Thank you to all who came to 11th Annual Artists Under the Dome!

Last Wednesday, November 8th, Massachusetts artists of all disciplines gathered at the State House to take part in the 11th Annual Artists Under the Dome event. This is the only event of its kind in the country. Thank you to all the artists who took the time out of their busy day to come and make this event shine.

The morning speaking program featured inspiring and rousing remarks by State Treasurer Deborah B. Goldberg, Assistant Majority Whip Senator Linda Dorcena Forry, Representative Mary S. Keefe of the Joint Committee of Tourism, Arts and Cultural Development, Representative Denise Provost, Nam Pham, Assistant Secretary of Business Development & International Trade, and Anita Walker, Executive Director of the Massachusetts Cultural Council.

As part of the morning part of the program, MALC gave its annual “Champion of Artists Awards”. The five awardees for 2017 are: State Representative Chris Walsh; Danielle Legros Georges, Boston’s Poet Laureate; Ashleigh Gordon, viola and Co-Founder of Castle of our Skins; Jonathan C. Rappaport, musician, conductor, composer and Executive Director of Arts Learning; and Erin Williams, playwright, theater director, dramaturge, Cultural Development Officer for the City of Worcester and Executive Director of the Worcester Cultural Coalition. All of these awardees are doing incredible work to make the Commonwealth a better place for their fellow artists. (Bios of Awardees)

This event can not happened without the help and support of so many. Special thanks to Chairwoman Representative Cory Atkins and Joanne Muti from her office for all their help and support reserving the Great Hall, all their help with logistics, and the artist welcome packets. A big thank you to Treasurer Goldberg and her team: Mary Jo O’Leary, Lizandra Gomes, Jacquetta Van Zandt, Maryalice Gill and Frank McNealy. Their help with the registration, name tags, and promotion of this event is deeply appreciated.

And to the Mass Cultural Council- to Anita Walker, Greg Liakos, Dan Blask, Kelly Bennett, Meri Jenkins, and the rest of that amazing team-thank you for all you to support the artists of the Commonwealth.

Special thank yous must go to Nicole Venguer from Representative Chris Walsh’s office for her help with the morning coffee logistics and to Greg Cook, Bob Stegmaier and Paula Bitetti for their help with the check in table. Thank you to Tony Toledo for his storytelling and to Juice for his music. They were so gracious to come and share their talents with all of us that day. And thanks also to the MALC Steering Committee for all of their help with this event. We are an all volunteer coalition and folks took time out of their workdays to come and make this event happen.

See you next year – as next year is the 10th anniversary of the founding of MALC!

For more information and they full event schedule: http://artistsunderthedome.org/annualevent.html