Dubbed the Kokomo Area Performing Arts League, the organization is a joint effort between the Kokomo Park Band, Kokomo Civic Theatre, Kokomo Symphony Orchestra and Curtain Call Theatre for Children.
Stephen Hughes, president of the organization, explained the Kokomo Area Performing Arts League after the Community Foundation made available a collaborative grant for nonprofit organizations. The grant was worth roughly $55,000 a year, paid out over the course of three years.
“We thought that the performing arts were a good candidate for collaborating,” Hughes said.
He added the organization is a restructure of the essentially inactive Kokomo Howard County Arts League.
Specifically, Hughes explained, the Kokomo Area Performing Arts League aims to reduce the overlap of its members’ events and increase the community’s awareness toward the member organizations.
So far, the organization has used the grant funds to hire a digital marketing company that manages social media accounts, and to build a website, kokomoperformingarts.org, that has a calendar listing for each of the member organizations’ events and lists links to each of their websites.
“Our feeling as a group is that we’ve got some great arts organizations in Kokomo, but yet lots of people in Kokomo and Howard County aren’t aware of the existence of those arts groups,” Hughes said. “We thought, if we can get the word out, we can probably increase the attendance at the events of the organizations that are involved.”
The collaboration comes between the celebration of milestones for two of the organization’s members.
The Kokomo Symphony Orchestra wrapped up its 50th anniversary season in May. Meanwhile, the Kokomo Civic Theatre began its 75th season in August.
The two organizations have collaborated to celebrate their anniversaries.
The last concert of the Kokomo Symphony Orchestra’s 50th season was “Sondheim on Sondheim,” a multimedia anthology of American composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim’s work. Civic Theatre performers joined Kokomo Symphony Orchestra musicians on the stage of Indiana University Kokomo’s Havens Auditorium for the concert.
“This is harder. This is much harder than doing a Broadway show,” José Valencia, the Symphony’s creative director, said before the May concert. “These people are singing all the way through the show. There’s very little downtime for the singers. That also means that the orchestra is playing a lot, which is great.”
Before the Symphony’s season kicked off in October 2023, Valencia said the season’s concerts didn’t have an overarching theme. However, he pointed out they would be linked by the orchestra’s collaboration with other organizations.
The Symphony kicked off its 50th season with a commissioned piece and a guest appearance by Alicia Berneche, who grew up performing in the youth orchestra before going on to sing opera across the nation.
Later, it brought in a local choir to perform George Frideric Handel’s “Messiah.”
“We’re really, hopefully, connecting with the community and providing something that they want to listen to, or that can give them some comfort or connection to each other in the community,” Valencia said in October.
Hughes, who is also the executive director of the Civic Theatre, said he appreciated the Symphony’s request to collaborate.
“Both of our organizations draw different people and hopefully combining together, it draws a bigger crowd,” Hughes said in October.
After the concert, he said he was pleased with the shows performed with the orchestra.
“I think having the quality of musicians from this orchestra improved the quality of our singers’ performance,” Hughes said. “So, I think that we were really, really happy with the way it turned out.”
The Kokomo Symphony Orchestra’s 51st season, “Celebrating Communities,” will begin Oct. 19. The first concert is titled “Olympic Enchantment: A Spellbinding Symphony.”
The orchestra’s final show of the season, “Diamond Jubilee Celebration,” will see musicians collaborating with the Civic Theatre again to celebrate its 75th season. It is set for May 17.
“I’m really pleased, because not all organizations make it that long,” Hughes said of the Civic Theatre’s longevity.
He pointed out the Kokomo Park Band is older than the Civic Theatre. The band wrapped up its 122nd season in Foster Park just before Labor Day.
“I think it’s a milestone that we’re still here and still … economically viable, because sometimes organizations just run out of money and can’t can’t exist anymore,” Hughes said. “We’ve been lucky to have enough support from the community and through various grants to keep going.”…Read more by James Bennett III Kokomo Tribune
