Ardea Arts Receives Audience Development Grant from OPERA America for BOUNCE The Basketball Opera

Ardea Arts is proud to announce that it has been awarded The Opera Fund: Audience Development Grant from OPERA America for BOUNCE The Basketball Opera (in partnership with University of Kentucky Opera Theatre), composed by Glen Roven, Tomás Doncker and Ansel Elgort, written by Charles R. Smith Jr., concept and direction by Grethe Barrett Holby.

BOUNCE The Basketball Opera synthesizes the power of opera with the grittiness of street rhythms, electronic dance music, rap and gospel. The opera brings a story focusing on issues of gun violence and the school to prison pipeline, to a stage where an audience may already be found - the basketball court. Local basketball players, youth and community leaders perform side by side with a diverse professional cast to bring this story of resilience to life in their own communities. Ardea Arts, partnering with UK Opera Theatre, will premiere BOUNCE this fall in Lexington, Kentucky on November 17, 18, and 19th, fostering relationships and collaborations among people who may not otherwise work together, with the aim of bridging divides within our society through art.

OPERA America, the national service organization for opera and the nation's leading champion for American opera, awarded grants to 10 opera companies through The Opera Fund: Audience Development grant program, which promotes deep learning experiences about new or infrequently produced American operas and music-theater works. Each grant supports audience development activities associated with a specific work being produced by a Professional Company Member of OPERA America.

A total of $160,000 has been awarded to the following 10 opera companies: Ardea Arts (New York, NY), Des Moines Metro Opera, Fort Worth Opera, Long Beach Opera, North Carolina Opera (Raleigh, NC), Opera Omaha, Opera Roanoke, Pensacola Opera, Pittsburgh Festival Opera (formerly Opera Theater of Pittsburgh) and Pittsburgh Opera.

ARDEA ARTS is the premiere company in the U.S. creating new, high-quality opera-theater works for multi-generational and general audiences, creating and producing provocative new works of music-theater and opera to entertain, challenge and inspire today's diverse global community, uplift the human spirit, and encourage new ways of seeing our world. The company was founded in 2006 by Grethe Barrett Holby to create a substantial new repertory with the goal of bringing the opera experience to a widely diverse audience, performing both within and far outside the opera house, and the commitment to engage the community in the process and performance of the work. Learn more about ARDEA Arts' history, mission and repertory at www.ARDEAarts.com.

Family Opera Initiative (FOI), a major initiative of Ardea Arts, was established by Holby in 1995, originally as a program of American Opera Projects. FOI has commissioned and developed a repertory of opera-works the holiday opera Flurry Tale by Rusty Magee & Billy Aronson; the swashbuckling Sir Gawain and the Green Knight by Richard Peaslee & Kenneth Cavander; the summer pageant Fireworks by Kitty Brazelton & Billy Aronson which premiered in 2002 in Fort Greene Park, Brooklyn NY; Animal Tales by George Plimpton, Kitty Brazelton, and Grethe Holby, about "having the gumption to spread ones wings" (World Concert Premiere March 25, 2017), as well as the accompanying Cat's Tale for younger audiences. FOI has also premiered Glen Roven's Goodnight Moon & Plums- five songs for kidsduring FOI's summer performances in Southampton, NY, David Wolfson's 10-minute gem Maya's Ark based on a true story from inner-city Newark NJ, and a staged and choregraphed version of Babar, the little elephant with The French Institute FI-AF NYC. Works currently in development are The Three Astronauts, based on the book by Umberto Eco and Eugenio Carmi, by Pulitzer prize winning poet Yusef Komunyakaa, and an international team of writers and composers, and BOUNCE: The Basketball Opera (World Premiere in Lexington KY November 17-19, 2017).

Ardea Arts/FOI has collaborated on these new works with extraordinary artists unexpected in the field of family entertainment. Performances have been and are being co-produced with University of Kentucky Opera Theatre, French Institute- FI-AF NYC, the Garden State Philharmonic, American Opera Projects, the Clark Studio Theater NYC, Fort Greene Park in Brooklyn, TADA! Youth Theatre NYC, Playfest/Orlando Shakespeare Theater FL, NYC's Central Park Zoo, Infinity Music Hall CT, The International Symposium for Personal and Commercial Spaceflight NM, WNYC's The Greene Space, & The Parrish Art Museum, with workshops at Atlantic Center for the Arts, American Opera Projects, Ardea Arts Center, Montclair State University-Peak Performances (NJ), and New York City area schools and community organizations.

Ardea Arts, Inc. is a professional company member of Opera America, International Society of Performing Arts (ISPA), Theater for Young Audiences (TYA), and International Performing Arts for Youth (IPAY). Ardea Arts is a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) corporation. Ardea Arts received its second Art Works award from the National Endowment for the Arts for BOUNCE The Basketball Opera, and two awards from Opera America, including most recently, The Opera Fund: Audience Development grant program.

"OPERA America is committed to expanding and diversifying audiences for American operas and to developing authentic connections between opera companies and the people they serve," stated OPERA America President/CEO Marc A. Scorca. "The most recent grant awardees demonstrate the many ways companies are developing innovative strategies to not only attract audiences, but to increase the civic impact of new works - byengaging generative artists with local communities, developing partnerships with organizations outside the arts, and facilitating dialogue to connect storytelling with contemporary issues."

Applications for The Opera Fund's Audience Development grants were reviewed by an independent panel consisting of Douglas J. Cuomo, composer; Ann Gregg, director, social impact programs, Weill Music Institute, Carnegie Hall; Kristen Jackson, connectivity director, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company; Jonathan Moscone, chief of civic engagement, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts; and Julia Rhoads, artistic director, Lucky Plush Productions.

OPERA America's long tradition of encouraging the creation and production of new works led to the formation of The Opera Fund endowment. Since the inception of the Fund, OPERA America has made grants of more than $13 million to assist companies with the expenses associated with the commissioning and development of new works, as well as related audience development initiatives.

The Opera Fund was launched by the National Endowment for the Arts, and it is funded by The Helen F. Whitaker Fund, Lee Day Gillespie, Lloyd and Mary Ann Gerlach, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the George Cedric Metcalf Charitable Foundation.

OPERA America (operaamerica.org) leads and serves the entire opera community, supporting the creation, presentation and enjoyment of opera.

• Artistic services help opera companies and creative and performing artists to improve the quality of productions and increase the creation and presentation of North American works.
• Information, technical and administrative services to opera companies reflect the need for strengthened leadership among staff, trustees and volunteers.
• Education, audience development and community services are designed to enhance all forms of opera appreciation.

Founded in 1970, OPERA America's worldwide membership network includes 150 Professional Company Members, 250 Associate, Business and Educational Members, 1,200 Individual Members, and 16,000 subscribers to the association's electronic news service. In response to the critical need for suitable audition, rehearsal and recording facilities, OPERA America opened the first-ever NATIONAL OPERA CENTER (operaamerica.org/OperaCenter) in September 2012 in New York City. With a wide range of artistic and administrative services in a purpose-built facility, OPERA America is dedicated to increasing the level of excellence, creativity and effectiveness across the field.