Coca-Cola Sponsors Year of the Arts
The Coca-Cola Foundation will be the primary sponsor of Wake Forest University’s Year of the Arts, a year-long celebration of the arts beginning in September.
The Year of the Arts marks the start of the university’s plans to develop each year a series of events, including a major symposium, around a common theme. As one element of the Plan for the Class of 2000, the university’s comprehensive plan to enrich undergraduate education, each year’s series is intended to become a focus of intellectual and social life on the campus.
Opera legend Beverly Sills will open the year with an address Sept. 24. Four days later, Wake Forest will host the Sept. 28 world premiere of “Since Dawn (A Tone Poem for Narrator, Chorus, and Orchestra based on Maya Angelou’s ‘On the Pulse of Morning’).” Created by Wake Forest’s composer-in-residence Dan Locklair, “Since Dawn” will be performed by the Winston-Salem Piedmont Triad Symphony with Angelou as narrator. Angelou is Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest.
The Coca-Cola Foundation, based in Atlanta at the worldwide headquarters of the soft drink company, contributed $25,000 to the Year of the Arts activities. The foundation supports education and cultural programs around the world.
“We are impressed with the scope of diverse opportunities for cultural education which the Year of the Arts plan offers Wake Forest students,” said Donald R. Greene, president of The Coca-Cola Foundation. “We applaud this creative approach to developing social and intellectual activities connected to major themes relevant to students as they move from their freshman year to their graduation in the year 2000.”
“The aim of the Year of the Arts is to encourage participation in and support for the university’s arts programs,” says James Dodding, Wake Forest theater professor and primary organizer of the Year of the Arts. Dodding also hopes to call attention to the value of the arts in society.
“Sponsorship by The Coca-Cola Foundation has enabled the university to add events to the year’s focus on the arts,” said Sandra Boyette, Wake Forest’s vice president for public affairs.
Other key events will include a special art exhibit, “Works From Alumni Collections: Color Function Painting and William Hogarth Prints,” to be shown in the Wake Forest University Fine Arts Gallery from August through October.
During the spring semester, a printmaking workshop will bring North American printmakers to campus throughout the year to teach and produce print suites that will be available to collectors.
On March 1-2, 1997, Wake Forest will host “Joy’s Legacy: Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony,” a Beethoven festival that will include a performance of the composer’s ninth symphony. A scholarly symposium and faculty/student recital will be part of the festival.
Wake Forest music professor David Levy, who organized the festival, recently published the book “Beethoven: The Ninth Symphony.”
A two-day symposium, entitled “The Arts in the New Century,” is scheduled for March 21-22, 1997. Art critics, artists, historians and scholars will discuss the role of the arts in society–in education, the media and health.
The Wake Forest theater department, with the help of playwright Romulus Linney, will host a Festival of New Plays in February 1997 to showcase plays written by Wake Forest students, alumni and faculty.
In addition to providing support for the Year of the Arts program, the Coca-Cola Foundation also provides funding for the Babcock Graduate School of Management.
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