Chicago’s Luminarts Supports Artists With 10 Year Commitment

During the lock down of early pandemic, Americans turned to the arts, consuming music, books, film and more in record numbers.

Despite the increased attention, performing artists lost a significant portion of their income, as concerts, plays and more dried up, with venues and theaters shuttering amidst quarantine. For many others, side gigs disappeared too as restaurants and bars closed temporarily, the “starving artist” stereotype never before so literally applied in America.

It understates the importance of the work of groups like the Chicago-based Luminarts Cultural Foundation. Growing out of the Union League Club of Chicago, the foundation has roots dating back to 1949, supporting the arts for more than 70 years.

Today, Luminarts endows about 20 artists on an annual basis.

“In a nutshell, Luminarts is the largest funder of incredible emerging artists in the greater Chicago region,” said Executive Director Jason Kalajainen. “Every year we go through a very long and thoughtful process to identify about 20 fellows. Those fellows are in visual arts, creative writing, jazz, classical music, fashion, ballet and architecture. We identify them and then we reward them by giving them an unrestricted fellowship grant which ranges from $10,000 to $15,000,” he said. “Once they’re named a Luminarts fellow, from that point on, for the next ten years, they can come back to the foundation and request up to $2,500 annually to support specific projects or career development opportunities that they have.”

One of the most striking elements of the foundation’s ongoing support of the arts is the ten year commitment it offers its fellows, allowing them the rare opportunity to establish an artistic identity while forging a viable career path, nurturing each over the course of a full decade.

In addition to the ten year commitment, Luminarts also provides fellows with opportunities for performance, a showcase for their work, mentorship and professional development.

While Americans rallied around storytelling and visual arts throughout COVID, it can be easy to take for granted just how many facets of everyday life are directly informed by the arts.

“I was directing a regional arts council in the state of Michigan and it had multiple gallery spaces. I was always trying to shake up those spaces to get different audiences in,” Kalajainen explained. “At one point, we did an exhibit entitled ‘The Art of Every Day.’ There was a motorcycle in the center of the gallery. There were all sorts of different objects that people may not realize at some point an artist is involved in. It might be a graphic designer or an industrial designer or an automotive designer. The applied arts and the hand that artists have in so much of our lives is ever present,” he said.

“I think the arts – because of the containment that we were all faced with – became a window into other worlds,” he continued. “When we used to be able to hop in our car or on an airplane to get somewhere, or even a subway, that was no longer the case. So to have access to other ideas, other cultures, entertainment and information via the arts through books, music or movies, became really important. And we actually saw people recognizing that importance. I think it really resonated with people.”

While the fellows chosen reside within proximity of Chicago, the foundation’s impact reverberates across the country and around the world, with musicians performing in Madrid, Taiwan and Japan and ballet dancers taking the stage in Germany.

Alexander Hersh is a fourth generation string player, specializing in the cello, an aspiring musician since the age of 5 who was awarded a Luminarts fellowship in 2017. Honing his craft in both Chicago and Boston, Hersh also had the opportunity to learn and perform in Berlin, a virtually unparalleled opportunity in one of classical music’s most celebrated cities.

“Luminarts is just on a level of its own I would say, honestly. There are very few organizations in the country that do what Luminarts does,” said Hersh. “I think that’s such a great model for other institutions and other organizations – they truly do support artists. It’s much more than just a competition that awards a prize. They have these project grants which enable the winners to apply for and pitch ideas and stay creative. It’s really an ongoing and supportive family. A lot of organizations like to say they’re a family but Luminarts really is.”

Hersh, 29, co-founded Nexus Chamber Music five years ago, with the very specific goal of creating a new paradigm for the exposure of classical music.

“Nexus Chamber Music is a collective of musicians. I’m the co-artistic director of it [with Brian Hong]. And, essentially, we put on a two week summer chamber music festival in Chicago each year,” said the cellist. “During the year, we do some tours, residencies at universities and colleges, commissioning, and the whole mission of Nexus is to make chamber music more culturally relevant. We do so through these high production music videos and live concerts,” said Hersh.

“I worry about the future audience that’s going to carry this thing forward. It’s been hundreds of years and it’s stood the test of time but I want to make this stuff relevant. I don’t want to make it this thing on the margins of society,” he said. “I find that a lot of these artforms fail to market themselves in a way that’s relevant to new audiences. They kind of stick to the tried and true. And I just think we do that to our own peril. So one of the things that I’m passionate about is finding a way of marrying short films with classical music,” said the cellist. “I started a YouTube channel during the pandemic and it’s looking for creative ways of using technology to our advantage to not undermine the art but rather use it to try and reach a new audience. I think that’s kind of key.”

Hersh was able to get Nexus Chamber music off the ground thanks to a grant from Luminarts which essentially doubled as seed money.

Since then, Hersh’s passion for taking a young audience by the hand and into the world of classical music has manifested itself in a number of ways, with programs like “Haydn’s Favorite Pizza” an integral component.

“It’s a way to introduce community music students to chamber music. Nexus is launching it. But these concerts are free and they’re open to students and their families. They happen on weekday evenings. And they introduce kids to chamber music through Haydn,” he explained of the series, set to premiere in 2023. “Haydn like invented the string quartet and he’s one of the most experimental composers ever – but he lived 300 years ago. All of the concerts end with a free pizza party for everyone who attends. I’m just trying to find ways to make [classical music] fun and make it accessible for people.”

Prepping the release of a new project entitled Absinthe, which explores music written prior to the ban of the infamous spirit in the early 1900s, showcasing Hersh’s creativity through a series of related short films, the cellist is also gearing up for his debut recital at New York’s Carnegie Hall on November 30.

While he’s able to gig and tour again on a regular basis now, Hersh was forced to find new means of self-expression, and income, within the past two years.

For Kalajainen, Luminarts’ ability to offer its fellows some form of support became crucial fast.

“One of the things that we did really quickly was reach out – I think it was by the end of March if not early April 2020 – but we reached out to all of our fellows and said, ‘Let us know what paying performances or gigs or opportunities you had coming up in the next six months that have been canceled and we will try to write you a check. It won’t fully cover those but it will hopefully do a bit to offset the loss of income you faced,’” he said. “We see ourselves as partners with these people. So we really wanted to make sure that the issues of the pandemic and that loss of income didn’t have a completely detrimental effect on them,” said the director. “I would say that it has made us aware of the fragility of our world in a way that, as an organization, we really want to have the resources to react to in a positive way and be a safety net for our awardees. So, as we think about the organization, we’re thinking too about how to make sure we’re prepared for something else that might happen.”

Fellowship applications are now live on the Luminarts website and will remain open throughout the rest of 2022, with the cultural foundation whittling down a list generally numbering around 500 applicants to just 20 Luminarts fellows, an unequaled opportunity for artists in the Chicagoland area with a wide-ranging cultural benefit.

“My festival, Nexus Chamber Music – playing that whole story back in my head, that’s wild to me,” said Hersh looking back. “I’m a kid essentially. But I had this idea. And I’m very ambitious. And I wrote this pitch of, ‘I want to start my own chamber music festival and here’s the mission…’ And they bought into it!” said the cellist. “It was just that validation and confidence they gave that was just so critical at that stage in my life. Very few people want to be the first one in to support an idea. But they took that chance. They have that much faith in their artists. So, for that, I’m forever indebted to them.”