Each month we’ll feature a handful of arts and community-based organizations and their programs and projects funded by the Delaware Division of the Arts in our Arts Spotlight which will be included on our monthly e-newsletter, Arts E-News and online. If you haven’t signed up yet for Arts E-News, please do so here.

Funding for Division of the Arts grants is provided by the Delaware General Assembly and the National Endowment for the Arts. To view past grants awarded (1999 to present), please visit our Grants Awarded page.

Grant Types: GOS – General Operating Support; PS – Project Support

December 2020

Delaware ChoralArts
Holiday Concert
Wilmington
GOS

A free, live-streamed evening of holiday music featuring DCA members and friends in small groups, duets and solos recorded in a variety of locations, both indoors and outdoors; and holiday sing-along carols for our audience to share in from home. The event will be simulcast on Facebook and YouTube.

Market Street Music
Concerts Two Ways
Wilmington
GOS

Market Street Music has embarked on a COVID-19-necessitated but exciting series of six concerts this season. Three are offered in the fall and three in the spring. Attendance for a very small audience of 20 is offered for each concert to top supporters of Market Street Music. These concerts are professionally video recorded using multiple cameras and released onto our YouTube channel in two halves for a wider audience to view. This gives performers the pleasure of making music for a live audience – something performers everywhere are sorely missing – and audience members the convenience of watching these concerts from the comfort and safety of their homes. All events this season are offered to all free of admission charge. A much wider audience is reached through these virtual concerts than is possible for live concerts presented even in “normal” times. Festival Concert – Virtually: Cartoon Christmas Trio goes live the week of December 13.

Our first pair of concerts has been on YouTube since November. There are 63 views for one and 98 for the other, and the views increase each day. We would not have reached this size audience with a live concert by itself – even in “normal” times.

Newark Arts Alliance
Holiday Art Market
Newark
GOS

The Holiday Art Market is an annual craft show that is offered for six weeks in the main gallery at the Newark Arts Alliance. Featured artists include Val Walton, Eleanor Fink, Sarah Dressler, Terry Foreman, Carole Fox, Suzanne Gaadt, Karen Hornor, Wendi Jacobs, Gilda Jennings, Kelly Martin, Stephanie Przybylek, Annie Sinton, and Mary Jane Tyrie. Work in all media will be offered for sale with the majority of work under $50. Artist-made ornaments are also offered. Additional work is offered in the Members’ Gallery Shop.
This event attracts 500 shoppers over six weeks each year and sells over $15,000 worth of locally made art made by 75+ artists featured in both the Holiday Art Market and the Members’ Gallery Shop. This provides support to local artists as well as offering the community an alternative shopping experience during the holidays.

New Light Theatre
Songs for a New World
Bear
StartUp

Jason Robert Brown’s stunning song cycle asks what we do when our seemingly stable world is upended in a moment, and we are asked to leap into uncharted territory, learning new rules, and navigating new routes to survival and happiness. While each song of the show exists in isolation, Songs for a New World ultimately reminds us that through community, the human spirit is resilient, and together, “we’ll be fine.”

New Light Theatre’s mission is to use each production to raise awareness and support for thematically connected charitable organizations that bring light to the darkness of the world. In accordance with this mission, Songs for a New World partners with the Theatre Philadelphia Emergency Relief fund, which provides financial assistance for local theatre artists whose livelihood has been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Yuletide 11/21/2019

Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library
Celebrate the Holidays at Winterthur
Winterthur
GOS

Over the forty-plus years since Yuletide at Winterthur began, it has become one of the Brandywine Valley’s most beloved traditions. Many visitors return year after year to see the ancestral home of Henry Francis du Pont decked out for the holidays, either in the style of American celebrations of Yuletide through history, or as Mr. du Pont would decorate and celebrate with his own family. This year, Celebrate the Holidays remakes the grand tradition, adding a schedule of dazzling events to the best of years past.

Among the new activities, visitors can enjoy wandering outdoors from the greenhouses to Oak Hill to discover exquisite exterior décor designed by Winterthur’s horticulturists and floral designers, including a cascade of holiday splendor that enhances the water features of the Glade Garden and whimsical delights in Enchanted Woods.

Special events and programs include a ride on the Santa Tram to see Santa Claus in Enchanted Woods, pajama nights and crafting workshops for the kids, concerts, caroling, live ice carving demos, bonfires and s’mores, floral design workshops, Gerald Dickens’ virtual performance of A Christmas Carol, pop-up shops, musical performances such as Wine and Jazz nights and a series of concerts, “Sounds of the Season” by The Choir School of Delaware.

Perhaps most exciting, the Winterthur house serves as the backdrop for a du Pont family Christmas story told through 3D images, video, lights, and sounds in a unique holiday experience created by PaintScaping, a world leader in 3D projection mapping. The 5-min show will run every fifteen minutes, 5:15–8:45 pm, December 1–12.

For the first time, Winterthur is open on Christmas Day for a special WinterFest celebration of traditions from around the world, including performances, crafts, and games. The season ends with New Year’s Calling, a celebration of the larger du Pont family’s annual visits and gift exchanges—even as Winterthur reshapes its own traditions for the future.

The projects above are supported, in part, by a grant from the Delaware Division of the Arts, a state agency, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts. The Division promotes these and other Delaware arts events on DelawareScene.com.

The Division offers a variety of grant programs for individual artists; nonprofit, tax-exempt organizations chartered and based in Delaware; and schools and government entities that support arts activities. View a full list of Division grants on the Grants Overview page.