N e w s Eric Revis assures Museum Director William Hennessey of Altria’s commitment to the Chrysler’s free admission policy with the best evidence possible: a generous check. Photo by Ed Pollard, Museum photographer
Corporate Support for Museum Programs
T
he Chrysler is proud that a number of major corporations have stepped forward in recent months to offer generous support for key Museum programs: •
Altria has awarded the Chrysler a two-year, $30,000 grant to support our new “free to all” admission policy.
•
The Capital Group Companies, home of American Funds has donated $30,000 to support free admission and to underwrite visits and programming for nearly 3,000 Chesapeake Public Schools sixth graders to study civics through the Museum’s American art collection.
•
JPMorgan Chase Foundation has made a special $50,0000 grant to the Chrysler to support the creation of educational materials, including a new website for teachers, students, and the public focused on our Egyptian and Classical collections.
•
Norfolk Public Schools again committed to sending each of its fourth graders to the Chrysler to learn more about world cultures and art in programs jointly produced with Virginia Stage Company.
The Museum is deeply grateful for these timely investments in our efforts to make the wonderful works of art in our care relevant and meaningful to the community we exist to serve.
Myers Music Collection Shows Quality And Taste
T
ucked away within the Moses Myers family papers are volumes of bound sheet music from the early nineteenth century. Thanks to the musical Myers family, the Jean Outland Chrysler Library holds some 900 pieces of Federalist-period music, the largest such family collection in the United States. Music was an important pastime for the Myers family. They regularly attended the theatre and recitals, and were accomplished amateur musicians who frequently played piano, harp, and violin at home for family and friends. Eldest son John Myers also sang on stage as a member of a local acting troupe, the Thespians, and his younger brother Samuel may have been a member, too. The works in their collection echo their love of music. Some are familiar: pieces by Haydn and Beethoven, Ward’s Collection of Popular Country Dances, a myriad of romantic ballads, and, The Star-Spangled Banner. Others, though, are virtually unknown, awaiting only the skill of interested musicians and an audience to bring the notes penned on the pages to life again.
To that end, the Chrysler’s Historic Houses are partnering with the Virginia Chorale to bring this musical past to the present through a special concert and recording. Music of Quality and Taste: Selections from the Myers Music Collection will be performed live on Sunday, March 14, at 3 p.m. in the Museum’s Kaufman Theatre. The concert is free for Friends of the Historic Houses, $5 for Chrysler Museum Members, and $10 for all others. A recording of the concert also will be available for purchase at a later date. For more information or tickets, please call (757) 333-1087.
10
Free Admission And Egypt Boost Membership And Visits
T
he Museum’s new “free to all” general admission policy continues to pay off. Not only are corporate donors supporting our initiative with generous donations, but more and more first-time guests are visiting the Chrysler. Visitor Services reports that we’re also seeing a refreshing trend of more diversity in the ages, races, and neighborhoods of our guests. Perhaps even more gratifying is the increase in membership since launching free admission. Many museums that move from paid to free admission see as much as a 35 percent drop in their lower-level memberships. But the Chrysler has experienced an increase in our total membership. Since July, we’ve welcomed 518 new members to the Museum! Of those, 481 joined during our exhibition of To Live Forever: Egyptian Treasures from the Brooklyn Museum. Since free exhibition admission is a benefit for all Chrysler Members, this blockbuster show was a strong incentive to joining the Museum. To Live Forever proved to be among the Chrysler’s most popular exhibitions ever, surpassed in overall attendance only by our Norman Rockwell retrospective in 2008-2009 and our Ferrari auto exhibition in 2003. By the time To Live Forever left the Chrysler in early January, more than 43,000 guests had toured the Museum, including a record number of nearly 5,000 schoolchildren who saw the exhibition.