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diversions
L.A. County Arts
awarded grants
By Nathalie Brun
Summer On-line Forty-Niner
The Long Beach
Symphony Association, the Long Beach Museum of Art Foundation,
the Camerata Singers of Long Beach and the Long Beach Opera
are among 166 non-profit arts organizations in Los Angeles
County to have been awarded grants by the Los Angeles County
Arts Commission recently.
The grant funds
are awarded every year, and support a wide variety of arts
organizations throughout the county. Los Angeles County
has 1,000 arts organizations and 150,000 working artists,
forming the largest concentration of arts activities in the
U.S., according to a commission press release.
The commission
was "founded to foster excellence and vitality in the
arts and to ensure diversity and accessibility to the arts
in the county," said Los Angeles Arts Commission President
Aurelia Brooks in a press release. According to its
Web site, the commission "plays a leadership role in
cultural services for the city, providing information and
resources to the community, artists, arts organizations and
municipalities."
The commission
was established over 50 years ago by the Los Angeles County
Board of Supervisors and is the second oldest local arts agency
in California (the San Francisco Arts Commission having been
established a year earlier). This was long before there
was even a National endowment for the arts, Brooks said.
The commission's
many other activities include funding the nation's largest
arts internship program in partnership with the Getty Trust,
and supporting the John Anson Ford Theatres, located at a
buccoliccounty regional park in the Hollywood Hills.
The commission
produces free community events such as the Los Angeles Open
House, which features over 150 events held the first Saturday
of October each year, in celebration of the National Arts
and Humanities Month; the Los Angeles County Holiday Celebration
at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion held annually on Dec. 24;
and a year-round program of music at 100 various community
centers.
The commission's
Web site also provides a directory with over 1,000 listings
for county arts organizations.
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