Harstad Fine Arts Series (HFAS) is committed to building community through creating free and public offerings of the arts, working in partnership with diverse group of community arts and educational organizations.

Harstad Fine Arts Series (HFAS) has just completed its 10th season. It was created in 2015 in memory of Bonnie Harstad, a community arts activist as well as beloved musician of Faith Lutheran Church. Though founded out of the church, the goal from the beginning was to offer free world class arts events for the wider Lexington community. Each year we present 4-6 concerts. These have included classical, bluegrass, modern folk, and world music, as well as presentations by an African drum group, a puppeteer, and a magician/disability advocate. Well known artists we have presented have included Ben Sollee, Los Angelas Guitar Quartet, and Jay Unger. Following each of these events artists and audience mingle in a festive reception. Our venue is Faith Lutheran Church, which can house an audience of 250. The church provides this space at no cost to HFAS.

Often we link a concert with an outreach event. These have included visits by our artists to schools or community organizations, master classes for young musicians, or concerts which have a social advocacy component. This past year one concert (American Patchwork Quartet) was a celebration of contributions of immigrant music; another performer who lives with autism (Cody Clark - Magician) uses his talents for disability advocacy. Our coming season includes a one-man presentation of Frederick Douglass and a singer/songwriter whose music is focused on social justice.

Many years we have included visual art exhibits. Our latest season included an exhibit by immigrant artists and one by foster children connected to KidsPlaceLex. It was quite exciting to see the children show off their work at a reception in their honor.

HFAS has had a youth component from its beginning. In addition to including our guest musicians in master classes or school visits, we offer three "Rising Artists" Summer Enrichment Scholarships. Recipients have used these funds to attend prestigious summer programs in the US and around the world. These Rising Artists are showcased in one or more of our season concerts, joined by other young musicians, including CKYO Jazz Band, an award winning local youth barbershop quartet FreshF, and a Mariachi Escudo of Bryan Station high school. Through our history we have sponsored 19 different students for summer scholarships

For the first three years HFAS series was managed by Church Muscian/Artistic Director Tom White. SInce Tom left for another city we have been led by volunteers. A talented eleven member board and multiple volunteers have done quite well with minimal contracted administrative assistance. We are proud of our first 10 years and now look forward to our next decade.

• Cultural/Multi-Arts
• Arts Education/Youth Arts

Harstad Fine Arts Series (HFAS) is requesting $3000 to help us broaden our outreach and add components to our mission of building community. For ten years HFAS has offered free and public concerts and visual art exhibits to our community. We pride ourselves in the diversity of our artists, including bluegrass, modern folk and classical musicians and a magician/disability advocate. Our outreach included taking artists to Leestown Middle School and Lexington Senior Center and presenting a master class through the Lexington Music Teachers. We offered a venue for art displays be immigrant artists and at risk children. One concert highlighted the immigrant soul of American folk music; another event highlighted disability awareness. Partner groups included Kentucky Refugee Ministry and Kids Place Lex. We offer summer enrichment scholarships to high school student "Rising Artists" and provide a public platform these students as well and other youth musicians (this year we presented Mariachi Escuto).

In 2026-27 we offer our 11th season. We honor the tradition of our first 10 years while also expanding the variety of concerts and our outreach. Our first two concerts are typical of our traditional concerts: Greg Partain, a well known local pianist and Ars Populi, a Washington DC based Vocal Ensemble. As always these events are free to the public. At each of these events one of our Rising Artist Scholars will be an "opening act", allowing them to showcase their talents on the bill with nationally known professional musicians. We are exploring other ways to involve these musicians in the community beyond their concerts (ie master class or community visit).
Our third and fourth concerts will expand our tradition while focusing on Voices of Change. Actor Darius Wallace will present "Frederick Douglass: The Lion of Freedom" as our offering in Black History Month. We will publicize intently though various race relations groups as well as high school history, social studies, and theater teachers. One of our Rising Artists is a theater student and we will ask her to present an opening act that will complement the Douglass presentation, such as a famous speech by Sojourner Truth, a poem by Amanda Gorman, or some other historical voice of freedom. For our final concert in May we present singer/songwriter Lilli Lewis, whose music advocates social change and "radical decency". As part of this concert we hope to recruit a local high school student or students to offer original poems or songs of freedom. We will recruit these students through local network of drama, English and music teachers. We are currently exploring other outreach opportunities with Mr. Darius Wallace and Ms. Lilli Lewis.

All of our concerts take place in Faith Lutheran Church in Chevy Chase. This has been our venue throughout our ten year history. It is provide to HFAS without cost. This space holds 250 attendees, and its central location, intimate size and beautiful acoustics make it ideal for our series. Though in a church, our series are fully secular events. Each event is followed by a reception which allows artists and audience to interact.

At each event we partner with the non-profit "Why We Write". Volunteers from this group offer audience members opportunity to write brief responses to the concert, which are presented to the artists at the reception. Artists have been visibly moved by these simple handwritten notes from persons who have been uplifted, challenged, moved, or encouraged by the experience of the concert.

All events are free and open to the public. We publicize them through posters and banners, our data base of approximately 1500 email recipients, and advertisements in various arts programs in the area. All of this is accomplished by our volunteer board of 10 people, along with limited (15 hour per month max) contracted administrative assistance.

Additionally we will offer three Rising Artists scholarships. Through our network of private and pubic teachers we invite music, art, and theater students to apply for a scholarship to support summer enrichment. We select 3 students to receive scholarships totalling 4500.

Throughout history HFAS has build partnerships with other community groups. These have included various public schools, the University of Kentucky music department, Hospice of Bluegrass, Lexington LexNAACP, Lexington Senior Center, disability awareness groups, Kentucky refugee ministry, Lexington Music Teachers association,"Why We Write", KidsPlaceLex, Inc.

We are grateful for the financial support we have received from LexArts grants in the past, as well the publicity and endorsement that this grant offers us. We always acknowledge LexArts support in our publicity and in opening welcome to our events. Thank you very much for the opportunity to apply for LexArts support again.

We believe this project benefits the community in a variety of ways.
As has been the case in all of our 10 seasons (except during Covid) we have 1) provided a variety of high quality concerts at no charge to the Lexington community. One subscriber said that HFAS presents artists he could not see anywhere else in Lexington. We have often taken these artists into the community - schools, hospitals, senior center, or invited select students for Master Classes. 2) We encourage young artists through summer scholarship, then give them a concert platform to share their talent.

In this project Darius Wallace and Lilli Lewis will give us opportunity to highlight themes of freedom and justice. The Wallace event will be both entertaining and educational as attendees are reminded of the important contributions to our US history by Frederick Douglass. The outreach component of this will encourage young actors to explore other historic voices of freedom. We plan to reach out to organizations which encourage young Black leadership to engage them in this event. We would like to engage Mr. Wallace in a visit to a local school or other setting where his (and Frederick Douglass') message of empowerment will be needed and appreciated.

The Lilli Lewis event will be a celebration of social justice and "radical decency". Her message is one of uplifting hope in times of social trouble. We will target local advocacy groups to help spread the word on this event. We will also reach out to groups which provide hope and healing and invite some of their community to be our special guests. This may be persons suffering from addiction; juvenile offenders and at risk youth. Additionally we want to recruit 2-3 high school students to provide original spoken or sung works about the theme of justice, and present them with both a small honorarium and the opportunity to share the stage with this dymanic performer.

Our marketing began when we produced a brochure for our 2026-27 season and distributed it to our 1500 subscribers. Prior to each concert we create an outdoor banner displayed outside our Faith Church venue on Tates Creek Rd; we create pdf posters which go to all our subscribers, inviting them to spread the word, as well as placing posters around town. Board members are encouraged to spread word to organizations to which they belong. We purchase or swap add space in program material of other artistic groups. We attempt to get events into local arts calendars.
One think we have done and will continue is to invite audience members to become part of our "publicity committee", sharing their experience on their various social media or community virtual bulletin boards.
As stated earlier in this application, we will also target groups we think each event will appeal to and invite them to bring special guests to the event - Black History Month and social advocacy groups.

We have a audience base of approximately 1500 attendees. Each concert is attended by 150-225 people. About 1/2 of our attendees are senior adults. For each concert we target groups that may respond to that particular event. These have included the UK Music Department, Immigrant and Disability communities, private and public educators. For this event we will reach out to high school and college history educators. Part of our target audience will be young people interested in drama, poetry and spoken arts, and groups involved in Black history education (for Darius Wallace), and social justice advocacy (for the Lilli Lewis concert)

Diversity is a key value of HFAS. This is evident in the diversity of our artists (classical, bluegrass, modern folk musicians, a magician, drama, visual art). We have targeted various communities in our programing, including immigrant artists, disability groups, foster children, and voices of black history.

Both Darius Wallace and Lilli Lewis represent art forms we have not offered before: historic drama and social justice music. In recruiting young artists to participate in these events as opening acts, we will be including young actors, singers, and spoken word artists.

Our board is diverse. It includes/has included members of the LGBT community, the immigrant community, the disability advocacy community, and the Jewish community.

HFAS partner groups have included the Kentucky Refugee Ministry and Kids Place Lex, the Lexington Senior Center, Why We Write, Lexington NAACP, the music department at UK, and the Central Kentucky Youth Orchestra. Each year we offer summer enrichment scholarships to high school student "Rising Artists" and provide a public platform these students. as well and other youth musicians (this year we presented Mariachi Escuto). This involves partnership with the Lexingon community of youth music educators.

Throughout history HFAS has build partnerships with other community groups. These have included various public schools, the University of Kentucky music department, Hospice of Bluegrass, Lexington LexNAACP, Lexington Senior Center, disability awareness groups, Kentucky refugee ministry, Lexington Music Teachers association,"Why We Write", and KidsPlaceLex, Inc.

Financial partners have included Kentucky Arts Council and Kentucky Good Giving Campaign

Our goals for this project will reflect our mission statement of building community through free art events. Specifically we want to connect this project to those in the Lexington community who value Black history, social justice and voices of freedom. We also want to expand our connection to young artists as active creators and performers.
Another goal is to bring these artists into other educational or advocacy events in addition to their concerts at Faith. These two events have great potential to demonstrate the power of art to educate, inspire and empower for change.

We will measure our success over the season in a number ways. Part of this will be attendance and donations - did our events elicit the attention and support we hoped for. We will gage the comments solicited after every concert. We will determine the number and level of engagement of targeted groups for our concerts. We will mearsure the response to our call for youth involvement as participants in our programs (last year we received 15 applications for our 3 Rising Artists Scholarships)
We pay attention to feedback we get from our artists.
Our board is very honest in its post event meetings as we evaluate what went well, what challenges arose, and whether and how the board's expectations were met.

• RisingArtistsLexArts.pdf
• FrederickDouglassLexArts.pdf
• LilliLewisLexArt.pdf

• HFASProjectBudget.pdf
• HFASFinancial-25-26-copy1.pdf

• apq_email-1.pdf
• Interwoven-Four-Poster.pdf