A new date, a new location outdoors and/or online, a streamlined program, reduced ticket prices, and more will made this year unprecedented and a welcome celebration as we are hopefully beginning to gather as a community again.
The Flagstaff Arts Council is pleased to announce the Finalists and Legacy Award winners for the 13th Annual Viola Awards. The Viola Awards honor excellence in the arts, sciences, and culture in Flagstaff in 2020. 2020 was an unprecedented year, but the finalists of the year’s Viola Awards prove the creativity and resiliency in our community.
This year’s awards will honor 36 finalists across 9 categories with some finalists being recognized in multiple categories. Additionally, the 13th Annual Viola Awards will honor two Legacy Award Recipients, Dr. Edith Copely and Nat White. All finalists will be honored at the Viola Awards event on Friday, June 18, 2021 at the Pepsi Amphitheater at Fort Tuthill. For more information and tickets click here.
We are honored to recognize both Dr. Edith Copley & Nat White as Legacy Award Recipients.
Edith A. Copley has taught at Northern Arizona University for 31 years in the choral studies area in the School of Music. She conducted the highly acclaimed Shrine of the Ages Choir (founded in 1933) for 27 years. She also conducted the Chamber Singers and University Singers during her tenure and taught courses in graduate and undergraduate conducting, graduate choral literature, and choral methods. Choral ensembles under her direction have toured internationally to Western Europe, the People’s Republic of China, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Bulgaria, Istanbul, and the Baltics.
From 1993 to 2016, Copley served as the music director of the Master Chorale of Flagstaff, a 100-voice community choir that performs four concerts each year, including a choral/orchestral works with the Flagstaff Symphony Orchestra (FSO) each spring. Copley has conducted many concerts with the FSO, including Requiems by Fauré, Brahms, Duruflé and Britten, masses by Bach, Haydn and Mozart, and other major works by Verdi and Orff. Copley has received numerous honors, including NAU School of Performing Arts Centennial Teacher of the Year Award, Arizona Music Educator of the Year, Arizona ACDA Outstanding Choral Director Award, the Viola Award in Music, and the Weston H. Noble Award from her alma mater Luther College. Copley has served in many leadership roles for the American Choral Directors Association, and is currently serving as the national president-elect. She has conducted all-state choirs in over 30 states, national honor choirs in Carnegie Hall each spring since 2012, and international choral festivals in Germany, the Netherlands, Japan, Luxembourg, Tasmania, England, Australia, China, Turkey and Oman.
Nat White has been an active member in the Flagstaff community for more than fifty years. He first came to Flagstaff in 1969 as an Ohio State University graduate student for research purposes, where his skills earned him a position at the Lowell Observatory. Nat worked at Lowell for 38 years as an astronomer, retiring in 2007. His research emphasis was the measurement of stellar properties using lunar occultations and the development of astronomical instrumentation, high-angular-resolution astronomy. Nat retired in 2007 in the position of Lowell Observatory’s program manager for the development of the Navy Prototype Optical Interferometer on Anderson Mesa. From the start of his time in Flagstaff, Nat has been engaged in the community, from attending council meetings to encouraging managed growth and the value of open space within Flagstaff. He was a founding member and president of Friends of Flagstaff’s Future, an organization dedicated to engaging local citizens in strategic decision making about the Flagstaff community.
Nat also served on Flagstaff’s City Council for four years, two as vice mayor. He was very involved in protecting Flagstaff’s open spaces. He was a leader in the 1986 successful referendum protecting Buffalo Park and was part of the original planning and implementation of the Flagstaff Urban Trail System, FUTS. He provided pictures and data for the State Land Department application that eventually led to the City’s purchase of the Observatory Mesa Preserve.
In a Flagstaff Business News article, Nat discusses how protecting these types of spaces has contributed to the “happiness of residents, provides an attraction, and an economic benefit” for Flagstaff residents and businesses. In the decades Nat has spent in Flagstaff, he has seen it flourish from a small town to a thriving city, and intends to continue to protect the natural environment that he and so many other residents appreciate about Flagstaff. Nat’s involvement within the community has been varied. In January 2021, he was elected chair of the Coconino Community College’s Governing Board. He was the founding president of the Flagstaff Public Library Foundation in 1991, a board member and chair of the Flagstaff Community Band, vice chair of the Flagstaff Leadership Program, a founding member of the Flagstaff Road and Track Club, a board member of the newly formed Flagstaff Trails Initiative and past member of multiple city commissions. He also plays trombone in several musical groups. Nat was honored with the Friends of Flagstaff’s Future first ever “Livable Community” award, recognizing his commitment to the Flagstaff community through the years. He was also honored as a 2013 Arizona Daily Sun Citizen of the Year. The American Planning Association, Arizona Chapter, awarded Nat the ‘Distinguished Citizen Planner Award’ for his involvement in city planning.
Stay tuned! Winners will be announced live at this year’s event on Friday, June 18th.
This year we are pleased to recognize 36 finalists.
the generosity of our Title Sponsor, Northern Arizona University, and our Founding Sponsor, the Babbitt Brothers Foundation, as well as other community members and sponsors.
The 13th Annual Viola Awards will take place on Friday, June 18, 2021. There are several different sponsorship levels with varying benefits.
The Viola Awards have had a meteoric rise to fame in Flagstaff, due mostly to the creative community’s embrace of the event. It was clear from the first annual event on March 5, 2009, that something special was happening. Throughout the 10+ years, elegant dress… fancy flamboyant costumes… Martanne’s Breakfast Palace table on fire… the ground-shaking roar of the crowd when Craig Bowie was announced as Arts Education winner in 2010… Circus Bacchus’ naughty naked video interview as nominees in 2013… the aerial dancers from Flagstaff Aerial Arts hanging off the beam at High Country Conference Center in 2015… Dark Sky Aerial’s feature performance in 2017… the Viola Awards recognize and celebrate talent, contributions and excellence in arts, science, and culture, and do it with style.
What has always been prevalent is the love and support shown by those in attendance for the nominees and award winners. In addition to the artistic giants who have impacted Flagstaff over the years and taken home awards, elected officials at the local, County and State level have attended the event every year. Most importantly though, winners are exalted, nominees are celebrated, and everyone revels in the power of the arts.
Relive the memories and past Viola Awards events below.
