Latest news with #AFRAM
Yahoo
23-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Baltimore mayor creates new office to unite city arts
BALTIMORE — Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott has created a new office to consolidate all the city's arts offerings from the festivals to film. The Mayor's Office of Arts, Culture, and Entertainment follows the example of cities such as Atlanta, Chicago and Austin, which groups together different genres under one big tent, Scott said Wednesday in a news release, 'improving coordination, growing cultural infrastructure, and driving strategic outcomes.' In addition to hosting such public events as AFRAM and Artscape, the new office will also operate the programs that provide grants to individual artists and cultural groups. These events used to be run by the Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts, the city's previous events-planning and grant-making organization. The city's contract with the financially flagging quasi-governmental agency was terminated last year by Scott. But since then, interim BOPA CEO Robyn Murphy appeared with Scott at news conferences announcing plans for such popular festivals as Artscape. Murphy couldn't be reached immediately for comment. The new office will be directed by Linzy Jackson III, the city's director of external partnerships and the producer of Baltimore's AFRAM and Charm City Live. He will be supported in his new role by Tonya Miller Hall, the mayor's senior adviser for arts and culture. Scott said that Baltimore was visited last year by more than 28 million tourists. 'Baltimore has serious momentum right now,' he said. 'And more and more people are seeing it for themselves.' The news release predicted that creating a centralized agency to manage the city's arts, events, nightlife and film will grow revenues, increase operational efficiency and provide critical assistance for grassroots artists and neighborhood-based cultural organizations. The new agency 'isn't just a new office,' Jackson said in the news release. 'It's a new way of connecting Baltimore and showing who we are. It's where murals meet music, festivals meet film, and community voices take center stage.' _____
Yahoo
14-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Artscape 2025: Headliners, location changes announced for Baltimore arts festival
With less than 100 days to go before Artscape kicks off the summer on Memorial Day weekend, the mayor announced Friday some changes to the city's favorite arts festival, saying this year's iteration would be a 'bold reimagining.' The biggest change Baltimoreans can expect is the location: The festival is moving downtown from Mt. Vernon. The festival's main stage is now outside of City Hall, with an indoor art market inside the Baltimore War Memorial. Some programming will be located underneath the Jones Falls Expressway, where the Baltimore Farmers' Market takes place. The highway will provide some coverage from inclement weather, Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott said, but it will keep the market from happening that Sunday. Storms raged at last year's festival, dampening the fun. The move coincides with the mayor's Downtown Baltimore Rise initiatives, he said. When the festival was in Mt. Vernon, Scott said, it was about lifting that neighborhood. Now the downtown core needs to be lifted, he said. However, festival-goers will not be greeted by the same JFX they know from the farmers' market. Tonya Miller Hall, the mayor's senior adviser of arts and culture, said they will be 'reimagining the murals' and adding a light installation and green spaces across the corridor, which will remain in place after Artscape. Despite the changes, Miller Hall said the festival will be 'bringing back all the favorites' people know and love. The mayor announced the musical headliners for the weekend, with Fantasia playing Saturday and Robin Thicke Sunday. The Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts is still involved with the festival after the city terminated its contract last year. The office is a quasi-governmental entity that serves as the city's arts council. It traditionally put on festivals like Artscape and AFRAM, which the city had previously said it would take on itself. Have a news tip? Contact Racquel Bazos at rbazos@ 443-813-0770 or on X as @rzbworks.
