The Hermitage Artist Retreat announces the prestigious members of its National Curatorial Council. It includes leaders from the highly respected Paris Review, Metropolitan Museum, Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center; Professors from Harvard, Princeton, Columbia and Julliard; and a social media art influencer. Among the awards earned by this august group are: Multiple Tonys, the MacArthur Genius Award, Lincoln Center’s Avery Fischer Award, six Grammys, New York Times Book Awards, and two Pulitzers. These curators recommend artists in all genres for residency at the Hermitage. Each resident artist presents a free community program in the schools or in community venues.
LITERATURE
Writers from the international literary world are brought to the Hermitage by four Curators.
Emily Nemens is editor of The Paris Review, the nation’s preeminent literary quarterly. As a writer and illustrator her work has appeared in the New Yorker and her most recent book is a New York Times Book Review Editor’s pick.
Mexican writer Jennifer Clement is President of PEN international, which has writers in 100 countries. Her books have garnered the New York Times Editor’s Choice, Opera Book Club Selection, National Book Award Finalist, PEN/Faulkner Prize, Time Magazine top 10 books, and have been published in over 30 languages.
Kiki Petrosino is a writer, editor and professor. Her work was cited by the New York Times as one of the best works of poetry of 2017. She currently teaches poetry at the University of Virginia.
Christopher Merrill Directs the International Writing Program for the University of Iowa. As well as being a French Knight of Arts and Letters, he serves on the National Commission for UNESSCO and has conducted cultural diplomacy missions in over thirty countries.
VISUAL ART
Visual Art, Photography and museum grade multimedia artists are brought to the Hermitage by three respected curators. Kimberly Drew is a writer, curator, and activist in the arena of contemporary black artists. A digital cultural social influencer, her work has also appeared in such publications as Vanity Fair and Vogue.
Director of the Virginia Museum of Fine arts, Valerie Cassell-Oliver has served at the Art Institute of Chicago, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Whitney Museum.
Daniel Byers is Director of the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts and Lecturer in the Department of Art, Film, and Visual Studies at Harvard University. He has curated at ICA/Boston, Carnegie Museum and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.
MUSIC
Music heard at the Hermitage is brought by three history making impresarios. A world leader in museum-based performance, Limor Tomer curates, commissions, produces, and presents groundbreaking performances for the Met Museum for over 100,000 visitors annually, over 500,000 online.
Composer and Maestro Robert Spano, Music Director of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and the Aspen Music Festival has six Grammy awards. His dedication to contemporary music is what lead him to the Hermitage.
Flutist Claire Chase is winner of the MacArthur Genius Fellowship and the prestigious Avery Fisher Prize from Lincoln Center. Chase founded the respected International Contemporary Ensemble which has commissioned hundreds of living composers. She is also Professor of Music at Harvard University’.
THEATER and FILM
The dramatic arts created at the Hermitage result from the writers brought to this Gulf Coast retreat by three respected veteran thespians. Mandy Greenfield, commissions, develops and produces plays that have brought her every major theatrical award, many that go to Broadway. She is Artistic Director of the Williamstown Theater Festival.
Film is represented on our Curatorial Council with the addition of Chris Burney from New York Stage and Film. His productions have earned Tonys and a Pulitzer while he has worked with luminaries in the film and theater world. He teaches at Columbia and has lectured at Julliard, Bard, Barnard and more.
Playwright and director Emily Mann earned a place in the American Theater Hall of Fame with 7 Obies, a Peabody, a Tony, and many more honors. For thirty years she was artistic director of the McCarter Theater for which she won the Theater Communications Group Visionary award.
ARTS EDUCATION
In addition to bringing high caliber artists and writers to the Gulf Coast, the Hermitage is dedicated to bringing teaching artists to share their skills in our schools. Eric Booth is a world leader in Arts Education. Author of seven books. He has been on the faculty of Juilliard, Tanglewood, The Kennedy Center, and Lincoln Center Education. He serves as a consultant for many arts organizations (including seven of the ten largest U.S. orchestras), cities, states and businesses around the U.S.
The Curatorial Council reflects the nation’s demographics in cultural, gender and ethnic diversity. This group identifies and sends the Hermitage leading edge artists in the U.S. What we see in museums and theaters in five years will be created at the Hermitage this year by the artists and writers they bring. That leading edge of art in America includes a surge in interest in African American culture, social change and world issues.
Since national and international Hermitage residencies are curated, there is no application for artists to apply. Neither curators or Hermitage personnel can accept applications. However, Sarasota County artists and Florida public school teaching artists can find information on how to apply on the Hermitage website.