Arts And Leadership Reimagined
CONTRIBUTED BY AAEA
OPELIKA —
For more than 58 years and 36 Performance Series seasons, the Arts Association of East Alabama has been leading the way in quality arts programming, arts-education initiatives and audience building for the benefit of all our closely-shared communities right here at home.
Our leadership and vision for what’s possible have also resonated with other arts organizations and venues across the state, as they found encouragement in the work we do and inspiration for their own efforts in developing innovative arts programming for their respective communities. The roots of those local and broader relationships over time have grown deeper and continue to spread, serving people throughout this great state in ways that only the transcendent language of the arts can.
The art of leadership, then, is to recognize, be prepared for and be willing to pursue new, meaningful opportunities to bring people together in discovery, mutual respect and common understanding.
Indeed, that is the challenge of our times. Fortunately, the creative spirit, which rests in all of us, is more than up to it. When the language we speak has the vowels and consonants of music, theater, dance, storytelling, literature, poetry, painting, sculpture and multi-media forms of all those and more; in folk tradition, classical tradition and popular tradition, we will seek and find comfort in the familiar, thrill in the new and encouragement in the aspiration to continue the dialog and keep learning from each other.
So here it is, the 2023-2024 Performance Series — a coming together of this community more as an audience of participants than as spectators; greeting artists who arrive here from throughout the nation and world to perform on a stage in a uniquely warm and welcoming space; and celebrating the very best of the hard-working, committed talent living here amongst us; all while connecting and communicating in a fellowship of the arts that elevates our common language into a poetry of the spirit.
Performances include The Johnny Cash Experience on Oct. 17, Sacred Spaces on Nov. 9, Brian Stokes Mitchell on Dec. 5, Canadian Brass on Jan. 25, 2023, The King’s Singers on Feb. 24, The Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra on March 4, Jonathan Dely on April 3 and Mandy Gonzalez on May 2.
For ticket information visit www.eastalabamaarts.org/.
