Discovering New Audiences for the Performing Arts

Jeannette Nichols with President Sallee

A new partnership between Kansas City area philanthropist Jeannette Nichols and William Jewell’s Harriman Arts Program is making performing arts opportunities more accessible to area audiences.

The Harriman Arts Program has joined forces with arts advocate Jeannette Nichols to offer a special Discovery Concert featuring the rising star pianist Simon Trpceski March 6 at the Folly Theater.

Thanks to Nichols’ generosity, the “New Artists for New Audiences” concert will be free and open to the public, with special emphasis on exposing young people to the performing arts.

"We want the arts to be for everybody,” Nichols says.“It should be a basic part of every child’s education to develop a cultural perspective. Our world would be a very sterile place without the colors that the arts bring. If you introduce young people to the performing arts at an early age, they will become more comfortable with that experience. And the more comfortable they are, the more they will want to continue with the arts throughout their lives. I think it is really a very basic quality of life issue.”

Clark Morris, executive director of the Harriman Arts Program, says that program founder Richard Harriman approached Nichols last year with the idea of a free Discovery Concert.

“It’s an important part of our program to build our audience and make the performing arts more accessible to the community,” Morris says.“We are happy to be able to partner with Jeannette Nichols to make this Discovery Concert a reality.”

Simon Trpceski, pianist

The concert has already received positive attention from the media:“Have you ever thought classical music and dance were getting too expensive?”The Kansas City Star’s classical music and dance critic Paul Horsley asked in a recent Sunday arts story. “Addressing this concern, the Harriman Arts Program of William Jewell College has repriced at least one of its concerts for the 2003-2004 season. How about zero dollars and zero cents? The Discovery Concert, in which up-and-coming pianist Simon Trpceski will perform a regular concert free of charge, is just one example of the spirit of innovation that has kept the Harriman series fresh for 38 years.”

Program founder Richard Harriman told the Star:“The arts so often get accused of elitism.We don’t want to be elite at all. We thought this was a way to reach a wider public without having them worrying about the expense.”

Jeannette Nichols has been involved for many years in audience development programs for area arts organizations. She has also served on the national level on the President’s Advisory Committee on the Arts at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington,D.C. She was recognized earlier this year by William Jewell College with the presentation of the William F. Yates Medallion for Distinguished Service.

Trpceski is an ascending artist whose concerts and recordings have been warmly received by critics and audiences alike since his triumphant North American debut in September of 2002.

“This is a young man whose name we’re all going to have to learn to spell,” the Seattle Times wrote of the Macedonianborn artist’s debut performance.Trpceski’s debut recording was called “one of the most thrilling piano discs of recent times” by the Guardian (UK).