Carson City to offer grants for cultural events

Carson City plans to offer grant money earmarked for cultural events.

The Cultural Event Grant would make available $8,000 in fiscal year 2019-2020 for events hosted in Carson City.

“We’ve been given the directive to support multicultural art and culture, that’s directly from the arts master plan,” Mark Salinas, arts and culture coordinator, told the Cultural Commission on Monday.

Currently, an average of $5,400 is awarded to various events annually by the coordinator. The new grant would increase the funding to $8,000 and make the commission responsible for the awards. Applicants could apply throughout the year and make presentations to the commission, which would score and determine the events to fund and for how much.

Salinas presented a grant guidelines draft, which will be finalized at the commission’s next meeting in March.

In other arts news, the city for the first time is hosting an art exhibit at the Reno-Tahoe International Airport.

“I pitched them a proposal,” said Salinas. “We have almost 200 linear feet of wall to fill. Every time I spoke to them the more wall they gave me.”

The exhibit will include a condensed version of a Western Nevada College faculty art show, work of 25 to 30 artists provided by the Nevada Arts Association, and two dozen painted parasols that were featured in the 2017 Nevada Day Parade.

A reception for Carson City Art Taking Flight will be held Feb. 26 and the exhibit will be on display through April.

The Rimsky-Korsakov String Quartet will be coming to Carson City March 14-17.

The quartet from St. Petersburg, Russia plans to hold a master class at Carson High School, brief performances at the Legislative Building and Nevada State Museum, and a full concert Sunday afternoon at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church.

At its first 2019 meeting, the Cultural Commission voted Barbara D’Anneo as chair and Guadalupe Ramirez as vice chair. Karen Abowd, the former city supervisor, is remaining on the board as a citizen at large member.

The commission’s next meeting is scheduled for March 11.