hermitage Sunsets @ Selby Gardens” series. One of the Hermitage’s earliest alumna musicians, Patterson will play an informal cello concert of favorites and original works at Selby Gardens: Historic Spanish Point. Since her time at the Hermitage, Patterson has performed all over the world including the Lagos Jazz Series Festival in Nigeria, the Jazz and Gospel Fest in Rio De Janiero, and a world premiere by Egyptian-American Composer Halim El-Dabh for the Dayton Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra. “Cello on Point,” the latest installment of the “Hermitage Sunsets @ Selby” series, promises to be a magical evening of beautiful music at Historic Spanish Point.

With “Moved to Music: Violin on the Bay,” the Hermitage partners with the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall to bring two genre-bending violinists to the Outdoor Terrace of this iconic Sarasota venue (recently home to the Hermitage’s 20^th Anniversary Celebration Concert). Presented on Friday, May 26^th at 6:30pm, “Moved to Music” combines the Julliard-trained violin talents of Mazz Swift, described by Jazz Right Now as “soaring and lyrical,” with the holistic approach of New Orleans-based violinist, teacher, and yoga instructor Rebecca Crenshaw. Both artists center the power of music to forge community and express big ideas, and both will share selections of their work and process. In addition to being a returning Hermitage alumna, Swift was also recognized as a finalist for the 2022 Hermitage Greenfield Prize.

The Hermitage’s “Artists and Thinkers” series continues on Wednesday, May 31^st at 6:30pm ET with “Stewing with Zora Howard,” a conversation with Pulitzer Prize Finalist Zora Howard. Thanks in part to the support provided by Florida Humanities, this virtual artist conversation dives deep into the cultural, historical, and economic realities of her play Stew, which has been celebrated as a contemporary triumph. Facilitated by Hermitage Programs Director James Monaghan, this program is presented online and features selections of the work in addition to the artist’s insights and opportunities for audience members to engage directly via the ‘Q&A’ feature.

The Hermitage’s year-round outdoor programming continues in June with “The Radiant Tarot: Pathway to Creativity” on Friday, June 16^th at 6:30pm on the Hermitage Beach with Hermitage Fellow and writer Tony Barnstone. Inspired by the words of Rilke and William Blake amongst many other artists and practitioners, the artwork and guidebook of this Tarot deck are aimed at awakening creativity and personal growth. In this program, Barnstone, author of the guidebook, will illuminate some of the impulses behind its creation, its potential interpretations, and the creative projects it has already inspired. Don’t miss this intriguing take on the age-old quest of every artist: to capture creative inspiration and make the next great work.

The following week, the Hermitage presents “The Many Languages of Jennifer Croft” at 6:30pm on Tuesday, June 20^th on the Hermitage Beach. Recipient of the 2020 William Saroyan International Prize for Writing for her illustrated memoir Homesick and the 2018 Man-Booker International Prize for her translation of from Polish of Nobel laureate Olga Tokarczuk’s Flights, Jennifer Croft is an accomplished writer as well as translator. She also happens to be married to gifted writer and translator Boris Dralyuk who joins her as part of the Hermitage’s Family Residency program. Croft and Dralyuk share selections from their original and translated works as well as offering insight on the mercurial art of translation. In recognition of this great evening of words, the Hermitage is partnering with a number of literary organizations to support the event including Sarasota County Libraries and the Johann Fust Library Foundation on Boca Grande.

As the summer officially begins, the Hermitage travels to Lakewood Ranch on Friday, June 23^rd at 7pm to present “Songs from the Sand: A Hermitage Cabaret.” This evening of song at Lakewood Ranch’s “Waterside Pavilion” stage will feature original songs and words created by artists who have been in residence on its Manasota Key campus presented by Sarasota’s finest performers. From Adam Gwon to Jeanine Tesori, Michael R. Jackson to Kit Yan, and Rona Siddiqui to Zoe Sarnak, the Hermitage has provided space and time to some of the most exciting musical theater writers working in the industry today. Hear some of these breathtaking and inspiring works, as well as little known stories surrounding some of their creation, performed by some of Sarasota’s greatest talents. (Details of the composers and performers to be announced at a later date.)

Nearly all Hermitage programs are free and open to the public (with a $5/person registration fee), offering Gulf Coast audiences a rare chance to engage and interact with some of the world’s leading talent. Due to capacity limitations and social distancing, registration is required at HermitageArtistRetreat.org.

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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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.

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

Bill Bowers’ Hermitage Residency generously sponsored by Charlotte & Charles Perret

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

Bess Wohl’s Hermitage Residency generously sponsored by Carol White Bold & Larry Bold.

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

Thu

“Visualizing Culture” @ Hermitage Beach

Tickets

May 23 @ 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm

“Visualizing Culture”
with Hermitage Fellows Diana Al-Hadid, Raven Chacon, and Candice Hopkins

Thursday, May 23 at 6:30pm

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

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

Art, no matter the medium, helps to make abstract concepts like culture and broad historical narrative a palpable, personal experience. Engaging directly with this idea through her work currently on display at the Sarasota Art Museum, internationally acclaimed visual artist Diana Al-Hadid‘s art “is a masterclass in duality… both ancient and modern, fierce and delicate, simultaneously growing and disintegrating—reminding us there is no such thing as a fixed state,” (Vogue). In a special beach program, Al-Hadid discusses her work alongside Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Raven Chacon whose unique graphic scores capture “a concentrated and powerful musical expression with a haunting visceral impact,” (New York Times). Adding insight and nuance to the conversation is Candice Hopkins, a citizen of Carcross/Tagish First Nation whose curated exhibitions have traveled across the country and around the world. Join these remarkable creators for insights into their groundbreaking processes and perspectives on the contemporary arts landscape.

Returning Hermitage Fellow Diana Al-Hadid 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, the artist weaves together enigmatic narratives that draw inspiration from both ancient and modern civilizations. Al-Hadid’s rich allegorical constructions are born from art historical religious imagery, ancient manuscripts, female archetypes, and folkloric storytelling. Born in Aleppo, Syria in 1981, Al-Hadid lives and works between upstate New York and Brooklyn, NY. She received a BFA in Sculpture and a BA in Art History from Kent State University (2003); an MFA in Sculpture from Virginia Commonwealth University (2005); and attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (2007). She has been the recipient of a Joan Mitchell Grant, a New York Foundation for the Arts Grant, a Pollock-Krasner Grant, and The Academy of Arts and Letters Art Award. She is also a Hermitage Artist Retreat Fellow, a USA Rockefeller Fellow, and in 2022, she was awarded a Fellowship with the Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship Program. Al-Hadid’s work can be found in numerous institutional collections worldwide, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; and the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens, Greece, among others. Her work is currently on display at Sarasota Art Museum as part of the exhibition Impact: Contemporary Artists at the Hermitage Artist Retreat.

Hermitage Fellow Raven Chacon is a Pulitzer Prize-winning composer, performer, and installation artist from Fort Defiance, Navajo Nation. As a solo artist, collaborator, and a member of Postcommodity from 2009 to 2018, Chacon has exhibited, performed, or had works performed at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; The Renaissance Society, Chicago; San Francisco Electronic Music Festival; REDCAT, Los Angeles; Vancouver Art Gallery; Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin; Borealis Festival, Seattle; SITE Santa Fe; Chaco Canyon, New Mexico; Ende Tymes Festival, New York; The Kennedy Center, Washington, D.C.; Whitney Biennial, New York; documenta 14, Athens and Kassel; Carnegie International, and Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh.

Hermitage Fellow Candice Hopkins is a citizen of Carcross/Tagish First Nation and lives in Red Hook, New York. Her writing and curatorial practice explore the intersections of history, contemporary art, and Indigeneity. She is Executive Director of Forge Project (Taghkanic, NY) and Senior Curator for the 2019 and 2022 editions of the Toronto Biennial of Art. She was part of the curatorial team for the Canadian Pavilion at the fifty-eighth Venice Biennale, featuring the work of the media art collective Isuma; and co-curator of notable exhibitions including the national traveling survey Art for New Understanding: Native Voices, 1950s to Now; SITElines.2018: Casa Tomada, SITE Santa Fe; documenta 14, Athens and Kassel; and Sakahàn: International Indigenous Art, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. Notable essays include “The Gilded Gaze: Wealth and Economies on the Colonial Frontier,” in the documenta 14 Reader; “Outlawed Social Life,” in South as a State of Mind; and “The Appropriation Debates (or The Gallows of History),” in Saturation: Race, Art, and the Circulation of Value (New Museum/MIT Press, 2020).

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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