The National Endowment for the Arts has been funded at the same rate for the past four years at $146 million. This may seem like quite a large sum, until you realize that the agency took a 40 percent cut from $176 million in 1992. It has never fully recovered.
Melia Tourangeau, the president and CEO of the Utah Symphony/Utah Opera, was selected to offer testimony to the House Interior Appropriations Committee to stress the importance of increased federal funding.
“We asked for an additional allocation of about $9 million from where the funding is currently, knowing that you have to reach for the stars in order to try and maintain where we are right now,” Tourangeau said.
Tourangeau said that to arts organizations, increased federal support means much more than simple monetary value.
“The impact that the NEA has on organizations in our communities is incredibly significant because I’m able to say, ‘We were awarded a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts for this project. Because of that, you as a corporation or foundation should please join us in this project because it has this great endorsement,’” Tourangeau said.
NEA funding has allowed for new commissions and world premieres at the Utah Symphony/Utah Opera, the largest performing arts organization in the West. Other Utah organizations that have received funding are the Sundance Institute, Ballet West, the Ririe-Woodbury Dance Foundation and the Moab Music Festival.
“To have the federal government endorse the value of arts in our culture, to have a civil society, is incredibly important,” Tourangeau said.