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NEA Arts Journalism Institute in Classical Music and Opera fellows announced

September 24, 2009

The Journalism School has announced that 24 critics, editors, reporters and producers have been chosen to participate in the sixth annual National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Arts Journalism Institute in Classical Music and Opera. The program is one of four NEA-funded, discipline-specific institutes for arts journalists. Through the generous support of the NEA, the music institute will take place at Columbia University from Oct. 17 to 27.

National Endowment for the Arts Chairman Rocco Landesman said, “At a time when journalism is roiling with waves of dramatic change, it is especially important to invest in these NEA arts journalism institutes. Informed voices, in whatever media venue they reside, are critical to the health and vibrancy of the arts.”

The 2009 fellows for music and opera hail mostly from media markets outside the nation’s largest cities, though the program now accepts a limited number of journalists who work in major metropolitan regions. This year’s participants represent every kind of news media outlet — print, broadcast and Web — in 21 cities and 16 states.

“The NEA has made it a priority to support arts journalism at a time of cataclysmic change in the press,” said Andras Szanto, who co-directs the Arts Journalism Institute with Anya Grundmann, executive producer of NPR Music, and artistic director Joseph Horowitz, classical music historian and critic. “The Institute at Columbia’s Journalism School has had a significant impact in communities across the United States.”

press release