Guilford Art Center Announces
3rd Annual Art Achievement Awards – “Visionaries 2008”

The Guilford Art Center announces the recipients of its Third Annual Art Achievement Awards, recognizing individuals for their contributions to the community through art: Natalie Forbes, Executive Director of the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, and Kathryn Halloran Greene, owner of the Greene Art Gallery. The Award recipients will be honored at a cocktail reception in the Mill Gallery at the Guilford Art Center on Friday, May 23, from 6-8pm. The gathering is free of charge, and the public is invited to attend. [Click here to download an invitation.]

“Visionaries believe in possibilities. They believe they can figure it out,” says Guilford Art Center Executive Director Jean Perkins. “Their ideas are distinctive. They show us the way. It is in this spirit that we are honoring Natalie Forbes and Kathryn Halloran Greene. They instinctively know that our current moment is just where we find ourselves now, not necessarily how it always has to be. We say, ‘How did they know that would happen?’ As they leave behind time-tested ideas and practices, they are able to show us new ways. ‘Look,’ they say. ‘See what is possible.’"

A native of Sydney, Australia, Natalie Forbes has international experience as both a musician and arts administrator. Prior to joining the NHSO in 2005, she had been Executive Director of the Pittsburgh Chamber Music Society, Founder and Artistic Director of The Fiddlesticks String Ensemble in Rome, and co-founded the Rome International Youth Orchestra. Her extensive experience as a violinist includes performances in Australia with the Quartetto Classicale and the Sydney Baroque Orchestra, and in Italy with the Prometheus String Quartet and the Beaux Arts Orchestra. Throughout her career, she has focused on excellence in performance and presenting; a deep commitment to education; and the importance of a strong connection to the community.

Forbes played a critical role in attracting a world-renowned conductor, William Boughton, to be music director of the NHSO. Also under Forbes’ direction, the Symphony has instigated new programs in response to community needs and current learning practices, among them the Family Concert series, (including an “instrumental petting zoo,” an opportunity for youngsters to try out instruments); the Art Violin Project—which invited artists to design, decorate or deconstruct violins which were later displayed and auctioned in support of the NHSO; the Photography Project, a multidisciplinary program incorporating creative writing, photography and music; and the Connecticut Youth Orchestra Festival, which brought more than 400 students from across the State for a day of rehearsals, performances, and master classes.  

“Classical music has been a driving force in my life since I began piano lessons at 7 years of age,” says Forbes. “It has afforded me friendship, career, travel and fulfillment…the joy of music-making is only equaled by that of our ability to share it with others. It [is] my privilege to work in a community that has such a strong commitment to the value of the arts, and an integral belief in their ability to touch people's lives.”

Kathryn Halloran Greene is owner of the Greene Art Gallery in Guilford, which was founded by her late husband, Richard B. Greene, in 1977. After the town of Guilford used Richard’s red Victorian barn on Whitfield Street for a 1976 bicentennial show called “Guilford Artists Past and Present,” Richard was inspired to open the Greene Art Gallery. Following her husband’s death in 2006, Greene did not intend to re-open the gallery, since “to me and many others,” she says, “Richard was the Greene Art Gallery.” But she eventually did reopen, as a way to keep alive her husband’s love and support for art and artists and to continue on with their shared visions for the future. “In re-opening the gallery I have received more from the community than I could ever give. This space is an integral part of what people who live in and visit Guilford feel this town is. Art is important to people and with it people experience an expression of creativity and spirit,” Greene says. The Gallery is also a community gathering space: site of charity fund raisers, discussion groups, book launches, poetry readings and, beginning this Fall, a series of films and lectures about art, history, politics and spirituality. “I feel that it is educational to provide insight into the creative process,” Greene says.

Greene was born in Stamford and has lived in Chicago and California as well as in Guilford. She has a wide-ranging background in education and non profit administration, radio and television production, real estate and more, and an unfailing record of community involvement everywhere she has lived.

For more information about the Guilford Art Center Art Achievement Award and reception, please call Tammy Sheridan, Development & Events Manager, at 453-5947, ext. 11.