This week's meeting was kicked off with a violin performance by Typhen Chan, one of the winners of the Rotary Calgary Concerto Competition.

 

President Tim Heaton called the meeting to order by acknowledging that our meetings take place on the Treaty 7 lands of the Blackfoot Confederacy, Tsuut'ina Nation, Stoney Nakota First Nations, and the Metis Nation of Alberta.

 

Manon Mitchell then led us in singing O Canada, while Robert Lowther delivered the invocation.

 

President Tim thanked our meeting volunteers Larry Martin, Doug Webb, Bev Blair and Bruce Millar.

 

Club secretary Kurt Kowalchuk welcomed our visitors and guests, and acknowledged the six club members celebrating birthdays this week.

 

Manon Mitchell introduced Typhen Chan, the first of several Rotary Concerto Competition winners we will be hearing from over the next few weeks. Typhen has performed in the competition six times, and is a three-time runner up. He amazed the club with his performances of a Bach jig, and Paganini's Caprice Number 1.

 

 

 

 

 

Tom Hickerson introduced Mary Rozsa de Coquet, who provided an insightful overview of the state of arts funding in Calgary.

 

She began her presentation with Arts in the City, a rap extolling the virtues of the arts in Calgary.

 

The arts in Calgary face challenges, including a general lack of awareness on the part of the public (who often cannot distinguish between public and private art), inadequate arts venues, insufficient funding to explore the potentials of new technologies, and rapid leadership turnover within the arts community. She noted that many leaders are overwhelmed by the challenges in their roles, and often depart within one year of their appointments. Additionally, fundraising specialists are often recruited into prominent roles in other sectors.

 

She described how the Rozsa Foundation works to develop arts leaders and recognize them through its Rozsa award, which was established to honour arts managers who demonstrate excellence in organizational leadership.

 

She also showed how Calgary compares with other Canadian cities in funding the arts, and showed how arts funding in our city has suffered because of its reliance on corporate donations. The weakness of our position has become evident since the downturn in the energy sector. The good news is that this is changing. Through the efforts of the Rozsa foundation and its partners, the city is now playing its role in balancing the funding for our city's arts community.

 

Jaydeep Balakrishnan thanked our speaker for her most informative presentation.