Contact: Mary Virnoche, 303-370-1043
Bruce Henderson, 303-492-4558
Elaine Mariner 303-894-2617, x12
Anne Heilemann, 303-735-4939

Feb. 1, 1999

EDITORS: Reporters are invited to attend the Virtual Chautauqua press conference at 10 a.m. Friday, Feb. 5, at the Colorado Council on the Arts. Project organizers and funding agency reps will be available. The Virtual Chautauqua web site will be accessible Friday at http://www.artscomm.org/virtualchautauqua.

COLORADO PERFORMING ARTISTS TO DEBUT ON VIRTUAL CHAUTAUQUA

An award-winning Colorado composer and guitarist will make his digital debut at the launch of the Virtual Chautauqua web site at a press conference at 10 a.m., Friday, Feb. 5, at the Colorado Council on the Arts, 750 Pennsylvania St., Denver.

Virtual Chautauqua, a $1 million outreach grant project coordinated by the University of Colorado at Boulder School of Journalism and Mass Communication in collaboration with the Colorado Council on the Arts, was specifically designed to expose schoolchildren and the disabled and homebound to the performing arts. It will bring together performing artists, rural K-12 schools and the homebound.

The project received $375,000 from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) with its remaining support coming from 13 Colorado arts, education and telecommunications partners.

Neil Haverstick, recipient of a 1999 Colorado Council on the Arts Artist Fellowship in Music Composition, will present the web site and digitized performance of his original composition, "African Sticks," on Friday. Larry Irving, director of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), a major funder of the project, will cut the virtual ribbon.

The event will open the show for more than 100 Colorado performing artists whose work will be incorporated into the Virtual Chautauqua web site during the next two years.

In Colorado, the ratio of music teachers to students is 1 to 700. The Internet, while not a substitute for live instruction, may provide one avenue for exposing children and the disabled and homebound to a variety of musical and other performing arts experiences.

According to Bruce Henderson, director of the New Media Center at CU-Boulder and a co-principal investigator, "performances will be made available using streaming audio and video Internet technologies. While these technologies are receiving a great deal of attention in the commercial arena, Virtual Chautauqua will demonstrate how they can be made accessible to the public sector."

CU-Boulder has a particular interest in Virtual Chautauqua because it complements its own Technology, Arts and Media curriculum, which is part of the ATLAS (Alliance for Technology, Learning and Society) initiative.

"We are very interested in exploring how today's new technologies can help expand access, appreciation and participation in the arts to all Coloradans," said Fran Holden, executive director of the Colorado Council on the Arts. "Publicly funded projects like Virtual Chautauqua will help provide artists access to technology they would otherwise be unable to afford."

Project staff will work with K-12 teachers in Colorado to integrate performing arts content into lessons and involve students in related interactive online forums. Virtual Chautauqua also will provide small grants to individuals such as Haverstick and to people with disabilities to support computer upgrades and training to make the Internet more accessible.

"The performing arts are ideal for putting new Internet technologies to the test," said Mary Virnoche, project research director and a co-principal investigator. "In addition to the exciting programmatic aspects of the project, Virtual Chautauqua also provides a rich research environment."

An interdisciplinary team of CU-Boulder researchers from the journalism and mass communication, sociology, anthropology and education departments will investigate the social implications of Virtual Chautauqua's new technologies, and technology and policy-related questions.

Colorado partners on the grant include AccessNet Communications, Arts Communication, Boulder Community Network, Centennial Board of Cooperative Education Services Compensatory Education Program, the Colorado Council on the Arts, the Colorado Rural Technology Program, Community Access TV of Boulder, Denver Community TV, Olshansky Consulting, Radio Reading Service of the Rockies, the University of Colorado at Boulder, Very Special Arts Colorado and Young Audiences.

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