The Challenge
KC Studio magazine’s mission has grown exponentially since its inception due to a sharp decline in arts journalism nationwide, particularly in newspapers. The importance of such coverage was highlighted in a recent Wallace Foundation initiative granting $52 million aimed at audience growth for 26 arts organizations in other parts of the country: “Experienced journalists are being squeezed out…this gap needs to be filled or the transmission of arts news is likely to weaken demand for the arts.” President of the Wallace Foundation, Will Miller, said the grants were intended to help institutions reach more people at a time when “attracting and engaging new audiences is challenging for arts organizations because, even as the number of arts groups has grown, national rates of participation in the arts have declined, arts education has waned, and competition for ways to spend leisure time has increased.” (The New York Times)
Evolution of KC Studio Collaborations and Partnerships
KC Studio’s first bimonthly edition was published in May 2008. Since then, it has gone through many changes and sharpened its mission: to inform the arts audience about high-quality visual performing, cinematic, and literary arts, large and small, in the metropolitan region.
Since its inception, KC Studio has covered over 15,000+ organizations and independent artists. In 2014, KC Studio magazine was donated to and published by The Arts Engagement Foundation of Kansas City, a 501 (c) (3).
Content provided by consortium members reaches KC Studio’s mailing list of 14,000 top donors, prospects and regular attendees of arts events located in the five-county region reaching as far as Lawrence, Kansas to Columbia, Missouri. The Arts Consortium members also benefit from the magazine’s promotion of their pages on social media, free of charge.
Organizations tell their own stories in a section of Consortium pages, born in January 2013 out of a successful 3-year promotion of six arts organizations called “performARTS.” The current partnership with the Arts Consortium members that debuted January 2014 are Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art, Harriman-Jewell Series, Kansas City Actors Theatre, Kansas City Public Library, Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, Linda Hall Library, Metropolitan Ensemble Theatre, Midwest Trust Center at Johnson County Community College, National World War I Museum and Memorial, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art and the Theater League. The Arts Consortium truly represents the backbone of KC Studio through their commitment since its inception with a consistent presence and message to our readers has proven invaluable.
KC Studio merged with Arts Partners to create Community Arts Partners for organizations to tell their stories from time-to-time throughout the year. They are Alcott Arts Center, Allied Arts Council of St. Joseph, American Guild of Organists, Avila University, Bach Aria Soloists, Brush Creek Art Walk, Folly Theater, The Friends of Chamber Music, Gladstone Summertime Bluesfest, Greater Kansas City Japan Festival, Heart of America Japan Society, Heartland Men’s Chorus, Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City, Johnson County Library Foundation, Kansas City Artists Coalition, Kansas City MeltingPot, Kansas City Museum, Kansas City Jazz Orchestra ,Kansas City Wind Symphony, Lee’s Summit Symphony, Kansas City Wind Symphony, Mid-Continent Public Library, Midwest Chamber Ensemble, The Whole Person, Summerfest Concerts, Synergy Services, Truman Library Institute, UMB Bank and the Youth Symphony of Kansas City.
The year 2015 brought terrific opportunity for KC Studio with the hiring of Alice Thorson, art critic for The Kansas City Star for 22 years, as the magazine’s editor. Thorson’s knowledge and contacts and her institutional knowledge has endowed the magazine with newfound professionalism and integrity.
Thorson has upped the magazine’s credibility by establishing a roster of contributing writers with demonstrated expertise in their fields, including all the former arts writers from the Kansas City Star. They include music critic Libby Hanssen, jazz critic Calvin Wilson, Matthew Thompson, Neil Thrun, Heather Lustfeldt and theater critic Robert Trussell, film critic Robert Butler, entertainment writer and visual arts critics Elisabeth Kirsch. Other notable reviewers are Vivian Kane, Victor Wishna and Grace Suh. Former Star business writer Julius Karash writes a regular column on (Business and the Arts) for KC Studio. Joining these writers are the informed diverse contributing writers: Jane Aspinwall, Robert Brown, Robert Butler, Nan Chisholm, Pete Dulin, Carmen Fanning, Brandan Griffin, Brian Hearn, Vivian Kane, Elisabeth Kirsch, Bryan LeBeau, Ashley Lindeman, Heather Lustfeldt, Alej Martinez, Randy Mason, Brian McTavish, Mel Neet, Steve Paul (See Hear), Alexej Savreaux, Dana Self, Harold Smith (On the art of Blackness), Rebecca Smith, Emily Spradling, Neil Thrun, Matthew Thompson and Victor Wishna.