{"id":304,"date":"2012-01-07T14:43:41","date_gmt":"2012-01-07T21:43:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/?p=304"},"modified":"2012-01-07T15:14:06","modified_gmt":"2012-01-07T22:14:06","slug":"bass-ackwards-audience-development-grants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/2012\/01\/bass-ackwards-audience-development-grants\/","title":{"rendered":"BASS ACKWARDS: Audience Development Grants"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Forgive me if I don’t get overly excited from this week’s NEWS<\/a><\/strong> that OPERA America has awarded nearly\u00a0$200,000 in “Audience Development” grants to 16 opera companies.<\/p>\n

Their announcement\u00a0proclaims that the\u00a0“Audience Development grants help opera companies to implement community engagement activities that develop new audiences for American opera and music-theater, engage diverse audiences, deepen current audiences\u2019 understanding and appreciation of new and existing American works, and increase the participation of audiences in a company\u2019s activities.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Those are some mighty\u00a0big ambitions for grants that average just\u00a0$12,500.\u00a0 Don’t you think?<\/strong><\/div>\n
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The announcement goes on to explain that these awards were decided by an esteemed panel; culled from 29 applications\u00a0“based on the merit of the project, quality of the project concept, artistic merit, the strength of appropriate partnerships and the resources of the company, including the ability to fully evaluate the project.”<\/em><\/div>\n
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There’s an\u00a0awful\u00a0lot of time, thought & effort in that process, too.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/div>\n
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Here’s what\u00a0troubles me:<\/div>\n