THE SEATTLE SYMPHONY ANNOUNCES FOUR RECIPIENTS OF ITS COMMUNITY STAGES FUND
NOW IN ITS FOURTH YEAR, THE COMMUNITY STAGES FUND CONTINUES OFFERING SUPPORT TO LOCAL ARTISTS AND ORGANIZATIONS, WELCOMING THEM TO SHOWCASE THEIR WORK AT BENAROYA HALL
Seattle, WA — The Seattle Symphony is excited to announce four new Community Stages Fund (CSF) grant recipients. Created as a way to invest in greater support for underrepresented artists, the CSF continues to help grow the region’s unique musical and cultural landscape. The CSF selection committee, made up of community leaders and Seattle Symphony staff, reviews a broad range of applications, prioritizing grantee selections based on each organization’s demonstrated level of need as well as service to racially diverse communities.
The Seattle Symphony is pleased to present this year’s impressive lineup of grant recipients: Yoga Behind Bars, Camp Jitterbug, Resounding Love Center for the Arts and Studio East Training for the Performing Arts.
In 2021, the Seattle Symphony created the CSF to help combat the systemic inequities that impact ALAANA (African, Latinx, Asian, Arab or Native American), LGBTQ+ and female performers, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic hit and increased the disparities experienced by these communities. In an effort to broaden the reach of the selected grant recipients, the CSF provides grantees with fully sponsored or highly subsidized use of the Illsley Ball Nordstrom Recital Hall, Octave 9: Raisbeck Music Center and/or the Samuel & Althea Stroum Grand Lobby, along with in-house digital streaming equipment, marketing and production crew support.
“We are excited to support, for the fourth consecutive year, local artists and organizations through the Seattle Symphony’s Community Stages Fund,” said Seattle Symphony Senior Director of Education & Community Engagement Jérémy Jolley. “This year's awardees are remarkable organizations that build communities around different artforms such as hip hop, jazz, spoken word, dance, choirs and musical theatre. A great testimony of the vibrant arts community in the Puget Sound area, presenting what they do best at Benaroya Hall.”
Yoga Behind Bars has been sharing trauma-informed yoga and meditation with communities behind and beyond bars since 2008, supporting individual healing and fostering a more just society for all. Yoga Behind Bars envisions having poets, drummers, dancers, painters, spoken word artist and storytellers co-create a powerful experience through the arts. The date and venue for Yoga Behind Bars' event will be announced soon.
Camp Jitterbug is an annual swing and jazz dance and music festival that features workshops, lectures, dances, competitions, performances, live music and more in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle every Memorial Day weekend. To kick off the weekend, join Camp Jitterbug for The Jump Session Show: a celebration of jazz and swing dances through the ages featuring performers from all around the country. Performing May 23, 2025, at the Illsley Ball Nordstrom Recital Hall.
Resounding Love Center for the Arts is a choir that fosters racial healing, co-laboring toward social justice for all and transformative experiences through music and other forms of artistic expression. Join Resounding Love Center for the Arts for an afternoon of interactive, soul-stirring music, energizing dance and powerful stories. Performing January 11, 2025, at the Illsley Ball Nordstrom Recital Hall.
Studio East Training for the Performing Arts provides best-in-class theater education, performance skills and audience opportunities to inspire, train and entertain young people through engagement in the art and craft of theater. Studio East will present a staged reading of the 2015 Tony Award-winning musical Fun Home, directed by Studio alum Zach Barr and starring alum and Education Director Kaysy Ostrom. Performing January 19, 2025, at the Illsley Ball Nordstrom Recital Hall.
COMMUNITY STAGES FUND
The Community Stages Fund (CSF) is an initiative focused on serving organizations, groups and artists within our region that do not have access to spaces to produce and present their art and connect with their community. This fund is part of the Seattle Symphony’s investment in greater prominence for ALAANA (African, Latinx, Asian, Arab or Native American), LGBTQ+ and female artists and their works on the Benaroya Hall stages and the Seattle Symphony+ digital platform, as aligns with the Symphony's Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging work. The CSF welcomes nonprofit organizations, groups and artists to the Benaroya Hall stages for fully sponsored or highly subsidized use of the Illsley Ball Nordstrom Recital Hall, Samuel & Althea Stroum Grand Lobby and Octave 9: Raisbeck Music Center along with in-house digital streaming equipment and production crew. This program aims to amplify the voices of the Puget Sound area and give back to the community members who have helped shape and grow our region’s unique musical and cultural landscape.
YOGA BEHIND BARS
Since 2008, Yoga Behind Bars has shared trauma-informed yoga and meditation with the community behind and beyond bars to support individual healing and a more just society for all. Yoga Behind Bars envisions a world that prioritizes healing and growth over punishment, so we can learn to be in the community with each other to stop cycles of trauma, violence and harm.
CAMP JITTERBUG
Camp Jitterbug presents The Jump Session Show, which is a theatrical dance production celebrating the history and joy of vernacular Jazz and swing-based dances such as Lindy Hop, tap, jazz, Charleston, hip hop and more. Camp Jitterbug is an annual swing and jazz dance and music festival that features workshops, lectures, dances, competitions, performances, live music and more in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle every Memorial Day weekend for the past 24 years.
RESOUNDING LOVE CENTER FOR THE ARTS
Resounding Love Center for the Arts is a social justice organization in the form of a multiracial, interfaith, LGBTQIA-embracing choir. The choir sings to honor the African-American gospel tradition, historical protest movements, and its values of unity and love. Its members celebrate and learn from their many differences in race, ethnicity, gender, gender expression and identity, sexual orientation, spirituality and beliefs, abilities, neurodiversity, socioeconomic status, age, background and more. As a mixed-race choir, Resounding Love Center for the Arts requires that its members engage in a collective antiracism practice while also pursuing musical excellence.
Resounding Love fosters racial healing, co-laboring toward social justice for all and transformative experiences through music and other forms of artistic expression. Its motto is “love is our default” and its vision is a world where the arts are central to racial liberation. The choir formed in the spring of 2020 and created community and music virtually for 2.5 years. Since coming together in person, Resounding Love Center for the Arts has performed live several times, with a particular emphasis on the community's most marginalized groups, such as incarcerated individuals and people experiencing homelessness.
STUDIO EAST TRAINING FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS
Founded in 1992, Studio East provides best-in-class theater education, performance skills and audience opportunities to inspire, train and entertain young people through engagement in the art and craft of theater.
SEATTLE SYMPHONY
The Seattle Symphony unleashes the power of music, brings people together and lifts the human spirit. Recognized as one of the “most vital American orchestras” (NPR), the Seattle Symphony is internationally acclaimed for its inventive programming, community-minded initiatives and superb recordings on the Seattle Symphony Media label. With a strong commitment to new music and a legacy of over 150 recordings, the orchestra has won five Grammy Awards, 27 Grammy nominations, two Emmy Awards and was named Gramophone’s 2018 Orchestra of the Year. The Symphony performs in Benaroya Hall in the heart of downtown Seattle from September through July, reaching over 750,000 people annually through live performances and radio broadcasts, and through the Seattle Symphony+ streaming service, the orchestra’s concerts reach audiences at home and around the world.
BENAROYA HALL
Benaroya Hall, the home of the Seattle Symphony, is located in downtown Seattle and surrounded by numerous restaurants, retail stores and parking facilities. Opened in 1998, Benaroya Hall is the most-visited performing arts venue in Seattle. It has received numerous awards, including a 2001 American Institute of Architects (AIA) National Honor Award for outstanding architecture. Benaroya Hall has three versatile performance venues, the S. Mark Taper Foundation Auditorium, the Illsley Ball Nordstrom Recital Hall and Octave 9: Raisbeck Music Center, all renowned for their pristine acoustics, luxurious design and prime location. For additional information, including rental information, event listings and public tour schedules, please visit benaroyahall.org.
The Seattle Symphony’s Family, School & Community programs are supported by 4Culture, the Arakawa Foundation, Marco Argenti, ArtsFund, Delta Air Lines, the Merriman-Ross Family, the National Endowment for the Arts, and individual contributions to the Seattle Symphony Annual Fund.
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