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Early Music Foundation $30,000
New York, New York
Frederick Renz, Director
The Early Music Foundation was established by Frederick Renz in 1974 to present the performing arts literature
of the 12th through 18th centuries using period instruments. EMF includes two performing
groups, the Ensemble for Early Music and the Grande Bande. The first is a concert ensemble of six artist
members that expands to a company of up to twenty-six musicians to perform concerts of medieval and
renaissance music and fully staged and costumed music dramas. The Grande Bande is an orchestra of as
many as sixty original instruments specializing in baroque and classical music. EMF is in residence at the
Cathedral of St. John the Divine, where both groups present subscription series. They also perform regularly
at the Cloisters, the Pierpont Morgan Library, and other venues around the city. In addition, national
and international touring is an important source of income for EME With several new and noteworthy
artistic initiatives planned for the coming year, our grant is in support of a well-timed visibility campaign.
The project is expected to heighten EMF's image nationally with upgraded promotional materials and a
concerted public relations outreach effort, resulting in increased earned income from concert bookings.
Elders Share the Arts $25,000
Brooklyn, New York
Susan Perlstein, Executive Director
Elders Share the Arts was founded in 1979 with the mission of bridging generational and cultural gaps
through the arts. ESTA's programs are a unique synthesis of oral history and creative arts that includes
storytelling by urban folk artists and the creation of performance works that combine theater, movement,
storytelling, and oral history. In 1994, ESTA was selected to participate in the National Endowment for
the Arts's Advancement Program through which it engaged in a two-year strategic planning process.
With foundation and government funding becoming more scarce, the organization used the planning
assistance to further develop its earned income programs, beginning with its elder storyteller troupe, the
Pearls of Wisdom. The planning process yielded information indicating the need for an organizational
transition-a shift in focus from simply carrying out the activities it had developed to that of serving as
a national resource through training and wider dissemination and sale of the publications it has created.
As a result of the 40% cut in the NEA's budget, the Advancement program has been dismantled and there
will be no funds forthcoming from the NEA to implement ESTA's marketing plan. However, with our
support ESTA will implement this earned income effort during the coming year.