Around Town

Knight Foundation making it rain. 13 Charlotte arts organizations split more than $1 million.

By Ted Williams

The Story

The Knight Foundation is providing over $1 million in funding to 13 Charlotte arts organizations. This funding enables us to enjoy everything from opera on the streets to short films with only 100 words to digitized museum tours to world renown jazz. Very cool.

Here is a quick list of organizations, dollar amounts, and the Knight Foundations reason for funding.

(1) Actor’s Theatre of Charlotte – $80,000

Knight Foundation: To bring new works to the stage through the NuVoices for a NuGeneration Play Festival for the next two years.

(2) Charlotte Film Society – $30,000 

Knight Foundation: To provide otherwise inaccessible films to enthusiastic audiences, through screenings in both indoor and outdoor venues around the city.

(3) Jazz Arts Initiative – $30,000

Knight Foundation: To expand the successful Jazz Room @ Stage Door Theater, which transforms the Blumenthal Performing Arts Center’s black box theater into an intimate jazz venue featuring local, regional and international performers.

(4) McColl Center for Visual Art – $95,000

Knight Foundation: To elevate Charlotte as a hub for artistic excellence by supporting the McColl Center for Art + Innovation’s Knight Artist in Residency program.

(5) Opera Carolina – $60,000

Knight Foundation: To create a series of performances taking opera out of the theater and into the streets of greater Charlotte.

(6) Afro-American Cultural Center – $50,000

Knight Foundation: To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture, with “40 And Counting” – an exhibition and programming series that culminates during the Martin Luther King holiday.

(7) Arts & Science Council of Charlotte/Mecklenburg – $215,000 to four initiatives

Knight Foundation: To support the council’s Cultural Innovation Grant, which invests in emerging cultural organizations that show programmatic promise and innovation in serving diverse audiences. 

(8) Tosco Music Party – $60,000

Knight Foundation: To support two seasons of the Tosco Music Party, which is now a sell-out series at the Knight Theater at Levine Center for the Arts.

(9) Charlotte Symphony Orchestra Society – $240,000 Knight Foundation: To support continued arts innovation through the KnightSounds concert series, now in its fourth season, while bringing select programs outdoors for simulcasts.

(10) 100 Words Film Festival – $20,400 Knight Foundation: To launch a film festival that challenges professional directors and student filmmakers to focus on the essence of storytelling by creating films that use exactly 100 spoken words.

(11) The Mint Museum – $100,000

Knight Foundation: To support Mint Museum’s Enhanced Digitization Project, which is creating virtual tours of the museum and its collections and special exhibitions, plus interviews with curators and artists.

(12) Blumenthal Performing Arts: – $20,000

Knight Foundation: To bring the arts to a wider audience by providing seats for the 2014 Charlotte performance of the renowned Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra led by Wynton Marsalis.

Photo: Diedra Laird / Charlotte Observer

This story was originally published January 13, 2015 at 1:07 AM with the headline "Knight Foundation making it rain. 13 Charlotte arts organizations split more than $1 million.."

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