And now a message from Gila Valley Arts Council President, Tom Green:

GILA VALLEY ARTS COUNCIL Membership Newsletter May 2023
The times…they are a changing!
Greetings everyone,
I hope that everyone has been enjoying this wonderfully wet spring season. I want to share with you some of the changes that Gila Valley Arts Council is going through currently with respect to our upcoming 2023-2024 performing arts season. Because of some local schools changing their school calendars, we had to look at making changes to the months that will best serve them.
In a nutshell, Safford Unified Schools adopted a new calendar that has expanded its Spring Break in March to 2 full weeks and as well a new 2 week Fall Break during the first 2 weeks of October and their new 2 week Christmas Break shifted to beginning just a few days before December 25 and returning to classes a week later in January. We modified our schedule to include 2 artists in the Fall Semester, September 20, 2023 and on November 15, 2023. In the Spring Semester we will present artists February 7, 2024 and on March 6, 2024. As a working board, we believe this will give both us, and the schools, some breathing room in between artists to help everyone enjoy our artists fully.
We’re also looking at some changes in our ticketing procedures and pricing, but don’t have that worked out just yet. We will hopefully mail out season ticket renewal packets no later than the end of June. In the meantime, I wanted you all to get a statistical review from our completed 2022-2023 Season. Our residency chair, Paulette LeBlanc prepares a summary every year for our board to understand just what we’ve accomplished from our hard work. In this newsletter, you will get to see the exact numbers vs the condensed summaries I have normally shared each year. This detailed summary gives me, as a volunteer, validation and inspiration for what I, our board and you, our sustaining members accomplish each year in our community. It’s a pretty cool report.
Also, We’re very happy to let you know we’re solidifying a relationship with the Safford-Graham County Library, continuing to showcase our own artists and now also, throwing some financial sup port to the Library’s Early Childhood Education programs.
Following these great reports, please check out the information about the interesting slate of artists we have contracted with for our upcoming 2023-2024 season. I hope that the variety of genres we’re going to bring is to your liking and as importantly to the benefit of our school children: a bluegrass band, a brass quintet, one of the best Mariachi orchestras in the world and an interesting world music quartet: cello, oboe, guitar and drum. I’m excited.
As many of you know, our Artistic Director, Dr. Jack Kukuk, has been instrumental in helping us find the artists that we bring. Jack is also the Artistic Director for the Gold Canyon Arts Council and this year, 3 of our artists are block booked because of his great efforts. Thank you Jack!
I hope you all have a very pleasant summer,
Tom Green, President
Gila Valley Arts Council
Participation Report for 2022-23

For the rest of the letter including the annual participation report, sponsors and upcoming performances you can download the letter in its entirety below.