By Barb Van Atta

The Broome County Arts Council (BCAC) is awarding $225,225 in United Cultural Funds (UCF) grants this year to 30 local arts organizations, community non-profits and individual artists. That’s the largest number of recipients in the past 24 years, said BCAC Executive Director Nancy Barno Reynolds.

For 2020, UCF grants will help provide general operating support for six major arts organizations: the Binghamton Philharmonic, the Endicott Performing Arts Center, the Goodwill Theatre, the Roberson Museum and Science Center, LUMA and Tri-Cities Opera.

Two dozen project grants were awarded to projects ranging from small stage theater productions to large community events, from poetry writing to art restoration, from community art to original theater productions and film. Recipients are:

  • Alexander Griffin, dba Dream Coordinator Productions
    “Feel the Flames: A Unique Theatrical Experience Featuring the Music of Metallica”
  • Andrew Bemis Chenango Sessions
  • Binghamton Community Orchestra concert with guest conductor Dan Fabricius
  • Binghamton Downtown Singers 2020 Spring Concert featuring the Faure “Requiem”
  • Binghamton Theater Organ Society Pop Pipes: Women
  • Binghamton University Foundation Binghamton Center for Writers: The Binghamton Poetry Project
  • Binghamton Youth Symphony 2020 season annual spring concert
  • Bundy Museum of History & Art free art lessons for children in the community
  • Cooperative Extensions Association in the State of New York – Broome County Much Ado in the Garden
  • Doug Beardsley songs from “Spoon River Anthology”
  • Kopernik Society of Broome County 5th EXPOSURE: A Screening of Art Films with Astronomical Images
  • Lindsey Williams Morceau de Concert et Croissant
  • Michael Ricciardi Love You to The Moon
  • Nanticoke Valley Historical Society of Maine Plein Air art event Maine, NY 2020
  • Madrigal Choir of Binghamton The Beethoven Circle: Choral Works of Beethoven, His Teachers and Contemporaries 
  • Phelps Mansion Museum Chamber Music at the Phelps
  • Safe Streets NoMa Community Music Series
  • Southern Tier Singers’ Collective Chant from the Convent of La Crocetta
  • SPARE Productions “Puffs”
  • SRO Productions III the musical “Dogfight”
  • Summer Savoyards The Summer Savoyards present “Ruddigore”
  • Temple Concord Music in the Kilmer Mansion spring concert
  • The Discovery Center engaging diverse local artists and area residents in the refurbishment of Blossom the Bull
  • Vestal Museum Important Regional Women and Their Contribution to History

The 2020 campaign raised a total of $271,134, 15 percent of which is reserved for the BCAC’s general operations and programming. Major donors, advocates, benefactors and patrons, whose charitable gifts help make UCF grants possible, include the Stewart W. & Willma C. Hoyt Foundation, Broome County Government, the Dr. G. Clifford & Florence B. Decker Foundation, the Miller S. & Adelaide S. Gaffney Foundation, the IBM Corporation, BGM Foundation, Lyubov and Dorollo Nixon, Jr., the Security Mutual Life Insurance Co. of New York, Tyrone & Crystal Muse, Eugene & Judith Peckham, NBT Bank,  Donald Boros, Columbian Financial Group and other local businesses and individuals who believe in the value of arts investment

Last year, UCF grantees collectively returned more than $3 million dollars to Broome County’s economy. Since 1987, the Broome County Arts Council’s United Cultural Fund has distributed more than $11 million to the arts in Broome County, serving over 100,000 residents.

Broome County is one of only five communities in New York, and 44 nationwide, with an active combined campaign for the arts.