Studer Community Institute

Tenors to headline 2015 Foo Foo Fest

June 12, 2015
/ Staff Reports
/ training-development

A recreation of the original Three Tenors staged by the Pensacola Opera will highlight the 2015 Foo Foo Festival this fall. The Opera will stage the event through an $85,600 mega-grant it applied to Art, Culture and Entertainment Inc. for the second Foo Foo Festival, set for Nov. 5-16. The free concert at the Pensacola Bayfront Stadium featuring the big vocals of world-renowned tenors Arnold Rawls, Adam Diegel and David Portillo. [sidebar] About the Foo Foo Three Tenors:

Tenor Arnold Rawls has delighted audiences with his unique combination of vocal and dramatic skills in performances ranging from art song to opera. He has been hailed for having a powerful, clarion-sounding tenor, a firm, pliant lyric tenor with ringing high notes as well as a flair for acting.
Tenor Adam Diegel rapidly is establishing international renown for an impassioned dramatic sense, powerful voice and for his classic leading looks in the lyric tenor repertoire.
Praised by Opera News for “high notes with ease, singing with a luxuriant warm glow that seduced the ear as he bounded about the stage with abandon,” American tenor David Portillo has established himself as one of the leading artists of his generation.

[/sidebar] “These are the Foo Foo Three Tenors, not the original Three Tenors,” said Erika Beach, marketing director for Pensacola Opera. “It will be a great, free event with a light-hearted atmosphere, bringing opera to the public in a more accessible way." Art, Culture and Entertainment Inc. announced the recipients of $250,000 in grants, including the Opera, this week. Foo Foo Fest is a 12-day celebration of the arts that acts as a “marketing umbrella” to help promoted events by 21 grant recipients and many more events. It is keyed around the Great Gulf Coast Arts Festival and the Blue Angels Homecoming Air Show. “Last year they asked, ‘What the heck is Foo Foo?’ Then visitors and locals alike discovered the Grammy Award-winning songwriters, beautiful blown glass, cutting edge art on the face of the old County Courthouse and much more,” said Lois Benson, chair of Foo Foo Fest, in a press release. “We are so very excited about the grant applications that we received and the events that our local organizations are producing for this year’s festival. Our slate of events promises to amaze.”

The Frank Brown International Songwriters Festival and Vinyl Music Hall (in partnership with Southern Youth Sports Association) also received mega-grants of $40,350.54 and $9,262.81, respectively. Eighteen other arts and cultural organizations received smaller grants to fund programs to be held during Foo Foo Fest. ACE initially planned to offer only one mega-grant of between $10,000 and $100,000 for the 2015 Foo Foo Fest. After a series of meetings in April and May, in which the Foo Foo Fest committee scored grant applications, a pro rata formula determined how much each qualifying applicant would receive. These funds totaled $200,386.65. The committee then voted to offer the remaining budgeted funds of $49,613.35 to other mega-grant applicants based on their application scores. [caption id="attachment_24819" align="aligncenter" width="850"]

The Foo Foo Fest committee met on May 5, 2015 to determine how to disperse grant funds.[/caption] Ranked second among the mega-grant applicants was The Art Gallery (TAG) at UWF, which proposed a 3D projection performance at the T.T. Wentworth Florida State Museum, similar to last year's program at the old Escambia County Courthouse on Palafox Street. When TAG indicated it could not conduct its proposal for less than half of the requested $100,000, the committee voted to award a pro rata grant to the Frank Brown International Songwriters Festival, which ranked third among mega-grant applicants, with the remaining funds going to Vinyl Music Hall, which ranked fourth. The full list of grant recipients and their programs are below. Grant awards are listed in parentheses.

Pensacola Opera ($85,600.00) – "P'Opera in the Park" featuring the "Foo Foo Three Tenors"
Frank Brown International Songwriters Festival ($40,350.54) – 31st Annual Frank Brown International Songwriters Festival
Vinyl Music Hall ($9,262.81) – Soja Live in Concert
Ballet Pensacola ($8,950.00) – "The Headless Horseman"
Pensacola Museum of Art ($8,783.33) – Mucha: Master of Art Nouveau
Egg Fest ($8,750.00) – Pensacola Egg Fest, A Big Green Egg® Cook-Off
Pensacola Symphony Orchestra ($8,666.67) – Brahms Symphony No. 2 and Symphony in the Square
Soar Pensacola ($8,350.00) – An Inspirational Faith and Family-Friendly Lantern Festival
First City Alliance ($8,160.00) – Pop-Up Hot Shop, Glass Blowing on the Move
Legal Services of Northwest Florida ($7,550.00) – Jazz for Justice
Truth for Youth ($7,150.00) – "Back on the Blocks," A Celebration of the Belmont-DeVilliers Neighborhood
Jazz Society of Pensacola ($6,559.17) – The Janet Knowles Memorial Jazz Gumbo: An Evening of New Orleans Jazz
Pensacola Little Theatre ($6,014.40) – "Always A Bridesmaid"
350 Pensaola ($5,604.00) – Clean Energy Fest
Pensacola Civic Band ($5,466.92) – "All That Jazz," A Concert Featuring Jazz Trombonist Harry Waters
Japan-America Society ($4,727.25) – Ikebana: The Art of Japanese Flower Arrangement
Pensacola MESS Hall ($4,638.33) – Science on the Street
Choral Society of Pensacola ($4,066.52) – "The Songs We've Loved to Sing"
UWF Historic Trust ($3,858.40) – Just Above Water: Florida Folk Art
African-American Heritage Society ($3,858.33) – Dr. Pellom McDaniels III, Author of "Isaac Murphy: The Price of Jockeys"
Pensacola Bay Concert Band ($3,633.33) – The Music of Pensacola: A Musical Salute to the City of Five Flags

For more information about Foo Foo Fest or to sign up for email alerts, visit the website at www.foofoofest.com.

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Tenors to headline 2015 Foo Foo Fest

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