With spring in the offing, we’re coming out of our covid-cocoon. We’ve all been vaccinated… you? We hope so, because we have some really great events planned, but we can’t do them until social distancing is in our rearview mirror.

We thought you might be wondering:

• What have you been doing since March 2020 when covid shut you down?
• What do you have coming up?

Since our last event (concert and outreach with the PUBLIQuartet, March 6-7, 2020) FCA has engaged in numerous activities falling into programming, projects, education, and administration.

Community engagement:

Over the summer we moved our community engagement project, Fairbanks Flies, online.

We also hosted the “FCA Fantasy Season” a social media takeover. This was a great success, and we learned a lot about our constituents.

Virtual Season:

We focused on presenting performances challenging to present live. This included the Windsor Symphony Orchestra’s (WSO) entire season, and BodyVox’s “BloodyVox”, bringing dance, which we can never seem to do enough of, and symphony, too big to travel to our audience.

We created a coalition with the University Alaska Fairbanks and the Northern Alaska Environmental Center, and 30 or more other partners for an art/science festival focused on arctic climate change. We’ve submitted grants, grown local support, and plan for an annual multi-day festival to begin September 2022. This is a community development project with great potential impact and we couldn’t be more excited! Our plans include performances, films, and exhibits by locally and internationally recognized artists, with focus on indigenous artists, family friendly activities, academic and non-academic workshops, and opportunities for post event tourism.

Education:

After years of being in and out of classrooms with guest artists, we’ve developed relationships with local music teachers, and are truly impressed by their passion and dedication to their students. Our hearts went out to them – having to teach remotely. After consulting them, we worked with Caitlin Warbelow and Chris Ranney’s TUNE.SUPPLY, to crowd-fund and produce a series of 20 videos, #musicianlife series, with professional musicians – and made them available, right here for free.

Also in consultation with local teachers, we developed a plan for the study, practice, and appreciation of jazz, requested by the Bill Stroecker Foundation. This was funded and we used part of the first grant to fund a new docuseries by the JazzReach organization which will be available to teachers, their students and our community for free.

Admin:

Participated in a safe reopening task force for the state.

Adapted the WolfBrown community covid survey for local use.

Began prep for our 75th anniversary.

Wrote more than 20 grants and covid relief applications.

Served on a national grants panel.

What else?

We also worked on numerous projects we just couldn’t make happen during the pandemic.

We did keep our small staff employed.

We did reschedule what we think might be the most popular season in our long history:

Hering Auditorium:   

• Jane Lynch & Kate Flannery “Two Lost Souls”:  Sunday, September 26, 2021
• Neko Case: Saturday, October 2, 2021 (Rescheduling for spring 2022)
• Chris Thile: Saturday, November 13, 2021
• Lunasa: Friday, December 10, 2021
• Jake Shimabukuro: Friday, January 28, 2022
• Meow Meow: Saturday, March 19, 2022
• BeauSoleil: Friday, April 1, 2022
• Postmodern Jukebox: Friday, May 6, 2022

An Intimate Concert Series:

• Royal Wood: Saturday, November 6, 2021
• International Guitar Night: Sunday, January 9, 2022
• Talisk: Saturday, February 12, 2022
• Small Glories: Saturday, March 26, 2022

This remains tentative because we still don’t know when we can begin presenting again!

Part of this decision has to do with CDC guidelines. (We can’t afford artist and production fees as long as these remain.) But the biggest part has to do with you and when you actually want to attend.

We have a lot to figure out in the meantime. (Like how after 73 years of being a subscription series we structure our sales given this uncertainty, how we keep everyone safe even after social distancing isn’t required, and at what point do we decide if a given event can go forward?)

Meanwhile, we’re contemplating summer just like you and thinking about trying some outdoor events.

As always, everything depends on you!

We miss you!

Love, FCA