Madison Community Foundation reveals 75th anniversary gift for July

The Madison Community Foundation announced Wednesday their third of 12 major gifts totaling roughly $1 million as a part of the organization’s 75th anniversary celebration, revealing their latest initiative from the rooftop of the Madison Children’s Museum.

The setting of the announcement afforded those in attendance a front-row view of the focus of MCF’s latest initiative: the Wisconsin State Capitol. 2017 marks the 100th anniversary of the government building.

Madison residents enjoying a concert on the square (Image courtesy of Wikimedia)

“Capitol Century,” as the series of gifts will be known, is three individual grants totaling $75,000. The first grant funded Concerts on the Square’s Thursday show, “Summer Thriller.” Concerts on the Square are produced by the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra (WCO) and have been a staple of Madison summers since 1983, with more than 200 concerts having been played at the Capitol in that time, according to an MCF statement.  

“We are incredibly grateful to Madison Community Foundation for their support of the arts in Madison and their generous funding to help make our [Thursday] performance of Concerts on the Square possible,” Andrew Sewell, Maestro for the WCO, told the Overture Center for the Arts.

“We are thrilled to help celebrate the Wisconsin State Capitol Centennial and the Community Foundation’s 75th Anniversary by bringing the community together at the Capitol Square.” 

Also included in July’s gift is funding for a series of exhibits, programs and events at the Madison Children’s Museum, according to the MCF statement. The museum’s programming is meant to celebrate MCF’s 75th anniversary, the 100th anniversary of the Capitol and the 150th birthday of architect Frank Lloyd Wright. 

The four pop-up exhibits will open between October 2017 and May 2018, according to the MCF statement. 

The final third of the grant will fund “The Capital at 100: Madison Artists Celebrate the Centennial,” an exhibition housed in the Overture Center for the Arts’ Playhouse Gallery. The showing will be open from Nov. 4 through Jan. 14, 2018, and will consist of a series of works done in several different media, according to the MCF statement.

 “Artists are creating new work that responds to the history, architecture or cultural symbolism of the Capitol building and surrounding grounds,” Overture Center for the Arts president and CEO Ted DeDee said. “We’re so grateful to Madison Community Foundation for helping us bring this exhibit to life and look forward to sharing more information with the community as the exhibit takes shape in the coming months.”

One of the remaining 9 grants will be announced every month, concluding in April 2018.

Madison Common's nonprofit beat reporter Jack Kelly will be covering each upcoming grant.