FTCC Foundation has received a Project Support Grant in the amount of $5,000 from the Arts Council of Fayetteville/Cumberland County to develop a Fine Arts Series with the Fine Arts Department at Fayetteville Technical Community College. This will be the largest-scale event series that the Fine Arts Department at FTCC will have coordinated with grant funding. Project Support Grants are supported by the North Carolina Arts Council, a division of the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.
The series will bring in three diverse guest artists for the 2023-2024 academic year. Each artist will perform a concert that will be free and open to the public and will give a lecture with a question-and-answer period. Some artists will also provide master classes for FTCC students. Additional concerts, exhibitions, lectures, and theatrical performances will be offered throughout the year through the FTCC Fine Arts Program.
The guest artists selected for the 2023-2024 academic year are listed below:
- Latin Grammy Award-Winning producer Lannie Battistini will perform October 24-25, 2023, and will present “Finding Your Artistic Voice and Monetizing It.” https://www.lanniebattistini.com/
- The Fayetteville Symphony Jazz Quartet will perform with the FTCC Chorus and Ensemble on December 7, 2023, and will deliver the pre-concert talk entitled “Curating a Career as a Musician.” https://www.fayettevillesymphony.org/
- North Carolina-based composer, performer, and educator Brittany J. Green will give several lectures and demonstrations from February 21-29, 2024. She will perform her music on February 22. Her artistic practice includes spoken and electronic performance, interdisciplinary collaboration, experiential projects, and acoustic and electroacoustic chamber and large ensemble works. http://www.brittanyjgreen.com/
FTCC Music Instructor Alec Powers is organizing the FTCC Fine Arts Series.
Alec Powers speaks at the FTCC 2022 Spring Music Concert. [Photo by Natasha Brown]
“Cultural arts programing is not only essential to the educational goals of the Fine Arts department at FTCC, but for our entire student population,” Powers said. “It is our opinion that arts education and programming is incredibly valuable for its own sake, in addition to the many ways that the arts allow us to have deeper conversations about our particular cultural moment, which non-artistic mediums don’t always facilitate.”
The guest artists will work closely with FTCC students and culminate with performances for the general public. Instead of the typical master-class and concert approach, Powers plans to incorporate a series of interactive elements with each artist that encourage active engagement from the students in the creative process. Ideas for these engagements include collaborative commissions from composers, mini-residencies from performers, workshops that deal with issues in the music industry, collaborative performances between student ensembles and guest artists, and more. Powers believes that these sorts of active learning opportunities are much more valuable than a passive master-class approach and engender greater musical collaboration with our guest artists than the traditional approach.
The series will not only have performances that are open to the public but will allow the possibility of collaborative engagements with local colleges, universities and high schools to better promote the arts in Fayetteville and Cumberland County.
“We believe that a collaborative approach not only leads to a more rewarding musical experience but benefits everyone involved by enhancing all of our efforts in musical education,” Powers said.
“Fayetteville Technical Community College and FTCC Foundation have enjoyed a strong collaborative relationship with the Arts Council of Fayetteville/Cumberland County,” said Sandy Ammons, Executive Director for FTCC Foundation. “We appreciate their continued support of our efforts to enrich the lives of our students and the community through arts education and entertainment.”
For more information about the FTCC Fine Arts Series, visit https://www.faytechcc.edu/fine-arts-series.
About the Arts Council of Fayetteville/Cumberland County
The Arts Council of Fayetteville/Cumberland County is a tax-exempt 501(c)(3)organization based in Fayetteville, NC that connects our communities, embraces diversity, promotes individual creativity, advances economic development, and fosters lifelong learning through the arts. As a primary steward of public and private funding for arts, cultural, and historical activities in the Cape Fear Region, all affiliated programs of the Arts Council exemplify our 5 core values: Excellence, Accountability, Transparency, Collaborations, and Innovation. theartscouncil.com In the year 2022-2023 year, the Arts Council distributed more than $1 million in grant funds and special allocations to Cumberland County non-profit organizations, artists, and municipalities producing arts and cultural activities. Grants, programs, and services of the Arts Council are funded in part by contributions from community partners, and through grants from the City of Fayetteville, Cumberland County, and the N.C. Arts Council, a division of the Department of Natural & Cultural Resources. ncarts.org
About FTCC Foundation
FTCC Foundation partners with donors to support Fayetteville Technical Community College by raising awareness and financial resources to provide college access for students to attain their educational and career goals. The mission of FTCC Foundation is to foster and promote the growth, progress, and general welfare of FTCC, provide supplementary financial support to the College and its students, and advance and enrich the services provided for students, the community, alumni, faculty, and staff. FTCC Foundation manages more than 200 scholarship endowments and other funds.
About Fayetteville Technical Community College
The FTCC Media and Fine Arts Programs offers associate degrees in Music, Theater, Visual Arts, Graphic Design, Digital Media Technology, Game and Interactive Programming, and Simulation and Game Development.
FTCC is the third largest community college in North Carolina. The FTCC Continuing and Corporate Education program is the largest FTE generator in the state. The mission of FTCC is to serve the community as a learning-centered institution to build a globally competitive workforce that supports economic development.
The purpose of Fayetteville Technical Community College is to provide affordable vocational-technical, business and industry, general education, college transfer, and continuing education programs, which meet the needs and desires of its diverse students and the economic development needs for the community, region, and state. To improve the educational attainment levels of society, FTCC encourages life-long learning and strives to prepare students for further workforce and educational experiences.
Contact:
Sandy Ammons
Executive Director
FTCC Foundation
(910) 678-8201
ammonss@faytechcc.edu
