May 28, 2024
Dear Buzzi Unicem,
At Zoellner Arts Center, we believe art has the power to change lives. The arts are vital to our community, offering more than entertainment—they stimulate local economies, foster creative learning, and enhance well-being. As a university presenter, we bring world-class multidisciplinary arts to the greater Lehigh Valley, featuring renowned performers such as the New York Philharmonic, The Philadelphia Orchestra, Yo Yo Ma, Sphinx Virtuosi, Leslie Odoms Jr., Cirque Eloize, and more.
We are proud to be the premier performing arts organization in the region, engaging over 8,000 K-12 students annually through transformative arts experiences and integrated learning programs. As the lead partner for the Kennedy Center’s Any Given Child program, we support arts education and professional development for teachers.
Our commitment extends to leveraging the arts to inspire creativity, drive economic vitality, and promote social well-being. Initiatives like “Traveling While Black” have engaged new audiences and sparked crucial conversations about race and intersectionality.
Recently, we collaborated with Senator Bob Casey’s office to create Pennsylvania Arts & Humanities: A Statewide Convening. This event united arts organizations across the state to exchange ideas and forge new collaborations, ensuring a vibrant future for our creative sector.
We invite Buzzi Unicem to join us in our mission to enrich the community through the arts. Your support will help us expand our programs and make the arts accessible to all. Together, we can nurture an inclusive Lehigh Valley, where the arts inspire, engage, and unite us all.
Thank you for considering our proposal to support the 2024-25 Presenting Series.
Sincerely,
Mark F. Wilson Executive Director Zoellner Arts Center | Lehigh UniversityExecutive Summary
The Lehigh Valley is a mosaic of urban, suburban, and rural communities, each with its unique demographic backgrounds and economic landscapes. Yet, access to the arts often varies based on one’s zip code. At Lehigh University’s Zoellner Arts Center, we are dedicated to fostering a community where high-quality arts are accessible to all, regardless of geographical location, cultural or economic background.
Through various funding initiatives, we strive to dismantle barriers to arts participation. These efforts include offering free or reduced-price tickets, providing transportation assistance, and facilitating artist engagements across the Lehigh Valley.
Our vision for the future is one where systemic barriers to arts engagement are removed, and every member of the community actively participates in and contributes to the arts. To achieve this, we are pioneering community arts programs that transcend traditional models of passive spectatorship. Collaborating with innovators and early adopters, we aim to create sustainable initiatives that empower communities to engage with the arts in new and meaningful ways.
Moreover, Zoellner Arts Center is committed to extending its reach beyond its physical confines. By partnering with non-profit organizations dedicated to community building, we bring our programs directly into neighborhoods, ensuring that the transformative power of the arts permeates every corner of the Lehigh Valley.
About Us
Zoellner Arts Center at Lehigh University
Over 25 years ago, Lehigh University envisioned designing a vibrant arts environment where students, artists, faculty, and the community could create and learn. It wanted to educate, captivate, and inspire performers and patrons by presenting a variety of outstanding performing arts events, exhibits, and educational programs, and to develop new works. In 1997, this vision manifested in Zoellner Arts Center—home to the Lehigh University Music Department, the Department of Theatre, the Art Galleries, and the Guest Artist Series—a place for creativity and innovation; for exploring all corners of artistic disciplines; and for opening up minds to new ideas and new ways of seeing the world.
In a recent year, the center held 240 events, including over 350 artists from 10 countries, and more than 50 campus and community events, lectures, business meetings, convocations, recitals, concerts, conventions, and more. In total, the center provided arts engagement and communal space to over 55,000 people in attendance from 12 states and over 8,000 local school children. Additionally, we created partnerships with 35 community organizations in the arts, sciences, health, and literacy.
We are committed to enhancing the role of arts education in the Lehigh Valley, through children’s, family, and school programming, partnering with local organizations, as well as connecting our artists, staff, and faculty with students of all ages. As we step forward, Zoellner Arts Center will continue building organizational partnerships like those achieved as the lead organization for the Kennedy Center’s Ensuring the Arts for Any Given Child program in Bethlehem. We will further expand into the community by focusing on K-12 education to deliver arts enrichment programs, cultural programs, social-emotional learning programming, and artist-in-residencies specifically tied to the school curriculum.
Zoellner Arts Center strives to go beyond our four walls and challenge people to think while encouraging them to see the world through a different lens to connect and understand our community. We seek to be a leader in the arts and culture scene in the Lehigh Valley by being bold, forwardthinking, and innovative, and by bringing our diverse community together through shared experiences. And we are dedicated to presenting arts for all through being inclusive, diverse, equitable, and accessible.
Mission
Our mission is to infuse the arts into the life of Lehigh University and the greater Lehigh Valley community by presenting high-quality multidisciplinary programs, fostering life-long patronage of the arts, and integrating our educational resources to enhance our human experience.
The Numbers
Over 55,000 patrons come to Zoellner Arts Center each year
Over 7,400 students attend Lehigh University
Over 90,000 children of all ages have visited the center since 1997
Over 85 community organizations have benefited from ticket donations
Where Community Gathers
Zoellner Arts Center is proud to host events for many Lehigh Valley organizations including:
Pennsylvania Youth Ballet
Touchstone Theatre Young Playwrights’ Festival
The Bach Choir Concert Ben Franklin TechVentures iXchange
St. Luke’s Youth Sports All-star Awards
