NEWSLETTER
Grants totaling $90,000 awarded to Skidmore College recipients as part of New York state’s investment in arts and culture
Saratoga Springs, N.Y. (Dec. 5, 2024) — Skidmore College’s Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery, Arthur Zankel Music Center, and Skidmore Jazz Institute are the recipients of 2025 grants from the New York State Council on the Arts, reflecting Skidmore’s important contributions to creativity, arts, and culture in New York state.
The NYSCA funding will support a wide variety of programming offered by the Tang Teaching Museum, Arthur Zankel Music Center, and Skidmore Jazz Institute in 2025.
The Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery, which has been awarded $40,000, has distinguished itself as an internationally recognized art museum and a vital part of Skidmore’s liberal arts mission. Since opening in 2000, the Tang has welcomed nearly 900,000 visitors, including K-12 students and teachers; community groups, including from under-resourced rural and urban areas; residents from throughout the region; and artists, scholars, and tourists from across the country and the world.
To help remove barriers to participation, the Museum offers free admission to its galleries and all public programs. It also continues to expand its collections area on its website with high-resolution images, artists interviews, and new scholarship.
This fall, the Tang hosted the exhibition Establish, Insure, Provide, Promote: Election 2024 and became a community gathering space for events related to the election.
Arthur Zankel Music Center, the recipient of $20,000, is home to Skidmore’s Music Department and the state-of-the-art Helen Filene Ladd Concert Hall. It offers a robust schedule of public programming that includes faculty and student recitals; performances by world-renowned guest artists who engage with Skidmore’s curriculum, often accompanied by master classes and talks; and a culturally diverse series of curated artistic events prioritizing BIPOC performers.
“With this funding, we can keep pushing the boundaries of what’s possible at Skidmore, bringing innovative arts programming to our students, the campus community, and beyond,” said Zhenelle LeBel, director of Arthur Zankel Music Center. “These resources allow us to create cultural experiences that inspire and connect, and we’re excited to keep building on that momentum.”
This past spring, Zankel Music Center continued a collaboration with Collectiveffort and Brooklyn-based composer, singer, and multi-instrumentalist Melanie Charles through the project Make Jazz Trill Again, which invited Skidmore students and members of the greater Capital Region community to participate in an open jam session. Charles and her team returned for a residency at Skidmore this fall, working with students and faculty to generate content and conversation that will culminate in a multimedia and multidisciplinary performance premiering in February 2025. The project, titled Make Jazz Trill Again: Trill 101, will interrogate the evolution of jazz within institutions and contextualize the art form within the culture that created it.
The Office of Special Programs’ Skidmore Jazz Institute, also awarded $20,000, is a celebrated two-week summer program designed to educate young musicians from around the country in the technique and history of jazz through master classes, rehearsals, private lessons, recording and music production seminars, and concerts with a faculty of top jazz practitioners and guest artists.
The Institute’s public concert series in Arthur Zankel Music Center presents renowned jazz musicians — many of them Grammy Award winners — as well as the rising stars of today. The concerts contribute to the program’s mission of bringing diverse artistry of the highest caliber to the region. Free ticket prices and virtual broadcasts encourage attendance and provide accessibility to wider audiences.
In addition to the three Support for Organization grants, NYSCA has awarded Distinguished Writer-in-Residence Greg Hrbek, in Skidmore’s English Department, a $10,000 Support for Artist literature grant to support a novel he’ll be working on next year.
The mission of the New York State Council on the Arts is to foster and advance the full breadth of New York state’s arts, culture, and creativity for all.
“On behalf of the Council and staff, I am so proud that we are supporting the critical work of so many nonprofit organizations all across the state, including the work at Skidmore College,” said NYSCA Executive Director Erika Mallin. “New York state’s art and culture nonprofits make us a global leader, strengthening our connections to each other and the larger world.”
Through the state’s continued investment in arts and culture, NYSCA has awarded grants to 509 artists and 1,497 organizations across the state, totaling $84 million for fiscal year 2025 so far.
About Skidmore College
Founded in 1903, Skidmore College is a highly selective, private liberal arts college of about 2,700 students located in the dynamic town of Saratoga Springs, New York. Consistently ranked as a top liberal arts college by U.S. News & World Report, The Princeton Review, Forbes, and more, Skidmore has also been recognized for its innovation, value, and sustainability efforts. Skidmore fosters academic and personal excellence — all driven by a belief that Creative Thought Matters. Its comprehensive array of opportunities encompasses more than 40 bachelor’s degree programs, including popular offerings in business, psychology, and the creative and performing arts; competitive NCAA Division III athletics; world-class facilities; and hands-on civic engagement and career development resources.
About the New York State Council on the Arts
To support the ongoing recovery of the arts across New York state, the Council on the Arts will award $162 million in fiscal year 2025, serving organizations and artists across all 10 of the state’s regions. The Council on the Arts further advances New York's creative culture by convening leaders in the field and providing organizational and professional development opportunities and informational resources.
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Image: Tang Teaching Museum, Arthur Zankel Music Center, and Skidmore Jazz Institute
Media Contact:
Sara Miga
518-580-5616