The Arts Council is preparing for its 11th Silicon Valley Arts & Business Awards (ABBYs), an event honoring business and philanthropic support for the arts. While we can never minimize the support that local businesses and individuals provide to the arts, I wanted to take a look at some of the arts groups that leverage that support and, in turn, have provided a lasting impact on the arts and cultural scene in the Valley. In fact, there are nearly 20 arts organizations I know of that have been here for 25 years or more! Proving that the arts are not a temporary installation!

Receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award at this year’s event is Irene Dalis, Founder and General Director of Opera San Jose, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year.

Some other groups celebrating 25th anniversary milestones are City Lights Theater Company of San Jose, Abhinaya Dance Company, Ballet San Jose, Ives String Quartet, and Teatro Vision, to name a few.

Groups celebrating 30 years include Tapestry Arts, Music for Minors in Mountain View, Northside Theatre, San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles, WORKS, Western Ballet, and San Jose Taiko.

Now for some really impressive numbers: the Palo Alto Chamber Orchestra, Peninsula Women’s Chorus, Community School of Music & Arts, and the Children’s Musical Theater of San Jose are all celebrating 40 years (with the San Jose Museum of Art one year shy at 39 years). Schola Cantorum is celebrating 45 years, American Musical Theater San Jose is celebrating 73 years, and the Olympiad of the Arts is celebrating 80 years. Pretty amazing!

All this is to say that the arts have been in this Valley a long time. While the ABBYs honors and celebrates those individuals and corporations that step up to the plate in support of the arts, we know that more can be done...
 

I’d like to acknowledge and thank former Community Foundation Silicon Valley President Peter Hero for his remarkable accomplishment of having served on the boards of three leading national cultural agencies.

In 1991, Peter was appointed and confirmed by the US Senate to serve six years on the National Council of the Arts, overseeing the National Endowment for the Arts at a time when it was under incessant mindless attacks by the far-right in Congress; ten years later he was appointed to serve on the Board of Trustees of the National Institute of Museum & Library Services, helping to increase funding for the nation’s great libraries and museums; and then in 2005, he joined the Board of the Public Broadcasting System and helped create the PBS Foundation. Thank you Peter Hero for representing Silicon Valley on these critically important national boards!

Lastly, I would like to thank Josh Russell, our Communications Manager, for his creativity and hard work on this newsletter and all other Arts Council communications over the past four years. Josh is joining the staff of 1st ACT Silicon Valley and we will miss him!