The Wisconsin Arts Board Congratulates Its America250 Grantees

Funds will support Civic Symphony of Green Bay’s 2026-2027 season featuring music honoring America. They will tie into the nationwide America250 project, engaging our local community members to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the United States. The season will focus on patriotic repertoire, the American landscape, music by American composers, and a celebration of space exploration.

Funds will support We the People: A Community Quilt for 250 Years, a large-scale, participatory public art project commemorating America’s 250th anniversary through the voices of 250 community members. The project will create a traditional quilt, as well as a large-scale vinyl mural replica of the quilt to be installed in a prominent location in downtown Green Bay. This unique community art initiative invites participants to design individual 5½-inch quilt blocks reflecting what America has meant to them, what it means today, and hopes for the next 250 years. Blocks may honor local or national history, traditions, landscapes, values, or personal stories. Together, the blocks will form a single quilt approximately 8.5 by 11.5 feet, functioning as both artwork and civic document, celebrating diversity, resilience, and collective responsibility. Upon completion, the quilt will be photographed and reproduced as a vinyl mural installed on a highly visible building at the entrance to Green Bay’s CityDeck, ensuring long-term accessibility and visibility for the broader community. The project’s primary goal is to foster community connection, reflection, and shared creativity. By providing a platform for participants to acknowledge the nation’s difficult past and current challenges while imagining a hopeful future, the quilt encourages dialogue, empathy, and civic engagement. The process emphasizes inclusivity, collaboration, and shared authorship, making community participation as important as the finished artwork.​

Funds will support Revolution!, a concert that explores American music composed from 1776 through the start of the Civil War, performed on period instruments and authentic performance practice. Performed by the acclaimed early music ensemble The Newberry Consort, the program draws on a wide variety of historic and traditional works, including choral and instrumental music, military music, spirituals, and abolitionist and sacred music. Using early American instruments such as the square piano, keyed bugle, fiddle, percussion, an ensemble of vocal specialists, this concert connects America’s revolutionary musical past with contemporary audiences.​

Funds will support the world premiere of a new choral work, “Boswell: A Dance Called America” by MYC conductor Randal Swiggum. Composed for a soprano/alto/tenor/bass choir of young voices, the piece explores the promise of our country at the dawn of its founding, from the perspective of a Scottish community watching increasing numbers of their fellow citizens set sail for a new life in America in the 1770s.​

Funds will support ​1776 The Musical, a historical musical that dramatizes the tense, often humorous debates of the Second Continental Congress as John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson push the colonies toward declaring independence. It blends political conflict, personal sacrifice, and sharp wit to show how the Declaration of Independence came to be.​ The goal of this project is to broaden the community awareness of the origins of the country they live in, and to help bring awareness of the ideals the founding fathers held sacred when crafting the Declaration of Independence. The project will be presented to the community in 2 phases. The first will be an abridged presentation to the Medford Area Summer School students which will take place on Thursday June 25, 2026 during school hours. This presentation will take the form of historical dialog touching on pivotal facts from history as it related to the creation of the declaration in 1776 and the formation of The United States of America. In addition there will be some musical performances mixed with dialog to help convey a better understanding of the topic. This will be followed by an overview as it relates to the students curriculum and a Q&A session with questions fielded by the actors in character with the assistance of a history teacher in attendance. The 2nd phase will be a public performance of the entire musical production for a total of three nights which will take place at 7PM June 25, 26 and 27, 2026.​

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Funds will support Celebrate America, a series of outdoor cultural engagement events commemorating the United States’ 250th anniversary. This initiative will take place on weekends from July through August 2026, from 12:00 to 4:00 p.m., and will provide accessible, participatory arts programming designed to strengthen community connection, cultural learning, and equitable access to creative experiences.​​