Category Archives: The Levitt Effect

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This summer and fall, Levitt lawns across the country are once again filling with the sounds of free, live music. After a devastating pandemic year that forced us to be apart, Levitt venues and AMP grantees weren’t sure what to expect while planning their concert series, however record-breaking audiences have proven that people are ready to come back together and build community through the power of music. “People are just excited to be back,” said Lisa Wagner, executive director of Levitt Pavilion Dayton. “Greeting one another. Hugging each other. Picking up where they left off in many ways. There has been a real healing experience of what we missed in 2020.”

Healing is exactly what so many of us are needing following the past year. During that challenging time, the Levitt network pivoted to create virtual programming, mobile concerts, pop-up shows and more. These efforts not only helped people feel a sense of connection during a time of great uncertainty and isolation, but also gave artists an opportunity to share their music and brighten otherwise dark and challenging days.

Now that in-person Levitt concerts have returned, read on to learn more about the 2021 Levitt season and how you can experience some of these amazing free concerts, either in-person or virtually. 
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Over these past months, it’s been inspiring to watch the Levitt network engage and support their communities during this challenging time. Nearly all permanent Levitt venues and Levitt AMP sites have presented virtual concerts featuring popular Levitt artists, including livestreaming virtual series and showcasing special archived Levitt footage, with more on the way. Today, we’re shining the light on the myriad ways permanent Levitt venues are expanding their programming beyond streaming free shows to inspire creativity, wellness and hope in their communities in 2020.

From sparking creative expression through virtual songwriting camps, to promoting holistic health and wellness through virtual yoga and cooking classes, to creating unexpected musical moments through pop-up concerts in neighborhoods most impacted by the pandemic, the Levitt network is supporting their communities in new and particularly relevant ways. What’s more, they’re using their individual and collective voices to advocate for the larger music ecosystem, from helping musicians cover medical bills to saving independent music venues at risk of closing permanently due to financial hardships brought on by the pandemic.

Read on to learn more, and stay tuned for a future blog post on the creative ways Levitt AMP nonprofits have been engaging and supporting their communities during this time! Continue reading

Levitt network presents over 200 virtual concerts, attracts 1 million viewers, as the show went on(line)

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Levitt is all about bringing people together. About celebrating music, community and the power of the arts to fuel positive change. About strengthening the social fabric of our towns and cities. So back in March, when the COVID-19 pandemic brought much of American life to a halt, it struck at the heart of the Levitt mission. How could the national Levitt network of permanent outdoor music venues and Levitt AMP sites present concerts, each attracting hundreds and often times thousands of people on a typical night, given new public health restrictions on outdoor gatherings?

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Across the country, exciting collaborations are happening among Levitt venues and AMP grantees with artists, schools and nonprofits that fuse music with learning opportunities for youth. From putting student musicians center stage during Levitt Shell Memphis’ annual Stax Night, to bringing esteemed performers into middle school classrooms through masterclasses at Levitt Pavilion SteelStacks, to a robust “Levitteen” internship program giving young people hands-on experience with concert photography at Levitt AMP Utica, there are myriad ways these partnerships are using the power of music to catalyze learning, inspire possibility and create opportunities for youth. Read on to learn more!

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Sharing Levitt's Impact on the Conference Stage

Over the past decade, the Levitt Foundation has helped bring thousands of free outdoor concerts to millions of people nationwide through Levitt’s transformative creative placemaking programs for communities of all sizes. The impact of permanent Levitt venues and the Levitt AMP [Your City] Grant Awards has been far reaching—activating underused public spaces through the power of free, live music; creating welcoming gathering places where people come together to celebrate the arts and their shared humanity; injecting local economies with new activity; and strengthening the social fabric of our communities, one concert at a time. Continue reading

  • Catching our breath to say hello: Summit Executive Co-Producers Vanessa Silberman and Sharon Yazowski of the Levitt Foundation with NCCP’s Andrea Orlando and Thomas Young
    Summit Executive Co-Producers Vanessa Silberman and Sharon Yazowski of the Levitt Foundation with NCCP’s Andrea Orlando and Thomas Young
Last week, nearly 200 creative placemaking strategists from a broad range of sectors gathered in downtown Los Angeles for the first-ever Creative Placemaking Leadership Summit (CPLS) in the Pacific region! Urban planners, architects, artists, government agencies, funders, nonprofit leaders (including Levitt partners and grantees!) and community organizers, amongst others, spent three days engaged in thought-provoking sessions, rich dialogue and knowledge exchange focused on how creative placemaking—strategically engaging arts and local culture to enhance and elevate communities—can help us address pressing social, economic and environmental issues. And in another first, the Levitt Foundation played a key role in Summit planning by serving as co-producers, with Executive Director Sharon Yazowski and Senior Director of Communications & Strategic Initiatives Vanessa Silberman leading the effort, alongside the amazing folks at The National Consortium for Creative Placemaking (NCCP) and ArtPlace America.

The Pacific Summit was one of five Creative Placemaking Leadership Summits taking place in different regions across the country in 2019, organized by NCCP and ArtPlace America, and supported in part by the Levitt Foundation. “We’re dedicated to building the field of creative placemaking, and have been greatly impressed with the work of NCCP as a supporter of their summits since 2017,” says Yazowski. “So when NCCP reached out to Vanessa and I, asking if we would take a lead role in planning the Pacific Summit, we immediately knew this would be an invaluable opportunity to highlight the role of creative placemaking as a cross-sector strategy to address issues specific in the Pacific region while deepening the conversation among funders and practitioners.”

The Summit’s theme of “Shifting Tides” focused on the Pacific region’s booming economy, shifting demographics and climate change, and attracted attendees from up and down the West Coast as well as from Alaska and Hawaii. Through seminars, workshops, peer exchanges and field workshops, attendees explored how creative placemaking can play a role in shaping the future to ensure equitable, inclusive, sustainable communities while giving voice and ownership to the people who live there. Other themes that were discussed included Keeping Places (embrace the people and cultural assets already within a place while welcoming newcomers and mitigating displacement and cultural erasure), Amplifying Voices (fostering equity, diversity, and inclusion), Weathering Storms (creative approaches to disaster relief, sustainability, and regeneration) and Supporting Movement (issues related to immigration, class mobility, and public transit). Thanks to NCCP and funding from LA’s Department of Cultural Affairs, partial scholarships were awarded to 60 scholars, ensuring that artists and small nonprofits could be part of the conversation.

The Summit was also a wonderful opportunity for attendees to learn more about the Levitt program through both learning sessions and a free concert at Levitt LA!  During a morning plenary, the team at Levitt Pavilion Los Angeles (Allegra Padilla, Director of Community Relations & Partnerships; Carla Contreras Cabrera, Community Outreach Coordinator; Matthew Himes, Director of Programming & Production; and Oliver DelGado, Director of Marketing & Communications) along with Yazowski, Levitt LA’s founding Executive Director, packed the room for an illuminating discussion on the intentional and multi-layered approach of Levitt LA to amplify voices in marginalized communities. The rewards and challenges of the Levitt Foundation’s hands-on grantmaking to deepen impact both from the funder and grantee perspective was the focus of another session led by Yazowski, Executive Director Patti Diou of Levitt Pavilion Arlington, and Executive Director Gina Chavez Hill of the Brewery Arts Center (Levitt AMP grantee) in Carson City, Nev. To top it off, Summit attendees danced the night away  at Levitt LA in the city’s historic MacArthur Park on Friday night, enjoying the energizing sounds of ska-rockers Viernes 13 and The Slackers while enjoying a picnic.

Additional highlights:

  • Hanmin Lius and Jennifer Mei of San Francisco’s Wildflowers Institute leading a thoughtful discussion on cultural mapping and the ways people self-identify as artists in unlikely places as a way to address issues around displacement
  • Annette Roth of the Washington State Arts Commission discussing the opportunities and challenges of creating cultural districts in rural communities
  • The City of San Jose’s Michael Ogilvie discussing the city’s interactive public art program, Illuminating Downtown, marrying art with tech to create a more engaging sense of place
  • Joanne Kim and Kristen Gordon sharing plans for LA’s Destination Crenshaw, an open-air museum along a transit corridor reclaiming and honoring Black LA set to open in 2020
  • In-the-Field workshops on Saturday to Leimert Park (one of LA’s most vibrant cultural districts), LA’s Japantown (fighting for its future through placekeeping), LA Poverty Department (arts group consisting of un-housed and formerly un-housed people) and Self Help Graphics (a cultural anchor in an evolving, historically Latino neighborhood)

As the field of creative placemaking continues to grow, evolve and deepen, we look forward to continuing our support of CPL Summits!  Next up? CPL is headed to Cincinnati October 10-12 to engage creative placemakers from throughout the Midwest.

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The City of Sioux Falls marked the beginning of a new chapter earlier this month when the newly completed Levitt Shell Sioux Falls, the 8th permanent Levitt venue, held its inaugural concert on June 14th. Over 4,000 people from across the city gathered on picnic blankets and lawn chairs to celebrate the occasion and watch GRAMMY-nominated blues artist Ruthie Foster give an awe-inspiring performance. Among them were the volunteers, staff and board members of the Friends of Levitt Shell Sioux Falls, the nonprofit organization that led the development of the venue through years of collaboration with the Levitt Foundation and the City of Sioux Falls. Levitt Foundation Board President Liz Levitt Hirsch and board members from both the Foundation and the national network of permanent Levitt venues also attended in support, along with the City’s mayor, Paul TenHaken. The celebration continued the following night, when Levitt National Tour headliner Flor de Toloache, the GRAMMY-winning all-female mariachi sensation from New York City, took to the stage in front of a packed lawn. Acclaimed children’s entertainer Phil Baker brought the opening weekend celebration to a close the next day with a special performance appealing to both the young and young at heart. Levitt at the Falls will host a total of 30 free concerts through August, expanding to 50 free concerts every summer beginning in 2020.

A dream 8 years in the making
The festive opening weekend realized an idea that came to light in 2011, when former lawmaker and lifelong Sioux Falls resident Tom Dempster received a phone call from a high school friend living in Pasadena, Calif. Tim Boe, now deceased, was a frequent concertgoer at the Levitt Pavilion in Pasadena, and boldly told Dempster, “Sioux Falls needs a Levitt.”

Change was already afoot in Sioux falls at the time of Boe’s phone call. The city’s population was soaring, and immigrant and refugee communities were bringing newfound cultural diversity to the once-largely Caucasian Midwestern city. At the time, over 60 different languages were spoken in the Sioux Falls School District (today, that number has increased to 80). In addition to a growing need for accessible arts and events, city and community leadership were seeking ways to bring its increasingly diverse population together. Meanwhile, the entrance to one of Sioux Falls’ most significant outdoor spaces was lying dormant—Falls Park West, a sprawling green space adjacent to the city’s bustling downtown and just minutes away from the cascading waterfalls that gave the city its name.

Dempster contacted the Levitt Foundation and made the case for bringing a new permanent Levitt venue to Falls Park West. The Foundation’s leadership was impressed. “The more the Foundation learned about Sioux Falls… the community’s displayed commitment and civic pride, and its visionary leadership to create programming that would bring people together, the more we realized Sioux Falls was an ideal match for the Levitt program,” said Sharon Yazowski, Executive Director of the Levitt Foundation, reflecting on her early visits to Sioux Falls.

A concert space like no other
The plan to bring a free outdoor music venue to Sioux Falls was quickly met with an outpouring of enthusiasm and support from residents, as well as the city’s business and philanthropic communities. Dempster established the Friends of Levitt Shell Sioux Falls nonprofit to bring advocates together and coordinate the effort. Realizing the enormity of the project, he asked Jennifer Kirby, a seasoned volunteer leader of nonprofits and capital campaigns, to be the organization’s co-chair, alongside him. Kirby later took the helm as board chair and through her leadership, the Friends of Levitt nonprofit developed a public/private partnership with the City of Sioux Falls and the Mortimer & Mimi Levitt Foundation.

The packed lawn

Community members pack the lawn for opening night

Of the $4.6 million needed for the project, the City covered $2.5 million, the Foundation provided $500,000, and generous donations from businesses and the community, including a major gift from the Kirby family, covered the rest. Denver-based architecture firm Sink Combs Dethlefs was hired to create the concert space, breathing life into the homegrown design concept. Inspired by the shape of the Big Sioux River, the fluid, organic shape of the Shell’s roof was conceived by Friends of Levitt Shell Sioux Falls board member Catherine Dekkenga, who drew the first draft on a napkin. Sioux Falls Parks Director Don Kearney called the cooperation, “a testament to the teamwork and perseverance by all parties to make this project happen for our Sioux Falls community.” With the venue’s construction underway, Nancy Halverson was hired in the summer of 2018 to steer the Friends of Levitt Sioux Falls into the future as the organization’s first Executive Director.  

From left to right:  Sharon Yazowski, Nancy Halverson, and Liz Levitt Hirsch gear up for the opening ceremony

From left to right:  Sharon Yazowski, Nancy Halverson, and Liz Levitt Hirsch gear up for the opening ceremony

Growing anticipation
The construction crew put the finishing touches on the new venue in early June, and as opening weekend approached, Sioux Falls was buzzing with excitement. “I hope it can bring everyone together. I want everyone to feel welcome. I want everyone to feel like they have a chance to experience live, outdoor music,” Kirby told reporters at the Argus Leader after being awarded a Challenge Coin by the City for her role in the project. On the day of the opening, Liz Levitt Hirsch joined Halverson and headlining artist Ruthie Foster on KELOland News to discuss the inaugural concert. Levitt Hirsch expressed her gratitude for the community that made the transformation of Falls Park West possible, saying, “What I’m really proud of are the wonderful people of Sioux Falls.” Later, when asked her opinion on Foster’s GRAMMY-nominated blues music, Hirsch responded, “Ruthie’s going to drive an arrow though your heart!” Halverson added, “There’s no better match [for the inaugural concert] for our mission of building community through music.”

Ruthie Foster performs at the inaugural concert

Ruthie Foster performs at the inaugural concert

The day of the concert brought clear skies and a Midwestern sun that remained present well into the evening. Mayor TenHaken, Levitt Hirsch, Halverson and Yazowski all spoke before the enthusiastic crowd, giving well-deserved acknowledgement to the many people who had made the momentous occasion possible, including Dempster and Kirby. Kirby later remarked that she had “never seen such excitement in the community” or “joy on people’s faces.” Bringing Levitt to Sioux Falls, Kirby concluded, “has already made it a better place to live, work and play.” After an opening performance by Groove Inc, a local drum corps, Foster took to the stage and Levitt at the Falls’ inaugural concert was underway.

Twilight had descended upon Falls Park West by the time the music was over, but conversations between friends and neighbors lingered on. Opening weekend brought thousands of people together in Falls Park West, and Levitt Sioux Falls is quickly becoming a beloved cultural destination. Halverson later put into words what many were feeling: “Our community has fallen in love with Levitt, and we look forward to much more fantastic music and community building for years to come.”

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Edgy, versatile and fresh, Latin GRAMMY-winning 2019 Levitt National Tour artist Flor de Toloache is winning the hearts of Levitteers across the nation this summer. Much like the Toloache flower—known for its use in Mexican ‘love potions’—the ladies of Flor De Toloache are casting a spell over Levitt audiences with their soaring bilingual harmonies, playful gritos and magnetic stage presence. With three tour stops under their belt (SteelStacks, Sioux Falls and Dayton), ‘Las Flores’ are headed to Levitt Shell Memphis for their fourth tour stop this Friday and will wrap up the week with a Levitt Pavilion Arlington performance on Saturday (click here to check out all 2019 Levitt National Tour stops). August will bring them to Levitt Pavilion Denver and closing out the tour at Levitt Pavilion Los Angeles, capping off a tour that brought them to seven Levitt stages coast to coast as part of this year’s Levitt National Tour. In addition to their Levitt National Tour performances, the ladies of Flor de Toloache will grace Levitt AMP stages in Carson City, Nev., and Woonsocket, R.I. this summer. Continue reading

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Mark your calendars—a GRAMMY-winning mariachi experience will soon be coming to a Levitt stage near you! This summer, the all-female, critically acclaimed mariachi group Flor De Toloache will headline the 2019 Levitt National Tour. Levitt audiences across the country will enjoy the band’s energetic, mesmerizing shows that blend traditional mariachi with jazz, salsa and pop music.

Taking place between June and August, the 2019 Levitt National Tour will stop in seven cities including Arlington, TexasBethlehem, Pa.; Dayton, OhioDenverLos AngelesMemphis; and Sioux Falls, S.D. This year’s Tour follows on the heels of the 2018 Levitt National Tour, which featured Southern rocker Paul Thorn and gospel legends Blind Boys of Alabama, and previous Levitt National Tours featuring Gulf Coast soul sensation The Suffers (2017), genre-busting violin outfit Black Violin (2015) and the world-music fusion of Playing For Change (2014).

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Pictured above (left to right): Construction of future Levitt Pavilion Dayton (photo by Andy Snow); Groundbreaking ceremony for Falls Park West and Levitt Shell Sioux Falls on April 23, 2018.

Pictured above (left to right): Levitt Pavilion Dayton’s stage in the making (photo by Andy Snow); Groundbreaking ceremony for Falls Park West and Levitt Shell Sioux Falls on April 23, 2018 (photo by Thomas Dempster)

2018 has been a milestone year for not one, but two, future permanent Levitt venues! In less than three months, Levitt Pavilion Dayton in Ohio will launch its inaugural season of free concerts at its new, state-of-the-art outdoor music venue in downtown’s Dave Have Plaza, reinvigorating this central public space and attracting Daytonians of all walks of life. And last month, Levitt Shell Sioux Falls broke ground on its own state-of-the-art outdoor music venue in the city’s underused Falls Park West, bringing it a giant leap forward toward its projected 2019 opening in South Dakota’s largest and most diverse city.

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