TUCSON ARTS HERO PROGRAM 2019-2021 SEASONS

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C O NG R ATU L AT I O N S

2019 - 2020 and 2021 - 2022

Thank you for all your effor ts in cre a ting a thriving ar ts communit y in Tucson.

Congratulations to the 2019-2020 and 2021-22 Arts Heroes. This program was launched in the fall of 2016, with a focus on all the people who make an arts experience happen. It is easy to focus on the lead actor, the baritone soloist or the sculptor who created the piece. While the stars of the show are important, so are all the individuals who work behind the scenes to make that result in the show coming together, the art exhibit being unveiled. These are the unsung heroes who make the arts of the state of Arizona such a vitally important part of our quality of life.

an arts experience happen It is easy to focus on the lead actor, the baritone soloist or the sculptor who created the piece While the stars of the show are important, so are all the individuals who work behind the scenes to make that result in the show coming together, the art exhibit being unveiled These are the unsung heroes who make the arts of the state of Arizona such a vitally important part of our qualit y of life

Every season a committee of community leaders and ON Media staff select eight individuals who represent the mission of this program each season. Thank you to our 2019-2020 Sponsor, Bon Voyage Travel and to our 2021-2022 Sponsor, Sun Link! Each month, the chosen Arts Hero is featured in all programs published by ON Media during that month, with a full page article and photo.

communit y leaders and ON Media staf f selected the eight individuals who represent the mission of this program during the 2021-22 season Salt River Project has graciously been the sponsor of the Phoenix Arts Hero program for the past six years; thank you, SRP! Each month, the chosen Arts Hero is featured in all programs published by ON Media during that month, with a full page article and photo

Submissions have been robust every year, giving the committee several candidates from which to choose. Please join us in celebrating the 2019-2020 and 2021-2022 arts heroes you see featured in this program. Congratulations to all of you!

Submissions have been robust ever y year, giving the committee several candidates from which to choose This year, with the arts reappearing af ter the drought of the pandemic, the 2019-2020 and 2021-22 arts heroes you

The committee will soon be selecting Arts Heroes again.

The commit te e will b e soliciting nomina tions throughout the se ason. Think ab out some one you know in the communit y who makes the ar ts happ en. Go t o www.onme diaaz.com/our-passion/ t o submit your nomina tion for an ar ts hero this ye ar

Think about someone you know in the community who makes the arts happen. Go to www.onmediaaz.com/our-passion/ to submit your nomination for an arts hero this year.

LALO BACA

From a good seed, a dance group flourishes

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To keep his children on a straight and narrow path, he seized upon their interest in dance to form Ballet Folklorico Tapatio. In the early days, 22 years ago, a group of three couples (including three dancers who were his children) practiced on Baca’s porch. Its first performance was at a church in Bisbee.

Today there are 168 dancers, ages 2 to 70. They practice in a South Tucson studio Baca built next to his upholstery shop, a business that earned Arizona Daily Star readers’ favorite honors this year. He dreams now of building a theater for dancers and musicians.

MASTER GARDENER “I think I got a good seed,” Baca says. “I put it in the ground, and it grows and grows.”

He is a master gardener. The dance group, with the ongoing nurturing and support of Baca, performs internationally and consistently wins awards for excellence and authenticity.

But what has taken root in South Tucson is more than just an arts and culture

phenomenon. The dance studio is a community hub, and Baca is a father figure to many who visit it—children and adults.

SOMEONE TO EMULATE “A lot of kids say, ‘I want to be like you’,” Baca says. The words catch in his throat, and his eyes leak just a little. That’s what happens when his heart overflows with love.

Director Jose Luis Baca, one of the original Ballet Folklorico Tapatio dancers, is a proud son who knows his father is a pillar of the community.

“He’s a hero,” Jose Luis says. The words catch in his throat, and his eyes leak just a little. “If it wasn’t for him, we wouldn’t be where we are today.”

Do you know an Arts Hero? Someone who works tirelessly to strengthen, improve and enhance the arts in our community?

Nominate him or her at onmediaaz.com

Lalo Baca is a proud papa extraordinaire.

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CHRISTOPHER CANO

Studio program creates stage for young artists to blossom

Christopher Cano calls himself a “go big or go home kind of guy.” A transformative Arizona Opera studio is what happens when he does both.

In 2017, Cano left the Manhattan School of Music, where he taught for 17 years, to become head of music at Arizona Opera and director of the Marion Roose Pullin Arizona Opera Studio. Back home, where he had received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in piano performance from The University of Arizona, he found the professional opportunity of his dreams.

STUDIO PROGRAM In his freelance work, Cano noticed that young artists often were relegated to minor roles. In his two-season studio program, they participate in at least six shows. By the second season, they own the stage in the manner only people with experience own it.

“The only way any young artist is going to learn how to do the job is to actually do the job,” Cano says. “It really was imperative to take risks, and

I’m very lucky that I have a team [at Arizona Opera] that understands and appreciates the importance of that.”

Understanding and appreciation are growing. In the last application round, Cano reviewed 552 candidates. The highly competitive program accepted five—three singers, one pianist and one assistant stage director.

SHOWTIME This month, studio artists will showcase their talents in Scenes in the Wittcoff performances in Phoenix and Tucson. Cano was born in the former and raised in the latter.

“To be able to come home and go back to my roots was always something I had hoped would happen,” Cano says. “It’s an incredible journey, and I couldn’t be happier with where we are as a program and where the company is at large.”

Do you know an Arts Hero? Someone who works tirelessly to strengthen, improve and enhance the arts in our community?

Nominate him or her at onmediaaz.com

PHOTO BY CLAUDIA JOHNSTONE

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Known for fight choreography, valued as a director and teacher

If you’re watching a live performance in Tucson where a scene calls for violence—a fight with knives or swords, for example—chances are you’re looking at the choreography of Brent Gibbs, a battle-tested theater professional who thankfully shows no sign of throwing in the towel.

Now that we’ve got all the fight metaphors out of the way, let’s talk about what really animates Gibbs, who has earned elite status in the rarefied realm of stage combat.

DIRECTOR AND TEACHER

“Everyone becomes fixated on the stage combat because it’s the most exotic thing that I do,” Gibbs says. “But I think I make much more of an impact as a director. I think I make much more of an impact as a teacher.”

Gibbs has taught theater at the University of Arizona School of Theatre, Film & Television for 29 years and was artistic director at Arizona Repertory Theatre for many years before happily handing the reins this season to Hank Stratton. As a professor, he’ll continue to direct and choreograph plays. In the 2021/22 season,

he’ll direct the production of Three Sisters and will be the fight choreographer for Living Dead in Denmark

FIGHT DIRECTOR

BRENT GIBBS hero arts

On the stage combat front, Gibbs is resident fight director at The Rogue Theater and regularly supports other productions in Tucson.

Gibbs stresses that his work in theater spanning several decades is far from done. But he’s also at a point where he does look back.

“If I were to articulate a legacy, which I have never done, I would hope it would be that I was able to bring people together to create good theater that was entertaining and educational, and that affected people and maybe made them think,” Gibbs says, “and that I helped students learn what it is they want to do and to be able to make a life doing that.”

Do you know an Arts Hero? Someone who works tirelessly to strengthen, improve and enhance the arts in our community?

Nominate him or her at onmediaaz.com

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MARYANN GREEN

Multi-talented teacher finds creative happy place

Maryann Green is a theater teacher, director, producer and occasional performer. All of those talents help her excel at advancing Tucson’s theater scene, particularly at its burgeoning fringe.

For Green, freewheeling fringe theater and other unconventional efforts that give artists and audiences opportunities to connect during live performances are the basis of her creative happy place.

CREATING SPACES

Green is executive director of the Tucson Fringe Festival (celebrating its ninth annual event this month), organizer of the Beer with the Bard pub crawl and producer of Live Theatre Workshop’s Etcetera series, featuring late-night avantgarde works. All of this is in addition to being a longtime theater teacher at Rincon and University high schools and part of Female StoryTellers.

“What I have decided I do best is create space for other people to do what they do best,” Green says. “That falls into everything that I’m doing. For my teaching, I’m giving my students the

freedom to express themselves and learn about themselves and to explore identities and relationships. With [the fringe festival and Etcetera], I’m giving artists space to create things that nobody else is giving them space to do.”

EXPANDING OPPORTUNITIES

Green came to Tucson 1996 for the narrow purpose of earning a University of Arizona degree to teach theater. By chance and to her delight, Tucson served up fringe and a whole new world she loves exploring. She doesn’t know what’s next, but she’ll continue to take her chances with the Old Pueblo.

“Tucson has been very good to me, giving me opportunities to do what I love to do,” Green says. “I’m just going to let Tucson show me what to do next.”

Do you know an Arts Hero? Someone who works tirelessly to strengthen, improve and enhance the arts in our community?

Nominate him or her at onmediaaz.com

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PHOTO BY AMY IJAMS PHOTOGRAPHY

ERIC HOLTAN

Music That Brings Joy And Hope

Eric Holtan has a habit traced to childhood of blending imagination and music talent with reality. That’s what it took to launch True Concord Voices & Orchestra in 2004 and to perform through the pandemic. Being a basketball fan also helped.

As founding music director of the professional chamber choir and orchestra, Holtan is quick to say True Concord’s success is a team effort of artists, board members, staff, and supporters. But it doesn’t begin without a church-going boy’s fascination with “the majesty of the organ and its capacity to lead and inspire collective singing.”

Holtan started playing the organ as soon as his feet could touch the pedals. At 12, he was meeting a Minnesota small town organist’s needs. In college, he excelled in choir and was inspired to become a conductor, the focus of his postgraduate studies.

Holtan, who is also music director at Dove of Peace Lutheran Church, dreamed up True Concord near the end of his doctoral program at the University of Arizona. He believed a professional chamber choir and orchestra would give Tucson something it didn’t have.

During the worst period of the pandemic, True Concord gave southern Arizona what it needed.

If there were a box score of how Holtan’s team dealt with COVID-19, the NBA and WNBA would get an assist. True Concord borrowed from the leagues’ 2020 bubble season playbook to perform while keeping artists and audiences safe. It performed 32 public concerts and seven video recordings with Arizona PBS during the pandemic.

“We exist to create experiences that move, enrich and inspire,” Holtan said. “Now, more than ever, people need music, they need art, they need hope, they need a sense of peace, they need some joy.”

True Concord, led by Holtan’s dedication to masterworks and music that reflects the nation’s cultural heritage, is what facing that reality sounds like.

Do you know an Arts Hero? Someone who works tirelessly to strengthen, improve and enhance the arts in our community?

Nominate him or her at onmediaaz.com

PHOTO BY TOM SPITZ

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CHIEKO IMADA

Learning and teaching life lessons through ballet

By the time Chieko Imada arrived in Tucson in the mid-1980s, she already was an accomplished professional dancer, leading the confident, purposeful life she was trained to live from the time she started ballet lessons in Tokyo at age 8.

Soon Tucson settled into Imada, turning her reality into a decades-long dream that she is in no hurry to see end.

“I’m just so amazed,” says Imada, assistant artistic director and director of educational outreach at Ballet Tucson. “You know, Tucson is not a big city. To be able to continue what I love to do, and to be able to explore in this community for 30 years and hopefully inspire people and children interested in the dance world, I’m very thrilled and appreciative.”

TRADING CONCRETE FOR CACTUS

Imada went through a personal transformation when she moved from what she calls the “concrete life” of a city teeming with people to the quiet company of cactuses.

“I always tried to experience my true feelings when I was performing, but when I came here I became more mature in a way,” Imada says. “[The desert’s beauty] helped me to become a better artist.”

STUFF OF LIFE

Imada has sealed her artistic legacy in Tucson with years of teaching, choreography and outreach programs, including Putting Your Best Foot Forward with Ballet Tucson for students in Title 1 schools.

“To share what I learned through my life through dancing and then extend it to young children is such a joy,” Imada says. “I believe ballet helps with life learning—not only creativity but patience and discipline, all the important stuff in their life.”

The important stuff that helps make dreams come true.

Do you know an Arts Hero? Someone who works tirelessly to strengthen, improve and enhance the arts in our community?

Nominate him or her at onmediaaz.com

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CHRISTOPHER JOHNSON

What was said about Christopher Johnson when he was a senior in high school can be said of him today. What says even more about him is his discomfort with association with words like “genius.” Or “hero.”

He sees himself as simply an artist trying to make the most of ample opportunity to do his thing. At The Rogue Theatre, his professional home since 2011, that is so much.

Johnson is artistic associate, general manager and play-reading producer at The Rogue. He also serves on its board and produces all the social media content. And he acts, directs, and sometimes adapts plays.

“One of the things that I love the most about theater — as a community, as a craft, as an art — there’s nothing singular about it,” Johnson said. “It’s a great place to express your own pluralism. … At The Rogue, I use every crayon in my box, so to speak. And that keeps me happy.”

When COVID-19 hit, Johnson channeled even more talent, energy

and commitment to theater and his hometown. Over a 15-month period, Johnson created 55 beautiful videos, including full-length productions, musical videos, lectures, play-readings, backstage tours, and a stop-motion animation of the balcony scene from “Romeo and Juliet.”

Because of his determination to maintain a connection to audience, the theater didn’t simply survive during the pandemic, it flourished.

There’s every reason to believe the next 20 years will be more of the same for Johnson. That’s a very good thing for Tucson theater.

And it’s also very likely another powerful word will be associated with Johnson that might make him uncomfortable: “Legend.”

Do you know an Arts Hero? Someone who works tirelessly to strengthen, improve and enhance the arts in our community?

Nominate him or her at onmediaaz.com

“Christopher is a genius in visual, dramatic and poetic genres. Anything he sets out to do, he’ll do well.”

—Teresa McCrory, head of the Amphitheater High School fine arts department (Arizona Daily Star, May 5, 2002)

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The Bells of Kindness Continue to Ring

The best way to describe what Vivian MacKinnon does for Ben’s Bells Project is that she puts her whole self — the sum of all the defining parts of her life — into her work. That’s saying a lot for the daughter of an art teacher, longtime ceramist, veteran of nonprofit development, and gifted tactician.

As art projects coordinator for the organization behind the ubiquitous “Be Kind” campaign, MacKinnon coordinates the materials and volunteers to do what’s needed to produce the kindness message. This is a complex process, but consider what it takes to produce thousands of units per year of Ben’s Bells signature bells. Now, consider that process during a pandemic. How do you proceed when gathering in studios was impossible? MacKinnon figured it out. She packaged opportunities to be kind in to-go kits.

MacKinnon also applies her artistic skills to help Ben’s Bells’ bottom line. For an online auction this year, she created several pieces, including a Peter Max-inspired mosaic bench.

Everything the 26-year resident of Tucson does at Ben’s Bells is fired by a lifelong belief in the power of creative expression.

“All of us can do art,” MacKinnon said. “It’s a human need. We need to do art. … I facilitate people feeling like they can do (art) and then doing it. That’s kind of the goal where you’re sort of in the background, and they say, ‘I did it myself!’ ”

Congratulations, Vivian!

VIVIAN MACKINNON hero arts

Do you know an Arts Hero? Someone who works tirelessly to strengthen, improve and enhance the arts in our community?

Nominate him or her at onmediaaz.com

KATE MARQUEZ

Making Life Better through Arts and Culture

Listening to Kate Marquez articulate the importance of arts and culture is like hearing a good, old-fashioned campaign speech by a leader with vision and moxie. You may find yourself nodding in agreement when she says things like:

“When do any one of us go a day without interacting with music, film, food, design, creative thought, comedy, fashion? Imagine a life without those things really being accessible.”

“Our communities, our businesses, and our lives will be better if we continue to invest in the arts and culture infrastructures.”

“If I end my career in any way, it will be that there is permanent funding for the arts in the state of Arizona, and in this community that I call home of southern Arizona.”

Hear! Hear!

Marquez is the executive director of the Southern Arizona Arts and Cultural Alliance, which, under her longtime leadership, has become a collective that revitalizes communities; helps people heal, and gives creatives a chance to make a living, including at its fabulous arts and maker space in Tucson Mall.

The Tucson native attended the University of Arizona with an interest in

politics. After internships in local and federal government and time spent volunteering politically, she graduated knowing she wanted no career in politics or government. Instead, she started a business built on her fundraising and event planning talent. That connected her to the Greater Oro Valley Arts Council, which later was renamed and re-imagined as SAACA.

This month, SAACA begins another period of strategic visioning, taking to heart what was experienced during the pandemic and what’s known about recovery needs.

“The arts have to play a significant role in helping to feel, helping to connect,” Marquez said. “It’s been a very divisive few years. Strategically, looking at the role the arts will play in these communities, rebuilding these broken connections, addressing the pain — it’s just going to be really important for the arts to play a role.”

Hear! Hear!

Do you know an Arts Hero? Someone who works tirelessly to strengthen, improve and enhance the arts in our community?

Nominate him or her at onmediaaz.com

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LISA MISHLER

A study in contrasts

Mishler, an accomplished painter and a teacher at The Drawing School in Tucson, did the world a favor in producing books in 2015 and 2016 that pay tribute to her parents, who were holocaust survivors and heroes. The books, the results of a seven-year project that was very much a personal journey, are in holocaust museums in Washington, D.C., and Jerusalem.

THE PAST The first book, L’Chayim - To Life, features Mishler’s paintings that express her father’s story about the holocaust as well as reflections from Rabbi Stephanie Aaron. In the second book, Zalman Ber, Mishler writes a complete story about her parents that required a deep dive into painful truth.

That’s another contrast worth noting. For Mishler, painting is typically a joyful experience. That’s why she loves it; that’s why she loves to teach it.

“The feeling I have when I start painting: You’re in a rhythm; you’re in the now, you’re in the present,” Mishler says. “Once you get there, that’s the feeling you want to continue to have. It doesn’t

go away. It’s a joyous thing and to be able to help facilitate that is very gratifying.”

In the art classes she teaches, Mishler tells students to empty their minds and paint from the gut. That is the exact opposite approach she took to her book project. It was all about the transference of what was so heavy on her mind.

THE PRESENT Mishler has hopes for a movie or docudrama based on the books, but there’s no rush. The work is timeless. That’s good. Her parents’ ordeal is as fresh as today’s headlines. That’s bad.

“Unfortunately, their story is happening right now, all over the world,” Mishler says. “It’s so politically relevant. There is so much hatred coming out. I don’t know what more of a wake-up call we need.”

Do you know an Arts Hero? Someone who works tirelessly to strengthen, improve and enhance the arts in our community?

Nominate him or her at onmediaaz.com

Lisa Mishler’s most celebrated work is a study in contrasts. Joy and sorrow. Love and hate. Beauty and horror. Past and present.

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VICTOR NAVARRO

The first clues of Tucsonan Victor Navarro’s internationalist path in the world of arts and culture came long before he founded the International Art Exchange at age 19.

By 10, drawing was clearly established as his favorite pastime, and his favorite things to draw were inspired by all things French. At 16, the immigrant from Guadalajara was steeped in French culture and language well enough to earn sponsorship to spend part of a summer there.

Staying the internationalist course is a large part of what makes Navarro a leading light in the Arizona arts and culture scene. In 2020, he won the 2020 Governor’s Arts Award in the philanthropy category and was a finalist in the artist category.

The International Art Exchange was established in 2009 to promote arts, culture and community. Host nations so far include France, Spain, Mexico, and the United Arab Emirates.

Navarro never forgets where and how he got where he is. His ongoing association with the Lacey Jarrell Foundation, a Tucson-based organization that supported him during his studies at the University of Arizona, is a testament to that. He now serves on the foundation’s board of directors.

Some measure of fate and happenstance figure into his destiny. It was by chance, after all, that during his teen French adventure, his artwork caught the attention of prominent arts and culture personalities and institutions. His connections to the international arts community started there.

Navarro’s fascination with cultures and his commitment to diversity and inclusion in the arts is innate, he says.

“It comes from the nature of me,” Navarro said. “I’m a gay Latino, 32-year-old who has had the opportunity and the privilege to meet many, many walks of life in the countries that I have visited. I believe that with the integration of all of our talents across the globe we can definitely push to a better society.”

Do you know an Arts Hero? Someone who works tirelessly to strengthen, improve and enhance the arts in our community?

Nominate him or her at onmediaaz.com

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Amplifying voices through visual storytelling

Everyone, he believes, should hear voices, especially those of young people. In his learned opinion, that’s how you build a connected community and grow seeds of change.

For 20 years in Tucson, Schachter has amplified voices through visual storytelling.

“Stories help us build bridges, reconnect us to our own humanity and create a sense of empathy that is deeply needed, especially now,” Schachter says. “I’ve seen the power and fantastic strength of storytelling with my own eyes.”

JOSH SCHACHTER hero arts

digital storytelling and other art forms to support the literacy development of refugee and immigrant students. The students used their skills to reveal and address critical community issues with local partners.

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DOCUMENTING VOICES As a boy, Schachter learned he could tell stories through a camera. He later intertwined his passion for photography with his training in ecosystem management by documenting the relationship between people and place from the Ecuadorian Amazon to Madagascar.

After completing graduate school at Yale, he was hired by the Sonoran Institute. He put his ear to the ground almost immediately.

In 2001, Schachter started a photography program at the nonprofit VOICES, which hired youth to document Tucson’s stories. In 2006, he co-founded Finding Voice, a program at Catalina High School that used

CONNECTING VOICES Schachter’s life work prepared him for his current position: founder and director of CommunityShare, a nonprofit that connects K-12 educators and students with community partners. Schachter calls it “a human library of human books.” CommunityShare’s online platform and offline network has connected nearly 10,000 students to practicable learning experiences.

“It’s important that community members reconnect with the education system,” Schachter says. “By engaging with students and teachers, community members not only can bring real-world relevance to classrooms, but also can help young people imagine a future for themselves they perhaps never knew was possible.”

We hear you.

Do you know an Arts Hero? Someone who works tirelessly to strengthen, improve and enhance the arts in our community?

Nominate him or her at onmediaaz.com

Josh Schachter hears voices – real, authentic voices that speak to the essence of people and place.

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NORM TESTA

Teacher impacts students and audience

Norm Testa powers through 12-hour workdays advancing stagecraft with an intense dedication to create unique experiences during theater performances and classes at Catalina Foothills High School.

“To me, theater affects audiences,” Testa says. “It is supposed to be an emotional story-telling kind of thing. It takes all of the elements to really change people. I have this crazed, manic passion for it.”

TEACHER WITH A LEGACY As a technical theater teacher for 22 years, Testa says he has taught more than 5,000 students to do the things necessary for successful performances, including lighting, sound and imagery. He estimates a quarter of his former students currently are using technical theater skills in their careers.

For Testa, good theater leaves audience members feeling that the performance has lasted only 25 minutes when the experience was really a rewarding two hours long.

“That’s why I do theater,” Testa says.

DOING AND TEACHING To do theater while teaching technical theater typically means workdays that start at 7:30 a.m. before school begins and end at 7:30 p.m. after stage production and rehearsals. He also manages the busy rental schedule of the CFHS performance facilities and directs

the annual Arizona Thespians Tech Challenge, where 50 four-member high school teams compete in timed events in skills such as hanging lights, cable rolling, costume quick change, and props change over.

Teaching is a form of performance, another opportunity to affect an audience, Testa says. He believes his career and technical education program teaches students important life skills, such as learning to solve problems on the fly, to improvise.

In January, Testa received the Legendary Teacher Award from Pima County JTED. During the surprise presentation in one of his classes, students spoke of rewarding experiences in his technical theater program. One said Testa’s classes motivate her to go to school.

“That’s why I teach,” Testa says.

Do you know an Arts Hero? Someone who works tirelessly to strengthen, improve and enhance the arts in our community?

Nominate him or her at onmediaaz.com

PHOTO BY DAMION ALEXANDER

C O NG R ATU L AT I O N S

To

2019 - 2020 and 2021 - 2022

Thank you for all your effor ts in cre a ting a thriving ar ts communit y in Tucson.

Congratulations to the 2019-2020 and 2021-22 Arts Heroes. This program was launched in the fall of 2016, with a focus on all the people who make an arts experience happen. It is easy to focus on the lead actor, the baritone soloist or the sculptor who created the piece. While the stars of the show are important, so are all the individuals who work behind the scenes to make that result in the show coming together, the art exhibit being unveiled. These are the unsung heroes who make the arts of the state of Arizona such a vitally important part of our quality of life.

an arts experience happen It is easy to focus on the lead actor, the baritone soloist or the sculptor who created the piece While the stars of the show are important, so are all the individuals who work behind the scenes to make that result in the show coming together, the art exhibit being unveiled. These are the unsung heroes who make the arts of the state of Arizona such a vitally important part of our qualit y of life

Every season a committee of community leaders and ON Media staff select eight individuals who represent the mission of this program each season. Thank you to our 2019-2020 Sponsor, Bon Voyage Travel and to our 2021-2022 Sponsor, Sun Link! Each month, the chosen Arts Hero is featured in all programs published by ON Media during that month, with a full page article and photo.

communit y leaders and ON Media staf f selected the eight individuals who represent the mission of this program during the 2021-22 season. Salt River Project has graciously been the sponsor of the Phoenix Arts Hero program for the past six years; thank you, SRP! Each month, the chosen Arts Hero is featured in all programs published by ON Media during that month, with a full page article and photo

Submissions have been robust every year, giving the committee several candidates from which to choose. Please join us in celebrating the 2019-2020 and 2021-2022 arts heroes you see featured in this program. Congratulations to all of you!

Submissions have been robust ever y year, giving the committee several candidates from which to choose. This year, with the arts reappearing af ter the drought of the pandemic, the 2019-2020 and 2021-22 arts heroes you

The committee will soon be selecting Arts Heroes again.

The commit te e will b e soliciting nomina tions throughout the se ason. Think ab out some one you know in the communit y who makes the ar ts happ en. Go t o www.onme diaaz.com/our-passion/ t o submit your nomina tion for an ar ts hero this ye ar

Think about someone you know in the community who makes the arts happen. Go to www.onmediaaz.com/our-passion/ to submit your nomination for an arts hero this year.

note at sales@onmediaaz.com

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