In an article and radio segment about the announcement of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation's Creative Inflections initiative, WBGO's Nate Chinen notes how the pilot program is a meaningful departure from many other initiatives for jazz due to its unique design, as it provides support — up to $200,000 per project — not only to a creative artist but also to a presenting institution. Through providing nearly $1 million in funding to five jazz presenters and seven of the "most progressive jazz artists of our time," the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation aspires to expand the genre’s listenership by attracting younger and more diverse audiences through the funding of the Creative Inflections collaborations.
Maurine Knighton, program director for the arts at DDCF, shared her insights on the impetus for the program and expanded on some of the initiative's goals:
"We saw an opportunity to better connect folks who make up the lion’s share of the listening audience — millennials and younger people, which is sort of contrary to the perception — with artists who are really doing the most exciting work," Maurine Knighton, DDCF’s program director for the arts, tells WBGO. "And equally important was: how do you really, in a purposeful and more holistic way, support the artists at the center of all of this? So that's what we were interested in doing, was putting more decision-making in the hands of the artists, who are the ones who have the vision, and through that, hopefully attracting more interest in the art form."
Read more and listen to the radio segment on WBGO's website.