National Endowment for the Arts  
National Initiatives
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American Masterpieces: Three Centuries of Artistic Genius is a major initiative to acquaint Americans with the best of their cultural and artistic legacy. Through American Masterpieces, the National Endowment for the Arts sponsors performances, exhibitions, tours, and educational programs across different art forms that reach large and small communities in all 50 states.

The pilot phase of the program launched in April 2005 when the NEA announced 11 grants totaling $1.183 million awarded to support touring visual arts exhibitions. In 2006, the initiative expanded to include musical theater, choral music, dance, and literature through the NEA's Big Read program, in addition to a second year of funding for visual arts projects. For 2006, 91 grants were awarded in those five disciplines totaling $3.67 million. An additional $4.72 million was awarded through partnership agreements between organizations and their respective state or regional arts agencies for projects that reflect the goals of American Masterpieces.  For a list of grants awarded in 2006, go to http://www.arts.gov/grants/recent/index.html.

American Masterpieces grants are now available in Chamber Music, Dance, Presenting, and Visual Arts Touring.

In 2007, grants were awarded again in the disciplines of choral music, musical theater, visual arts, and literature. The New England Foundation for the Arts manages the dance component of American Masterpieces and will announced those recipients later this summer. A breakdown by discipline follows.

Choral Music

Six grants awarded totaling $420,000 including a $100,000 grant to Pacific Chorale of Santa Ana, California to support a festival featuring residencies for composers, master classes and choral clinics, a young composer competition, and chorale performances.

Musical Theater

Sixteen grants totaling $700,000 including a $60,000 grant to the North Shore Music Theatre for a production of Showboat and related educational activities.

Literature

Seventy-two communities participated in the NEA's Big Read initiative for the first cycle of 2007, for a total of $1,140,000. Grant recipients chose one of eight books from The Big Read list and organized readings, discussion groups, film festivals, dances, parades, and myriad other events in a month-long, community-wide celebration of their selected book.

Visual Arts

Seven grants totaling $1 million including a $215,000 grant to the Des Moines Art Center to support a touring exhibition, After Many Springs: Art in the Midwest in the 1930s. The exhibition examines the intersections between painting, photography, and film that grew out of Midwest during the Great Depression.

Visual Arts

  • Sixteen grants totaling $1,240,000 awarded in 2006 in the second year of funding projects that feature the creation and touring of major exhibitions.
  • An example is a $140,000 to Artrain based in Ann Arbor, Michigan to support the train-housed exhibition Native Views: Influences of Modern Culture, which will travel to approximately 15 underserved communities in 11 states.

Choral Music

  • Eight grants totaling $490,000 awarded to choruses to produce regional choral festivals and tours that highlight an American repertoire.
  • An example is a $75,000 grant to Conspirare in Austin, Texas to bring together six choruses for performances of American choral repertoire, educational workshops, consultations by guest composers and conductors, and commissions.

Musical Theater

  • Thirteen grants totaling $580,000 awarded to highlight the collaborative creativity, evolution, and cultural contributions of this most American of artistic genres.
  • An example is a $55,000 grant to the Lyric Theatre ofOklahoma to support the 2007 official centennial production of Oklahoma! for performances in Oklahoma City's newly renovated Civic Center Music Hall.

Dance

  • Forty-four grants totaling $1.1 million awarded through and managed by the New England Foundation for the Arts and Dance/USA. Grants are of three types:
    • Reconstruction or restaging of works that are artistically, historically, and culturally significant.
    • Touring grants created by reconstruction grant recipients and a limited number of other tours.
    • o University dance department grants to support the restaging, performance, and documentation of significant works to provide dance students with access to the rich, but often inaccessible, legacy of American dance history.

Literature through the NEA's Big Read program

  • Ten grants totaling $265,000 for the pilot phase of the Big Read, an initiative designed to restore reading to the center of American culture, conducted in partnership with the Institute of Museum and Library Services and in cooperation with Arts Midwest.
  • Grantees were given the choice of one of four books; To Kill a Mockingbird, The Great Gatsby, Fahrenheit 451, and Their Eyes Were Watching God; and developed their own program of activities related to the novel and in collaboration with community partners.

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