Grantmakers in the News
October 1, 2007
Name: John S. and James L. Knight Foundation
Address: Wachovia Financial Ctr., Ste. 3300
200 S. Biscayne Blvd.
Miami, FL 33131-2349
Telephone: 305-908-2600
Fax: 305-908-2698
E-mail: publications@knightfdn.org
URL: www.knightfoundation.org
The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation has awarded $250,000 to Seraphic Fire, a chamber choir in Coral Gables, Florida, to create a professional chamber orchestra in Miami, the Miami Herald reports. According to Seraphic Fire's artistic director, Patrick Dupre Quigley, "We've always wanted to be a European-style chamber orchestra and choir."
Like Seraphic Fire, the new orchestra will be small and flexible, with fourteen to thirty players, and will perform an eclectic mix of early, baroque, and classical-era works along with contemporary music. In its 2008-09 debut season, the orchestra will present four concerts, and while there are no plans as yet for it to perform with Seraphic Fire, such a collaboration is likely.
Lorenzo Lebrija, Miami program director for the Knight Foundation, said the award is part of an effort to support local institutions that are artistically successful, fiscally responsible, and reflect Miami's diversity. "Our priority is to seek out opportunities that present transformational change," said Lebrija. "Seraphic Fire is an entrepreneurial organization with an innovative business model. It develops new and diverse audiences, and we feel [it] will help transform Miami into a true cultural destination."
Since the Florida Philharmonic Orchestra went bankrupt in 2003, South Florida has seen the startup of several small orchestras with varying degrees of success. Quigley believes that Seraphic Fire's format of being "smaller, leaner and swifter" will also work for the orchestra.
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