The Mass Cultural Council today announced finalists for the 2019 Commonwealth Awards, which honor exceptional achievement in the arts, humanities, and sciences.
Governor Charlie Baker released a state budget proposal today that would invest $16.1 million in the arts, humanities, and sciences through Mass Cultural Council for the coming fiscal year. The Governor’s proposal would maintain current cultural funding levels for Fiscal Year 2020, which begins July 1.
This year, Mass Cultural Council will invest nearly $1 million across 243 schools statewide with grants that support creative learning through the arts, humanities, and sciences, for students of all ages.
The nation’s leading scholars and advocates for folk and traditional arts have awarded Dr. Maggie Holtzberg of Newton their highest national honor for lifetime achievement in public folklore. Dr. Holtzberg was awarded the Benjamin A. Botkin Prize by the American Folklore Society (AFS) at its annual meeting last month in Buffalo, NY.
The Mass Cultural Council released a spending plan for the new fiscal year that will invest more than $14 million in a range of grant programs, services, and initiatives to support the arts, humanities, and sciences in communities across Massachusetts.
An overwhelming, bipartisan majority of state legislators voted to override a veto of a budget increase to the Mass Cultural Council for the new fiscal year. The overrides set the agency’s FY19 state appropriation at $16 million, ensuring increased investment in nonprofit cultural organizations, communities, artists, school and youth programs statewide.
Today the state Legislature approved a final budget for the new fiscal year that boosts funding for the arts, humanities, and sciences through Mass Cultural Council by $2 million.
