The Arrowhead Regional Arts Council received 28 applications requesting $140,000 from artists working in three different disciplines for their Arts and Cultural Heritage Individual Artist Fellowship Program. Of those who applied, eight artists received fellowships of $5,000 each.
Among the artists who were awarded fellowships was Elizabeth Jaakola of Cloquet, a musician with a proficiency in singing and writing music in a variety of styles: classical "American," traditional Anishinaabe, jazz, blues and folk. She has been a resident vocal artist/teacher at Banff Centre for the Arts in Banff, Canada, for three years; her women's hand drum group received the 2009 Native American Music Award for "Best Traditional Recording"; and she just recorded a piece she co-wrote for Michael Barone's MPR show "Pipe Dreams."
Her Anishinaabe Youth Chorus is finishing their fourth year performing songs she has written and arranged and she has composed an operetta, "Mishomi" which will be workshopped in spring 2011 through IndigeNOW, an Indigenous opera collaborative.
She will use the fellowship funds to work with elders at three reservations to learn, arrange and preserve less known traditional music. She and her musical groups will offer music to the communities in exchange for the musical instruction she will receive from the elders.
For further information about grants and other ARAC services, contact: Robert A. DeArmond, Arrowhead Regional Arts Council,1301 Rice Lake Rd, Ste 111, Duluth, MN 55811, 218-722-0952 or 1-800-569-8134, e-mail info@aracouncil.org , or online at www.ARACouncil.org .
