2010 Horizon Awards

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2010 Horizon Awards

24-Apr-2010

The Fresno Arts Council (FAC) is pleased to announce its Annual 2010 Horizon Awards, celebrating 25 years of honoring those dedicated to excellence in the arts. The award is given to recognize individuals, organizations and businesses that have made significant contributions toward the enrichment of life in our community through excellence in the Arts.

You are invited to the Horizon Awards Ceremony on Wednesday, May 12, 2010 at 5:30 p.m. in the Council Chambers of Fresno City Hall. A reception in the foyer immediately following the ceremony by Patty Ochinero Catering. Tickets are $20 per person (12 years and under are free) and are available on-line: www.fresnoartscouncil.org, or call the FAC office at 559.237-9734. You may also purchase tickets that evening at the ceremony. Please RSVP to Maria Franco at: mfranco@fresnoartscouncil.org.

The following are the 2010 Horizon Awards recipients and categories:

Artist: Edna Garabedian, California Opera Association, and Agustin Lira & Patricia Wells Solorzano, El Teatro de la Tierra
Business: Jacqueline Doumanian, CSU Summer Arts
Citizen: Catherine M. Rehart
Ella Odorfer Educator: Dr. Corrinne Hales
Special: Stephanie Pearl, Downtown Community Arts Collective
Youth: Anne Rempel, Edison High School

Artist: Edna Garabedian, a 1972 graduate with a degree in music, who went on to an international career as a dramatic mezzo soprano, as opera founder, master teacher, coach and stage director continues to perform to critical and popular acclaim on stage and film throughout the United States, Europe and Asia. The vast number of roles she has portrayed in the world’s most revered opera houses is coupled with her honor of achieving opera’s most prestigious opera awards, including the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow and Nationals of the Metropolitan Opera competitions. As an educator, she devotes her life to opera world-wide and to the City of Fresno, founding the Fresno Grand Opera and California Opera Association, providing Fresno youth and emerging artists education for the professional opera stage, culminating in free fully staged premieres of contemporary operas and fresh staging of traditional opera works for the Fresno public and school children throughout California. A third generation Fresnan, she has been appointed an Ambassador of Cultural Arts for provinces of China, and as a visiting scholar to Asia, Mexico, Europe and South America, Edna is revered for her therapeutic success in rehabilitating voices and imparting the good will of Fresno to international locales, actively recruiting artists worldwide to Fresno for study and performance. She is recognized for her commitment, creativity and excellence.

Artist: Agustin Lira, born in Torreon Coahuila, Mexico, emigrated to Lordsburg, New Mexico with his family in 1945. At age 7 his family moved to California and settled in Selma as farm workers. In 1965, at age 19, Agustin co-founded El Teatro Campesino with Luis Valdez, creating songs and plays and performing and touring throughout the United States. Campesino received the New York Off Broadway and Los Angeles Drama Critic’s Circle awards and appeared at the Newport Folk Festival, and also featured in Newsweek, Time and Wall Street Journal. Leaving Campesino in 1969, Agustin formed El Teatro de la Tierra and performed throughout the Los Angeles metropolitan and surrounding areas. Forming the musical group Alma in 1979 with Patricia Wells Solorzano, he performed at national and international festivals throughout the world. In 2007 Agustin was the recipient of the National Endowment of the Arts, National Heritage Fellow award. Other accomplishments include music for films and recordings; in 2008 his music appeared in the film documentary, Viva La Causa! and Songs of Social Justice. He was highlighted prominently on the Smithsonian Folkways retrospective, Rolas de Aztlan: Songs of the Chicano Movement, 2006. Performances from Edwards Auditorium, Honors Colloquium, URI Foundation, Hispanic American Portraits of Success award, 2008; California Latino Legislative Caucus award, 2007 and Local Hero award, 2006.

Artist: Patricia Wells Solórzano musician and actor, was born and raised on the California-Mexico border where she was influenced by music from both countries. She met Agustin Lira in 1975 while she was a student at CSU Northridge. Patricia studied voice and guitar with Agustin, performing locally then Statewide. Together they recorded and toured nationally as a duet, and later as Trio Alma with Bassist Ravi Knypstra. Memorable performances include the Smithsonian Institute’s American Folklife Festival in Washington D.C.; Mexico’s Premier Festival Cervantino Internacional de las Artes in Guanajuato, Mexico; University of Rhode Island Honors Colloquium Series on Music of Struggle and others. An administrator for Teatro de la Tierra and manager and tour coordinator of Alma and Teatro Inmigrante. She was a recipient of the California Arts Council AIR - Artists in Communities award. In 2000 she and Agustin founded Teatro Inmigrante. In 2004 Patricia co-wrote and co-directed a play, The Music of Life, the Story of Candelaria Arroy. She and Agustin collaborated on Regeneración, Ricardo Flores Magon and the Mexican Revolution of 1910. Patricia received the Rebozo award; Woman of the Year from the Latin American Club; Premio Mujer from Caminante Cultural Work in San Francisco; Woman of the Year for International Women’s Day; Calaca Press San Diego and others. She appears in Victoria Alvarado’s 2009 book, Mujeres de Conciencia, recognizing seventy-five California Latinas for their life-time contributions and commitment to their communities; she is also in the URI’s new book and CD release: Songs of Social Justice, Changing the World One Song at a Time by Stephen Wood, Paul Bueno de Mesquita and Kalyana Champlain.

Business: Jacqueline Doumanian has always enjoyed combining her diverse interests to serve the community in which she lives. Since 2005 she has held the position of Community Relations Specialist for California State University Summer Arts, a dynamic program of master classes in the arts plus an arts festival that has brought talent from all over the world for Fresno and surrounding communities to enjoy. Jackie holds two Master of Arts degrees and is also a certified yoga and meditation teacher. She has enjoyed teaching at Fresno State, Fresno City College, Holy Names University, and is currently an adjunct professor for the University of San Diego. From 1979 to 1992, she owned and operated a specialty retail store, Not Just Paper. Her community contributions through this business, public speaking engagements and workshops in relation to women in business, twice earned her the recognition of Fresno’s Top Ten Professional and Business Women of the Year award. As a founding member of Gallery 25, Jackie is passionate about the Fresno Art Council’s ArtHop. She currently serves as a board member for Valley Public Radio and CSU Fresno’s College of Arts and Humanities. Jackie and her husband, Ray, are both committed to help enrich Fresno’s artistic and cultural environment.

Ella Odorfer Educator: Dr. Corrinne Clegg Hales has published four collections of poetry: two full-length books, Separate Escapes (Ashland Poetry Press), winner of the Richard Snyder Poetry Prize and Underground (Ahsahta Press); and two chapbooks: January Fire (Devil’s Millhopper Press), winner of the Devil’s Millhopper award and Out of This Place (March Street Press). Her poems have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies including, Hudson Review, New England Review, Southern Review, Arts and Letters, Prairie Schooner and Ploughshares, among others. Corrinne has earned many awards including two National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship Grants and the River Styx International Poetry Competition. She earned her BA and MA degrees at University of Utah and her Ph.D. at State University of New York at Binghamton. Residing in Fresno since 1985, Corrinne is a professor of English in the Fresno State’s Master of Fine Arts Program in Creative Writing. She received the California Association of Teachers of English (CATE) Teacher of the Year award in 2004; the CSU, Fresno Provost’s award for Graduate Mentoring and Teaching in 2007; and has been (numerous times) both a course coordinator and guest artist for the CSU Summer Arts program. Corrinne has been an active board member of the Fresno Poets Association for two decades, served as coordinator of the Young Writer’s Conference for many years, collaborated with the Fresno County Library on the Branching Out poetry lecture and reading series, and (with her students) started the Poetry in Motion program (in conjunction with FAX) to post poetry on Fresno City buses.

Citizen: Catherine M. Rehart’s family arrived in Fresno in 1873. She was born in the Sample Sanitarium on Fulton Street and has three children. Cathy is a second-generation graduate of Fresno State with a BA in English and History. She served as first Vice-Chairwoman for the Historic Preservation Commission for the City of Fresno and as a member of the Fresno County Landmarks and Records Advisory Commission. From 1986 to 1994, Cathy held the position of Education/Information Director for the Fresno Historical Society, while there she served on a committee of the Fresno County Office of Education. She helped write a book on the history of Fresno County called, Fresno County: a Story of Diversity and Change, which became part of the curriculum for all third grade classrooms in Fresno City and County schools. Cathy served as Executive Secretary for the Friends of the Fresno County Library from 2001 to 2007. Her work as a free lance writer includes writing the scripts for Legends and Legacies of the Valley, a series of historical vignettes, which air five days a week on KMJ Radio, as well as other writing projects on local history. The Legends and Legacies program is celebrating 20 years on July 1, 2010. Cathy published several books, including the six-volume The Valley’s Legends and Legacies; The Heartland’s Heritage, an Illustrated History of Fresno County, and the first Fresno County History written by a woman; and Celebrate the Journey written in collaboration with three other historians. During the Fresno County Sesquicentennial, she served as a history consultant on the film Land Between Rivers.

Special: Stephanie Pearl has lived in California her entire life. A native of Madera, She has formal artistic training, but is primarily self-taught. Stephanie is a modern contemporary artist utilizing acrylic and mixed media on canvas and wood to express her view of the natural world. She moved to San Francisco in 1988 after high school graduation, while there she attended museums and gallery openings. Stephanie focused on her passion for creation and studied Picasso, Segal, and others. In such an influential location and significant time for art, she focused on her experiences and created bonds with others. Migrating to Fresno in 1994, she begins to pursue what was to be her future. Initially, Pearl manipulated the three dimensional form, constructing collage and box assemblage. Soon, she began working with wire sculpture and metals, then canvas and wood surfaces, for over a decade. In 2008 Stephanie, inspired to share her love of art with those less likely to have the opportunity to experience the joy of creating, founded the Downtown Community Arts Collective (DCAC) Studio, along with Andrew Watrous and Aimee Brantly. Her passion is working with the underserved; from volunteering at the Blind Center to working with Fresno’s Food Not Bombs organization in her teens. DCAC affords Stephanie the opportunity to give back to her community in a way that is rewarding and relevant. Having gathered inspiration through many, she is now playing a different role as inspiration to others.

Youth: Anne Rempel, a senior at Edison High School has been exploring, performing and creating in all disciplines of art since a very young age. Her artistic roots took hold in classes offered at the studio of artists Dal and Suzanne Henderson and have grown as she has expands her abilities encompassing music, writing and drama along with visual arts. Anne is the second chair oboist in the Youth Philharmonic Orchestra of Fresno, studying under Rachel Aldrich, and is in the Bell and Chancel Choir at First Congregational Church of Fresno. She has written for the Fresno Bee’s BackTalk section as a teen press corps journalist. In her school’s Glee Club and drama department, was cast as a lead actress and soloist in the production of All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten and High School Non-Musical. Anne’s artistic talent has developed in the past year after attending CSU Summer Arts. As the youngest member of her Florentine figure drawing and contemporary painting courses, her painting was chosen to be included in the CSU Chancellor’s Office exhibit and catalog. Anne was involved on a mural project in her high school’s art department building. She focuses many of her paintings and drawings on depicting the struggle of homeless people throughout Fresno and hopes to use her pieces in fundraisers benefiting the homeless. Anne anticipates new opportunities in the arts at Stanford University this fall.