Project includes new building and landscape design, major growth in collection

The North Carolina Museum of Art (NCMA)—one of the most important and distinguished museums in the South—is in the final stage of a three-year expansion and will reopen to the public in April 2010, following a seven-month closure. The completed expansion will dramatically transform the visitor experience of the Museum, which, sited in a 164-acre park in Raleigh, offers a unique blend of art, architecture, and nature.

The centerpiece of the expansion initiative is a new 127,000-square-foot, light-filled building designed by New York-based architects Thomas Phifer and Partners. The single-story structure, surrounded by gardens and courtyards, was created specifically to showcase the Museum’s encyclopedic collection. Established in 1947, this was the first major art-museum collection in the country to be formed by state legislation and funding—an extraordinary example of public support for the arts. Since that time, it has been immeasurably enriched by acquisitions that include many generous gifts, and today spans more than 5,000 years of history. Particular strengths include European painting, Egyptian funerary art, ancient Greek and Roman sculpture and vase painting, American art of the 18th through 20th centuries, international contemporary art, and Jewish ceremonial objects.

On the occasion of the expansion, the Museum has acquired many additional works, some commissioned and others donated. These encompass important examples by both contemporary and historical artists from around the world, and will be installed in the new building and the surrounding landscape. Highlights include work by such internationally acclaimed artists as Roxy Paine and Ursula von Rydingsvard, to be sited in the landscape, and El Anatsui, Jaume Plensa, Jackie Ferrara, Ellsworth Kelly, David Park, and others, to be installed in the new building.

NCMA Director Lawrence J. Wheeler states, “The North Carolina Museum of Art is thrilled to be nearing completion of its expansion. With a glorious new building, many important new works of art, and an enhanced landscape, this project is in many ways a paradigm of 21st-century values: It has been undertaken with great environmental sensitivity; it embraces new forms of creativity; and, throughout it all, the Museum and Museum Park remain admission-free, enabling universal access. Moreover, the Museum’s new building has been entirely paid for with public funds—a truly inspiring example of enlightened government, one that ensures that the NCMA really is the people’s museum.”

In addition to creating a significantly larger home for the Museum’s collection, the West Building also contains a new restaurant, retail store, and other visitor amenities. The expansion project will also enable the NCMA’s 1983 East Building, designed by the eminent architect Edward Durell Stone (1902–78), to become a dynamic center dedicated to temporary exhibitions, education and public programs, and public events, as well as a place for collections management and other administrative functions.

The two Museum buildings are located on a campus of softly rolling hills edged by pine woods. Major works of sculpture and artist-conceived environmental projects are sited throughout this landscape, which also includes an outdoor amphitheater created in collaboration with artist Barbara Kruger, as well as trails for walking and biking.

The New Building
The low rectangular volume of the new building blends seamlessly into the NCMA’s reconfigured arrangement of architecture, gardens, and uncultivated landscape. Indeed, approached via a serpentine road that leads from a nearby highway into the Museum campus, the building—clad in anodized aluminum panels with large areas of glass—appears to dematerialize into soft reflections of the surrounding landscape and sky. The structure’s distinctive roofline is defined by a rhythmic series of curves that expresses a system of vaults and coffers that bring daylight into the building through glass-enclosed oculi.

Mr. Phifer states, “We had three important goals in designing the new NCMA building: to design a space in which the art in the Museum’s permanent collection could be seen anew and to best effect; to ensure an intimate relationship between the building and the surrounding landscape; and to foster a sense of belonging on the part of Museum visitors. We determined that a single-story building with great expanses of glass, soft natural light, and a plan that invites exploration, both within its walls and between the building and the outdoors, was the best way to make all of this possible.”

While—unusually—there are six doors into the new building, enabling visitors in the gardens to enter spontaneously, many people will be drawn to the main entrance by an allée of trees sited in a new entry-garden. This is part of a new 5,650-square-foot plaza that links the new and existing architecture with the landmark 1997 amphitheater. Upon entering the building, visitors will find themselves in a capacious sculpture hall, immediately engaged with art, rather than in the more typical museum lobby, which divides the outdoor environment from the works of art inside.

Oriented on an east-west axis, the sculpture hall serves as the spine around which 40 exhibition galleries are organized. It will contain examples of classical sculpture, and will culminate at its west end with an installation of more than 30 works by Auguste Rodin, part of a major gift from the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Foundation. In just one of the many points at which the architecture seems to blend with its outdoor surroundings, a glass window-wall behind the Rodin works will offer vistas of, and access to, a courtyard containing additional sculptures by the artist, as well as a reflecting pool and views of the unfolding landscape beyond.

All together, there are five such courtyards, each of which seems to enter the building, breaching the perimeter of what would otherwise be a rectangular structure. All are visible through glass walls, and all but one are accessible directly from the sculpture hall, as well as from the outdoors. In addition to the Rodin courtyard, these include a landscaped courtyard on the north side of the building that will house a three-part sculpture by Ronald Bladen and a reflecting pool; a rock garden on the south façade containing 14 large granite boulders from western North Carolina; a courtyard next to the main entrance, also on the building’s south side, that will serve as an outdoor seating area; and a reflecting pool—approximately 100 feet long and 25 feet wide—that appears to enter the east end of the building.

The new facility, which has white oak floors and white interior walls, provides more than 65,000 square feet of exhibition space. The galleries will house examples from the Museum’s collections of antiquities, Renaissance art, European painting and sculpture, 18th- and 19th-century American art, African art, pre-Columbian art, Jewish ceremonial objects, and modern and contemporary art. Rather than being organized into a set pathway, the galleries contain entry and exit points throughout, inviting personal exploration and encouraging visitors to make their own connections among the works on view.

The quantity of natural light that enters the building may be controlled by the Museum as needed. Removable scrims in the ceiling oculi are calibrated to meet the lighting requirements for particular kinds of artwork, while fabric curtains on the glass walls are of three different densities, ranging from nearly opaque to diaphanous, depending on the type of work to be protected. In addition, roll-down shades enable a complete black-out. All window coverings are in shades of white.

Changes to Existing Building
Until now, the Edward Durell Stone-designed East Building has housed both special exhibitions and long-term installations drawn from the NCMA’s permanent collection. Upon completion of its renovation, more than 12,000 square feet of gallery space formerly devoted to the collection will have been transformed into galleries for special exhibitions—an increase of more than 40 percent.

The East Building will include an expanded box office and renovated lobby that will visually connect it to the West Building. It will also be the site of the NCMA’s popular family and public programs, its administrative offices, and new art-storage facilities.

Key Project Professionals
The NCMA has assembled an exceptional team for the expansion and renovation. In addition to Thomas Phifer and Partners, this includes the architect of record for the new building, Pierce Brinkley Cease + Lee Architects, Raleigh, N.C., and landscape architects Lappas + Havener, PA, in Durham, N.C. Natural and artificial lighting design has been created in a collaboration between Fisher Marantz Stone, in New York City, and Ove Arup, in London and New York City.

Project Funding
The State of North Carolina, Wake County, and the City of Raleigh have provided $67 million for the construction of the new gallery building to house the NCMA’s distinguished permanent collection, as well as a $6 million commitment for the repair and renovation of the existing building, bringing the public commitment to the project to $73 million. This confident governmental investment demonstrates North Carolina’s belief that the arts are important to the character of the state and its people.

North Carolina Museum of Art
The North Carolina Museum of Art houses the art collections of the State of North Carolina. The State’s initial 1947 appropriation of $1 million was used to purchase 139 European and American paintings and sculptures. In 1960, the Museum’s collection was immeasurably enriched with the gift of 75 works of art from the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, making the NCMA the country’s second-largest repository of Kress gifts, exceeded only by the National Gallery of Art, in Washington, D.C.

Today, in addition to presenting selections from its encyclopedic collection, the Museum organizes and hosts a diversity of special exhibitions and offers a rich complement of education and public programs.

The North Carolina Museum of Art first opened to the public in April 1956, in a renovated state office building in downtown Raleigh, the state capital. It launched the present Edward Durell Stone-designed facility on April 5, 1983. In 1997, as part of the Museum’s 50th-anniversary celebration, it opened its performing arts and film venue, the Joseph M. Bryan, Jr., Theater, in Museum Park. With its present expansion and renewal, the Museum is poised to become one of the nation’s most vital cultural destinations.

The Museum Web site is located at www.ncartmuseum.org.
Media contact:
For additional information, contact Alesia DiCosola at (919) 664-6795 or adicosola@ncmamail.dcr.state.nc.us or Jennifer Warner at (919) 664-6772 or jwarner@ncmamail.dcr.state.nc.us.

The North Carolina Museum of Art’s permanent collection spans more than 5,000 years, from ancient Egypt to the present, making the institution one of the premier art museums in the Southeast. The Museum’s collection provides educational, aesthetic, intellectual, and cultural experiences for the citizens of North Carolina and beyond. The 164-acre Museum Park showcases the connection between art and nature through monumental works of environmental art. The Museum offers changing national touring exhibitions, classes, lectures, family activities, films, and concerts.

The Museum is closed through Saturday, April 24, 2010 as preparations are made for opening a new gallery building. The North Carolina Museum of Art, Lawrence J. Wheeler, director, is located at 2110 Blue Ridge Road in Raleigh. It is the art museum of the State of North Carolina, and Beverly Eaves Perdue, governor, and an agency of the Department of Cultural Resources, Linda A. Carlisle, secretary. For information call (919) 839-NCMA, or visit www.ncartmuseum.org.

Recorded in Meymandi Concert Hall at the Progress Energy Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Raleigh, the CD features works by Russian composers Sergei Rachmaninoff and Nikolai Medtner.

“We are delighted to present the eagerly-awaited release of this Rachmaninoff/Medtner SACD,” says BIS Records Artists and Repertoire Director Rob Suff. “Yevgeny Sudbin is one of the leading artists of his generation and we are particularly pleased that he has been joined in this project by the North Carolina Symphony under the direction of Grant Llewellyn, whose first recording for the label was rapturously received by critics worldwide.”

The recording, Sudbin’s second concerto disc, celebrates the close relationship between these two great composers. An avowed Medtner champion, Sudbin performs the composer’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor. “Why this concerto is not performed more often remains a mystery and is nothing short of scandalous, “ he says. “It offers everything a pianist, or a conductor, can wish for.”

“To have found a brilliant, young, sensitive Russian pianist, on the cusp of a major career, is great good luck,” says Symphony Music Director Grant Llewellyn. “To then match his pianistic flair with two of the greatest Russian pianist/composers ever is fortunate planning. But to have discovered two concertos, each dedicated to the other’s composer, containing such richness of detail and depth of expression, and then find that one has never been fully recorded in its original version, is pure serendipity. I hope that the music world will truly appreciate the revelations that are herein displayed.”

The disc’s Rachmaninoff selections include the original version of the Piano Concerto No. 4 in G minor, Op. 40 and Floods of Spring from Twelve Songs, Op. 14, transcribed for piano solo by Sudbin himself.

Sudbin, who plays with a spine-tingling brilliance that has been compared to that of a young Vladimir Horowitz, is garnering lavish praise from critics and audiences around the world. The Daily Telegraph (London) calls him “potentially one of the greatest pianists of the 21st century,” and his first concerto recording received a number of distinctions, including a 2007 Gramophone Award nomination.

“We are extremely pleased with the quality, depth, and polish of this disc,” says Symphony president and CEO David Chambless Worters. “Yevgeny Sudbin is a consummate musician and a great partner for our orchestra. The result is a recording that audiences far beyond North Carolina will enjoy. Together with the first disc, American Spectrum, the North Carolina Symphony has made a significant contribution to the world of music.”

The CD may be purchased at the North Carolina Symphony’s office at North Hills in Raleigh, or online: http://www.ncsymphony.org/store/index.cfm?cid=1&pid=19

About BIS
Founded in 1973 and located in near Stockholm, Sweden, BIS is well-known in the music industry for its uncanny ability to find musical niches to fill. The label focuses on classical music, both contemporary and early, and explores undeservedly neglected or previously unknown repertoire. BIS is currently working with only two American orchestras; its other U.S. project is a cycle of Beethoven symphonies with the Minnesota Orchestra and its music director Ösmö Vänskä.

About the North Carolina Symphony:
The North Carolina Symphony is a full-time, professional orchestra with 68 members. With its home in Raleigh, North Carolina’s spectacular Meymandi Concert Hall, the symphony performs about 175 concerts in nearly 40 communities annually across North Carolina.

Editor’s note: Stories on Blackbeard’s November ties are welcome now. This event is for the media only. It will review work on artifact investigation from the presumed Queen Anne’s Revenge shipwreck, Blackbeard’s flagship.

GREENVILLE – November was a big month for the pirate Blackbeard. He captured the vessel La Concorde in November 1717, and renamed her Queen Anne’s Revenge. He died in a battle against Lt. Robert Maynard with the British Royal Navy in November 1718. The wreck of the purported Queen Anne’s Revenge was found near Beaufort in November 1996. On Nov. 20, 2009, researchers will show how they are bringing Blackbeard back to life at the QAR Conservation Lab in Greenville.

The 11 a.m. media presentation will include remarks on the progress of the QAR project, and discussion of the essential role of conservation to recover, study and exhibit the wreck’s rich archaeological remains. Conservators will outline work on cannons in various stages of conservation, showcase mystery items revealed through x-ray, such as two mug-like objects possibly used to test black powder, copper cuff links, and other artifacts to be exhibited at the N.C. Maritime Museum in Beaufort. The exceptional artifact recovered this fall, a grapnel anchor, and other objects also will be shown.

Recovering concretion covered cannons and grenades, flecks of gold, or pig bones from a dinner long ago, is just the beginning of the investigation into pirate life and proving the wreck is Blackbeard’s vessel. More than a quarter million artifacts have been recovered by this project. Until January 2010, many of the conserved artifacts will be exhibited in the Knights of the Black Flag exhibit at the N.C. Museum of History in Raleigh.

QAR Project Director Mark Wilde-Ramsing will give a status update and preview 2010 activity. Chief Conservator Sarah Watkins-Kenney will review the types of artifacts and 12-step conservation process. Nautical Archaeologist and Blackbeard expert David Moore will explain how all the evidence marks this shipwreck as the Queen Anne’s Revenge.

This wreck was located in November 1996 by Intersal, Inc., with information provided to Operations Director Mike Daniel by company president Phil Masters. Archaeologists with the Underwater Archaeology Branch and N.C. Maritime Museum in the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources have led research on the wreck for more than 12 years.

For information call Mark Wilde-Ramsing at (910) 458-9042 or Fay Mitchell at (919) 807-7389. The Department of Cultural Resources is the state agency dedicated to the promotion and protection of North Carolina’s arts, history and culture, and podcasting 24/7 with information about the Department of Cultural Resources at www.ncculture.com.

Due to family illness, de Broin is unable to travel at this time. SECCA hopes to reschedule his installation for a future date.

SECCA Curator Steven Matijcio says, “Michel de Broin has rapidly become one of the most imaginative and eccentric public artists in the world today. We will continue our efforts to share his work with our community.”

SECCA regrets any inconvenience caused by this cancellation.

SECCA is designed to involve audiences in the art of our time. SECCA is an operating entity of the North Carolina Museum of Art, an agency of the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources. SECCA is also a funded partner of The Arts Council of Winston-Salem and Forsyth County.

“Inside Out: Artists in the Community ll” is a program supported in part by a program grant provided by the James G. Hanes Foundation.In-kind support is provided by Sundance Plaza Hotel, Spa and Wellness Center, AdColor, Moore Self Storage, Mock Orange, Spot on the Sonic Landscape Studio, 3M/Scotch Tape, Sherwin Williams, Target and Hanes Brands Inc.

Cecelski, originally from Craven County, is researching Abraham Galloway, a colorful run-away slave/Union informant during the Civil War, for an upcoming book. Bland Simpson, originally from Elizabeth City, is an expert on the sounds and waterways of the coastal North Carolina. Each will share some of his acquired wisdom on the subject. Simpson presents on Saturday afternoon; Cecelski on Saturday night. Simpson is also recipient of the 2009 R. Hunt Parker Memorial Award for Literary achievement, and teaches creative writing at UNC-Chapel Hill. (Also see the North Carolina Award and www.celebratenc.gov. Cecelski is recipient of the last Mayflower Cup Award, presented in 2002.

Registration for the two day program is $55, and includes a Friday evening reception, Saturday programs and dinner, and a two day pass to Tryon Palace Historic Sites and Gardens www.tryonpalace.org. The Saturday workshop fee is $10; Saturday afternoon only is free. Registration is required by Nov. 10. Call (919) 807-7280 to register and for information www.ncculture.com.

The Sir Walter Raleigh Award for Fiction will be presented to Ron Rash, of Cullowhee, author of “Serena,” a book about a couple hoping to build a fortune from the lumber industry in western North Carolina during the Depression. When Serena, the new bride, arrives to the mountains she discovers her husband has an illegitimate child. She eventually plots to murder the child, and anyone who gets in the way of her quest to build a logging empire.

The Roanoke-Chowan Award for Poetry will be presented to Pat Riviere-Seel, of Asheville, author of “The Serial Killer’s Daughter,” told from the point of view of Velma Barfield’s daughter. Barfield was executed in November 1984 for the poisoning death of her fiancé, and confessed to murdering three others, including her mother.

Redemption for the women’s tales may come from the Ragan Old North State Award for Nonfiction, which goes to Anna R. Hayes, of Chapel Hill, for “Without Precedent: The Life of Susie Marshall Sharp.” The exploration of the life of the first woman justice on North Carolina’s Supreme Court, and also first elected to be chief justice of a state supreme court in America, reveals conflicts and contradictions in the supposedly quintessential spinster’s affairs.

The adventures in “Wild Things,” by Clay Carmichael, of Chapel Hill, win the American Association of University Women Award for Juvenile Literature. It shares the story of 11-year-old Zoe, who is adopted by her sculptor uncle after her mother commits suicide. His zany artistic creations, a lively feral cat and other creatures make for a fresh and rewarding tale.

For the first time, the Hardee-Rives Award for Dramatic Arts will be presented. Endowed by retired East Carolina University Professor Ralph Hardee Rives, it recognizes achievement in the dramatic arts. Bo Thorp and the Cape Fear Regional Theater are recipients. The Tryon Palace Commission is recipient of the Christopher Crittenden Award for preservation of North Carolina history, and is only the third organization to win this award www.history.ncdcr.gov/affililates/lit-hist/awards/crittenden.htm.

Recipients of Student Awards for publications are:

High School:
First Place – The Pegasus, Myers Park High School, Charlotte; Susan Shuping, advisor
Second Place – Stone Soup, Enloe High School, Raleigh; Priscilla Chappell, advisor
Third Place – Wanderlust, Carolina Day School, Asheville; Craig Jolly, advisor
Honorable Mention – Spectrum, Arendell Parrot Academy, Kinston; Terah Archie, advisor

Middle School:
First Place – Soli Deo Gloria, Christ Covenant School, Winterville; Lisa Stroud, advisor
Second Place – Mosaic, Ligon GT Middle School, Raleigh; Lisa Covington, advisor
Third Place – Illusions, Martin Middle School, Raleigh; Chris Iadicicco, advisor

The N.C. Office of Archives and History within the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources, administers the N.C. Book Awards. For additional information call (919) 807-7380. DCR is the state agency dedicated to the promotion and protection of North Carolina’s arts, history and culture. Now podcasting 24/7 with information about the Department of Cultural Resources, all available at www.ncculture.com.

SPENCER, N.C. – More than 400 Boy Scouts will spend a busy and fun-filled weekend at the N.C. Transportation Museum during Rail Camp, Nov. 6-8. Troops will spend Friday through Sunday at the museum, the site of the former Spencer Shops steam locomotive repair facility.

Most of the 28 troops attending this year’s Rail Camp come from North Carolina. However, troops will also be traveling from as far north as Danville, Va. and as far south as Anderson, S.C. All will learn about locomotive travel and rail transportation and earn their Railroading Merit Badge.

Many troops and their leaders have been attending Rail Camp for several years. Dwight Creason, who leads Troop 525 from Mocksville, has attended for the past eight years. Creason’s says the scouts are able to learn a lot in a few days. “Most of them, even though they’ve read this stuff in the history books, they really don’t have a concept of it until its hands on,” he said. Creason credits the location, the former Spencer Shops, as making those lessons more tangible. “Being there on site where thousands of men worked several years ago, that’s a pretty awesome experience in itself.”

Boy Scout troops will set up camp at the N.C. Transportation Museum Friday evening. Saturday morning, troops will tour the museum before taking a train ride around the museum’s 57 acre property. After a scavenger hunt, scouts will dedicate the afternoon to earning their Railroading Merit Badge. Troops will learn how a diesel-electric locomotive develops power, how to identify different types of railcars, the importance of railroad signals and railroad safety. Troops will also learn about modern railroad companies and planning a trip by rail.

Rail Camp is also a great opportunity for Boy Scouts to interact, camping alongside each other and working together to earn their Merit Badges. Flag raising and lowering ceremonies and a campfire program is also part of the fun. Creason describes it as “a real blast, a fun fellowship weekend.”

The N.C. Transportation Museum, located in historic Spencer Shops, the former Southern Railway repair facility, is part of the Division of State Historic Sites, Department of Cultural Resources. The museum is located just five minutes off I-85 at Exit 79 in Spencer, and about an hour from Charlotte, Greensboro or Winston-Salem. Visit www.nctrans.org for more information. The N.C. Department of Cultural Resources is celebrating the 2009 theme of “Treasure N.C. Culture.” For information on the Department of Cultural Resources, call (919) 807-7385 or visit www.ncculture.com.

“A Day of Blood: The 1898 Wilmington Race Riot,” by LeRae Umfleet, is published by the Historical Publications Section of the N.C. Office of Archives and History and the African American Heritage Commission, and is available through Historical Publications.

“On Nov. 10, 1898, white rioters in Wilmington murdered blacks in broad daylight and overthrew
a legitimately elected Republican government without public opposition or intervention by the authorities,” said Umfleet. Over the next quarter of a century, in a series of similar race riots throughout the country, Wilmington’s violence led to ever-tightening controls on blacks as they lost their rights and, in many instances, their lives.

The riot was neither isolated nor spontaneous. It was the result of a series of events planned by white businessmen to regain control of government on both local and state levels. State Democratic Party strategists thrust Wilmington into the spotlight as an example of Republican corruption and bad government because of the participation of African Americans in local politics. The change in government that day—the only successful coup d’état in United States history—fully ended black participation in local government until the advent of the civil rights era 60 years later.

In this thoroughly researched, definitive study, Umfleet examines the actions that precipitated the riot; the details of what happened in Wilmington on Nov. 10, 1898; and the long-term impact of that day in North Carolina and across the nation.

LeRae S. Umfleet is chief of collections management for the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources. She holds a bachelor’s degree in history from the UNC-Chapel Hill and a master’s degree in history from East Carolina University. In 2007 she received the American Association for State and Local History’s Award of Merit and WOW Award for her work on the 1898 Wilmington Race Riot Report.

“A Day of Blood: The 1898 Wilmington Race Riot” (softbound; pp. xix, 288; illustrations; index) costs $28.02 ($26.08, libraries), which includes tax and shipping. Order from the Historical Publications Section (N), Office of Archives and History, 4622 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, NC 27699-4622. For credit card orders call (919) 733-7442, ext. 0, or visit the section’s secure online store at http://nc-historical-publications.stores.yahoo.net/. “A Day of Blood” is also available through local bookstores and Amazon.com.

The Historical Publications Section is administered by the Office of Archives and History, part of the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources, the state agency dedicated to the promotion and protection of North Carolina’s arts, history and culture. Additional information is available at www.ncculture.com.

“In the absence of official diplomatic relations between the US and Taiwan, our office functions as the de facto US Consulate in Kaohsiung,” says Institute Branch Chief Chris Castro, “and is therefore actively involved in promoting a wide range of US cultural programs in southern Taiwan.”

The concert, which is scheduled for November 15 at the Kaohsiung Cultural Center, will be free of charge. “This will allow a diverse array of citizens, particularly those who do not often have a chance to hear a live symphony, to enjoy this unique opportunity,” says Castro.

The program will include Broadway selections and music by Gershwin and John Williams, as well as Dvořák’s New World Symphony. A highlight of the evening will be the performance of Curry’s own composition, “Eulogy for a Dream,” a work which pays tribute to the memory and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King.

In addition to leading the Kaohsiung Symphony Orchestra, Maestro Curry will participate in master classes and lectures at local community schools. “Guiding music professionals and teaching music students has been the center of my professional life for almost 35 years,” says Curry. “I am pleased to have this opportunity to share my love for American music with the musicians and music-lovers of Taiwan.”

Symphony president and CEO David Chambless Worters said, “We’re enormously pleased that our very own William Henry Curry has been invited to represent our Symphony and our State to citizens of Taiwan. We’re honored to have him represent us, our fine orchestra, and our wonderful state and are confident his work will be, as it always is, outstanding.”

Says, Curry, “I am thrilled to be involved in such a meaningful project with music that means so much to me. This will be my second time to work in Taiwan. Some 15 years ago, I conducted the National Orchestra of Taiwan in Taipei in a traditional New Year’s Eve concert. The experience was a wholly positive one. I am looking forward to my return!”

RALEIGH – Since 1964, about 250 North Carolinians have received the state’s highest civilian honor, the North Carolina Award. Six outstanding North Carolinians received the award at the ceremony at the N.C. Museum of History on Thursday night. The North Carolina Award, the state’s highest honor, was presented by Gov. Beverly Perdue in the areas of Fine Arts, Literature, Public Service and Science. The award is administered by the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources.

“The award celebrates creativity and innovation, two values which sustain our economy, our culture and our people,” said Gov. Perdue, “bestowed upon individuals whose contributions to out state are enduring and significant.”

GERALD BARRAX – LITERATURE

The life journey of Gerald Barrax has taken him from Attalla, Ala., where he was born, to Pittsburgh, Pa., where he moved at age 10, to Raleigh, N.C. where he worked and retired. He happened into poetry first by writing a response to a poem written for him by a teen-aged girlfriend, then after being introduced to the lush writing of Walter Benton in “This is My Beloved.” He joined the U.S. Air Force because of the G.I. Bill that paid for college. He discovered “The Poets’ Handbook” by Clement Wood in a used book store while stationed in Greenville, S.C. It changed his life.

Barrax began to study and practice the craft of poetry, and worked in formal structures such as sonnets, sestinas, and villanelles, putting himself through a three to four year apprenticeship on poetic forms. After the Air Force he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Duquesne University in 1963, and a master’s degree from the University of Pittsburgh in 1969. He became a visiting professor at North Carolina Central University in Durham in 1969, and taught American literature and poetry writing at North Carolina State University in Raleigh from 1970 until retirement in 1997.

The job of the poet, says Barrax, is to tell the truth. He made that his life’s work, sharing his honest reflections in several major areas –love, God, music, nature, and death. He dismisses the angry polemics of many on race. He relishes the emotional and physical. He seeks answers on religion, regards music as the passion of his life, and puzzles over the interaction of man and nature. And over much of his work is the shadow of death. He is recognized as one of North Carolina’s most eminent and accomplished writers. He has published six books of poetry, and his book, “Leaning Against the Sun” was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award. He has five children and eight grandchildren. He lives in Raleigh with his wife, Joan.

JOSEPH M. DESIMONE – SCIENCE

Perhaps it foreshadowed Joe DeSimone’s life’s work when he improved on the teacher’s explanation of pH and shared one that his high school classmates could understand. Since arriving at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1990, he has been a wunderkind in chemistry and engineering. In September 2009 he received a Pioneer Award from the National Institutes of Health, worth $2.5 million over five years. He will continue current research in nanotechnology, mass producing particles in any size and shape for targeted cancer treatment. It could be transformative in the fields of medicine, photovoltaics, and robotics. Already his innovations have been applied in green manufacturing and nanomedicine; he has more than 120 patents approved and a similar number pending nationally and internationally.

Born in Norristown, Pa., DeSimone was awarded in 1986 a Bachelor of Science degree from Ursinus College in Collegeville, Pa., a small liberal arts college that offered a polymer science course. He earned a PhD in chemistry at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in 1990, and that year also accepted an appointment at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to the nascent polymer program in the chemistry department. He now holds distinguished seats in the UNC-CH departments of chemistry and pharmacology, and in N.C. State University’s department of chemistry and biomolecular engineering.

DeSimone wants science to solve the world’s problems, and believes in getting research out of the lab and into the marketplace. He co-founded Liquidia Technologies in 2004, which is developing nanocarriers for delivery of therapies to treat cancer and other diseases. His innovative work led to the National Cancer Institute awarding to UNC $5 million a year for each of five years. He has received many honors, and in 2005, at age 41, he became the youngest member named to the National Academy of Engineering and also was elected to the National Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was 2008 recipient of the $500,000 Lemelson-MIT Prize, which many consider a step to the Nobel Prize. He lives in Chapel Hill with his wife, Suzanne; they have two children.

BETTY RAY MCCAIN – PUBLIC SERVICE

The daughter of a country lawyer and a schoolteacher, Betty Ray McCain learned to tell stories and to meet people early in life. Those skills served her well, as she became a driving force in North Carolina’s arts, history and politics. She has held a wide range of largely unpaid positions for decades with energy and enthusiasm. A campaign manager for her friend Jim Hunt, McCain became the first woman chair of the N.C. Democratic Party and first female to serve on the N.C. Budget Advisory Commission. She has been a member of the party’s Executive Committee since 1971.

Born and educated in Faison, McCain attended St. Mary’s College and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she was awarded a Bachelor’s of Arts degree in music in 1952. In 1953, she earned a master’s degree in music from Columbia University. She put her arts training to work as secretary of the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources from 1993-2001, where she advanced the department’s programs to legislators, business leaders, school children, and foreign dignitaries. She has served in leadership roles on boards and been an advocate for scores of arts and cultural organizations, including the N.C. Literary and Historical Association, North Carolina Symphony Society, Center for Public Television Trustees, Preservation North Carolina Foundation, State Capitol Foundation, UNC Lineberger Cancer Center, Carolinas Center for Medical Excellence, McCain Internet Empowerment Project, UNC Board of Governors, and many more.

Those who have worked with McCain attest to her “grace, wit, diligence and charm.” A deep love for the people of the state drives her to continue to provide dynamic leadership to dozens of civic groups today. That high regard is reciprocated as she has received five honorary doctorates and numerous awards from educational, charitable and civic organizations. Her husband of 49 years, John McCain, passed away in 2005. She lives in Wilson and has two children and five grandchildren.

HUGH L. MCCOLL Jr.– PUBLIC SERVICE

Hugh McColl descends from a line of bankers extending back to his great-grandfather, who in 1886 organized the Bank of Marlboro, in Bennettsville, S.C., where McColl was born and raised. After earning a business administration degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1957, he joined the U.S. Marine Corps and became a troop leader. The combination of family background, education, competitive drive, and military discipline contributed to McColl’s becoming a transformative force in American banking.

When McColl came home after two years in the Marines, his father steered him to the American Commercial Bank in Charlotte, where the former lieutenant was hired as a trainee. In 1960, the bank merged with Greensboro’s Security National Bank and became North Carolina National Bank (NCNB) which grew to seven states with 826 offices. Thus began McColl’s ascent in national and international banking. In 1991, a NCNB merger created NationsBank; a later merger created Bank of America, headquartered in Charlotte. The bank grew to $642 billion in assets and 5,000 banking centers. After retiring in 2001, he founded McColl Partners, a mergers and acquisitions firm, and the art consulting firms McColl Fine Art in Charlotte and MME Fine Art in New York City.

McColl believes in building the community, and convinced the National Football League to bring a team to Charlotte, then helped finance Ericsson Stadium. He speaks of corporate responsibility and the obligation to tackle social and economic problems. NationsBank invested $1 billion in downtown Charlotte and largely was responsible for changing the face of downtown. Under McColl’s direction, the bank helped spark revitalization of an uptown public housing project that had fallen into disrepair into a successful mixed income multifamily complex. His many contributions to civic and educational institutions, most notably Queens College, home of the McColl School of Business, and at UNC-Chapel Hill, where the McColl Building houses the Kenan-Flagler School of Business. Among his honors is being named one of the “25 Most Fascinating People” by Fortune, “Banker of the Year,” by The American Banker, and Chief Executive Officer of the Year by Financial World. He and his wife Jane live in Charlotte and have three children and seven grandchildren.

MARK PEISER – FINE ARTS

Chicago-born Mark Peiser attended progressive suburban schools and enrolled at Perdue University to study engineering, later transferring to the design program at the Illinois Institute of Technology. He worked as an industrial designer before deciding to pursue his dream of attending music school at DePaul University. Coincidence and a second hand leaded glass lamp led Peiser to consider working with glass, and to study at the Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina. All these elements have found their way into his glass artworks that exhibit technical innovations, sculptural forms and singular beauty.

Peiser’s luminous, lyrical sculptures stretch the boundaries of what glass, or sometimes stone or bronze, can do. From small paperweight vases, each containing a perfect world of roads, trees and flowers within, to large vases and geometric forms, he refines each piece into the tight designs he favors.

He has remained in Penland since arriving in 1967, and became the first glass artist in residence that year. At the time glass was an unexplored art medium, so Peiser had to create skills, tools and techniques as he went along. Ingenuity and technical innovation are central to his art. His latest process is called cold stream casting, and involves drizzling hot glass from a second floor furnace into a rotating mold on the floor below. He has produced a unique and exciting body of work.

Peiser’s aesthetic innovations have had a tremendous impact on the art world, and take North Carolina to the forefront of the studio glass movement. He has shared his scientific and technical developments and helped to create a vibrant market for glass art. Internationally known, his work is in collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, National Museum of American History-Smithsonian Institution, Lucerne Museum of Art, Tokyo Museum of Modern Art, and many others. He has been awarded grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation, and has received the glass world’s highest honors. He lives in Penland and has a grown daughter.

BO THORP – FINE ARTS

When Bo Thorp stepped onto her elementary school stage in her hometown of Columbia, S.C., she could not have imagined that she had found her life’s work. She attended Ashley Hall School for Girls in Charleston, where schoolmates called her “Bo” rather than her given name, Olga. She loved to act and began writing small musicals as a student at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She graduated in 1956, and married law student Herbert Thorp that year. In travels to his assignments as a U.S. Air Force judge advocate, from New York to Morocco to Fayetteville, she likely learned lessons in perseverance that served her well later in her career. Thorp continued her craft. Over the last 42 years, she has built the Cape Fear Regional Theatre (CFRT) into one of the country’s best.

In 1962, the Cape Fear Regional Theatre was born as the Fayetteville Little Theatre, beginning operations out of the old Haymont movie house in 1963. As the theater’s artistic director, Thorp began to change the lives of those who performed and those who watched. A versatile and gifted actor in drama, comedy or musical theater, she is also a brilliant director, producer, and master fundraiser. She provides a cultural oasis in the sandhills region. Her presentations have engaged school children, addressed social ills, and sparked conversations. Plays from North Carolina artists, including Good Ol’ Girls, Lunch at the Piccadilly, Pump Boys and the Dinettes, and others, are fortunate to be produced under her eye.

Thorp is considered a force of nature in her hometown, a “go to” person when things need to get done. She keeps the cultural scene vibrant, and engages talent from the region and nearby Fort Bragg. CFRT is an economic engine for her community. She has shared all she has learned with the state’s professional community and is on the board of directors for the N.C. Theatre Conference. Her numerous accolades include the Order of the Long Leaf Pine from the State of North Carolina, the Outstanding Woman Entrepreneur from Methodist College, and others. She lives in Fayetteville and with her late husband has two children and five grandchildren.

For additional information on the North Carolina Awards call (919) 807-7389 or (919) 807-7256. The N.C. Department of Cultural Resources administers the award program and is the state agency dedicated to the promotion and protection of North Carolina’s arts, history and culture with information at www.ncculture.com.

(RALEIGH) — The North Carolina Awards, the state’s highest civilian honor, will be presented at the N. C. Museum of History, on Thursday, Oct. 29, at 8 p.m. Tickets are required and limited availability remains. The awards recognize outstanding achievements by North Carolinians in the fields of fine arts, science, literature and public service. This year’s ceremony is the 46th annual public presentation of the prestigious award.

WHO: Gov. Beverly Perdue, N.C. Department of Cultural Resources Secretary Linda Carlisle,
2009 North Carolina Award recipients: Gerald Barrax, Literature, Joe DeSimone, Science, Betty Ray McCain and Hugh McColl, Public Service; Mark Peiser and Bo Thorpe, Fine Arts

WHAT: North Carolina Award Presentations, the state’s highest honor

WHEN: Thursday, Oct. 29, 8 p.m.

WHERE: N.C. Museum of History, 5 Edenton Street, Raleigh

The North Carolina Award Program is administered by the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources. For additional information contact the Information and Marketing Services Office, 919-807-7389. Cultural Resources is the state agency dedicated to the promotion and protection of North Carolina’s arts, history and culture. Now podcasting 24/7 with information about the Department of Cultural Resources, all available at www.ncculture.com.