By WALLACE BAINE
This is starting to become a habit.
For the second time, the Kuumbwa Jazz Center and the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music have each received six-figure grants from the James Irvine Foundation, it was announced Thursday.
The two Santa Cruz-based performing-arts organizations were among 13 other organizations to receive grants throughout the Central Coast region from Santa Cruz County to Santa Barbara County. Other such organizations include the Monterey Jazz Festival, the Monterey Museum of Art and the National Steinbeck Center in Salinas.
The Irvine grants go to selected arts organizations in three-year cycles based regionally. The last time the grants were focused on Central Coast organizations was 2008. That year, both Kuumbwa and the Cabrillo Festival received grants for "capacity building," focusing on technical and infrastructure issues.
This year's "Phase II" grants are earmarked for "cultural participation," which means the expansion of audiences. Bobbi Todaro of the Kuumbwa Jazz Center, which will receive $300,000 from the Irvine Foundation, said that her organization will use the funds to develop outreach to younger audiences.
"We really want to broaden our reach to our audience base," she said, mentioning raising Kuumbwa's profile in online social media sites, and turning to digital marketing. She said that the grant will allow Kuumbwa to bring in consultants and to continue to diversify the jazz club's programming.
The Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, which takes place each August in Santa Cruz and San Juan Bautista, will be taking a different approach, said executive director Ellen Primack. The Cabrillo Festival, which will received $275,000 in Irvine grants, is looking to expand audiences by developing a larger regional outreach in hope of attracting audiences in and around the San Francisco Bay Area and Northern California.
"When the Irvine Foundation talked about broadening audiences, we are thinking of people already inclined to what we do," said Primack. "We are not going to get a broad mainstream audience, but there are people in the larger region with a more adventurous spirit that would like our festival. And there are barriers. They don't know about us, and this allows us to address that." - http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/rss/ci_19069602?source=rss
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