Mayor Walsh appoints three new members to the Boston Cultural Council

With these additions, the Boston Cultural Council now includes representatives from every City Council District and Boston’s wide array of arts and culture disciplines.

 “These women and men volunteer their time to the Boston Cultural Council to help the City of Boston determine how best to allocate funds to arts and cultural organizations that improve the quality of life for all of us in Boston,” said Mayor Walsh. “We are very fortunate to have so much knowledge and experience on this year’s council. I am confident the Boston Cultural Council will help the City of Boston have an even greater impact now that we have increased support from City Hall by matching the Massachusetts Cultural Council’s funding.”  

The Boston Cultural Council has begun evaluating applications for the 2015 grant funding cycle and will announce recipients for grants totaling $320,000 in February. This year, the guidelines were revised:

• Applications are now open to organizations based outside Boston whose primary programming takes place in Boston.
• Project specific grants are now eligible for funding. Projects must exhibit a tangible benefit to the city of Boston. Example: performance, workshop, festival, exhibitions, and/or demonstration.
• Fiscal Year 2014 grant applicants could apply for Fiscal Year 2015.
• Disciplines will not be rotated in FY15. Applications were accepted for music, film and video, traditional and folk arts, visual arts, theatre, dance, humanities, literary arts, multi-discipline, and field trips.

The three new Boston Cultural Council members include:  

Sarah Edrie is a Dorchester resident and graduate of Emerson College. Her arts advocacy started when she landed in Boston, fresh from the North Dakota farm where she grew up, and began a work-study job at the Cutler Majestic Theatre, helping to restore the old theatre to its present glory. Some nights people can find her alter ego, Edrie Edrie, playing the accordion for the local rock group Walter Sickert & the Army of Broken Toys. 

Ann Moritz is principal of Moritz Advisory Group where she has consulted to organizations with an emphasis on cultural and educational priorities. She co-designed the program Building Alliances across Race for Women Leaders. Ann serves on the Executive Committee of Commonwealth Compact, as well as the Steering Committee of Boston Busing/Desegregation Project. The annual Gospel Night at the Boston Pops began with the initiative of a BSO Diversity Committee that Ann helped design. Ann served as trustee for Outward Bound in Boston, where she developed and led the board’s Diversity and Inclusion Committee. She devoted most of her 12+ years at the Boston Globe supervising its Human Relations operations. Ann serves as adjunct faculty at Lesley University.  

Shawn Radley is the owner of Developing Artist Management and Talent Buyer for Kendall Concerts. He brings over 20 years experience in concert promotion, artist management and talent buying at all levels, having worked with local and regional artists as well as multi-platinum recording artists in all facets of their careers.

Returning Boston Cultural Council members include Lisa Bello, Tory Bullock, Aubre Carreón Aguilar, Sue Dahling Sullivan, Nia Grace, Stephanie Janes, Derek Lumpkins, Yvonne Ng, Abigail Norman, Chika Offurum, Yaritza Pena, and Priscilla Rojas.

Boston Cultural Council:    The Boston Cultural Council (BCC), under the umbrella of the Mayor’s Office of Arts + Culture, annually distributes funds allocated by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency, to support innovative arts, humanities, and interpretive sciences programming that enhances the quality of life in our city. The BCC is part of a network of 329 Local Cultural Councils serving all 351 cities and towns in the Commonwealth. The LCC Program is the largest grassroots cultural funding network in the nation, supporting thousands of community-based projects in the arts, sciences, and humanities every year. The state legislature provides an annual appropriation to the Massachusetts Cultural Council, which then allocates funds to each community. The BCC is comprised of 15 Boston residents appointed by Mayor Martin J. Walsh to serve for up to six years each. The BCC reviews applications during a series of fall meetings conducted to evaluate the overall quality of proposed programming and its potential benefit to diverse audiences in the neighborhoods of Boston. For more information, visit the Cultural Council website.