Each year, the Vermont Arts Council recognizes outstanding contributions to the arts with the Vermont Arts Awards. The awards are given to artists and performers, but also to educators, advocates, and volunteers who work to advance and uplift the arts in the state. Last week in Middlebury, the Arts Council celebrated the contributions of five Vermonters.
Vermont Edition spoke with three of this year's five recipients about topics such as community-based art, arts advocacy, and the importance of live performances in arts education.
Listen to the audio above to hear from:
- Douglas Anderson of the Town Hall Theater and the Opera Company of Middlebury, recipient of this year's Arthur Williams Award for Meritorious Service to the Arts
- James Lockridge, director of Burlington record label and musician resource Big Heavy World, who recevied the Margaret L. (Peggy) Kannenstine Award for Arts Advocacy
- and Joan Robinson, one of the founders of the Integrated Arts Academy in Burlington and longtime education director for the Flynn Center for the Performing Arts, who won this year's Ellen McCulloch-Lovell Award in Arts Education
Other winners this year include Middlebury resident and singer, composer, playwright and activist François Clemmons, known for his role as Officer Clemmons on Mister Rogers Neighborhood and director of the Martin Luther King Spiritual Choir at Middlebury College until is retirement in 2013. Clemmons was awarded the 2019 Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts.
And the Walter Cerf Medal for Outstanding Achievement in the Arts went to Newfane author Castle Freeman, recognizing a body of work that includes seven novels, dozens of short stories, and volumes of essays, articles and other nonfiction writing.
Broadcast on Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2019 at noon; rebroadcast at 7 p.m.
