The Marion Cultural Alliance (MCA), in partnership with the City of Ocala, is in the running for a second year to bring a 10-week live music series to Ocala during the summer of 2018.
OCALA, Fla. (Oct. 19, 2017) – The Marion Cultural Alliance (MCA), in partnership with the City of Ocala, is in the running for a second year to bring a 10-week live music series to Ocala during the summer of 2018.
Sponsored by the Mortimer & Mimi Levitt Foundation, a national foundation dedicated to strengthening the social fabric of America through free live music, the Levitt AMP [Your City] Grant Awards is a matching grant opportunity created to serve small to mid-sized towns and cities with populations up to 400,000 residents. Up to 15 non-profit organizations will receive $25,000 each in matching funds to produce their own Levitt AMP Music Series – an outdoor, free concert series featuring a diverse lineup of professional musicians. MCA and the City of Ocala are vying to qualify as one of the 15 winning organizations.
Online public voting for the 2018 Levitt AMP [Your City] Music Series will open on Wednesday, Nov. 1 and will close Monday, Nov. 20 at 8 p.m. Eastern Time (5 p.m. Pacific Time). The top 25 finalists following the online public voting will advance to the next stage in the grant awarding process. The Levitt Foundation will review the proposals of those 25 finalists and will select up to 15 Levitt AMP winners, which will be announced Tuesday, Jan. 2, 2018. To vote, please visit grant.levittamp.org/voter-registration-page, create an account and look for “Marion Cultural Alliance.”
“Marion Cultural Alliance is excited about the prospect of winning a second Levitt AMP concert series for Ocala next summer,” said Jaye Baillie, Executive Director for MCA. “The community’s response to last summer’s Levitt AMP concert series was wonderful to watch. Folks young and old from communities across our city enjoyed 10 weeks of dancing, swaying and singing on the great green lawn at historic Webb Field.”
A successful public voting campaign for Ocala depends on community participation to get as many online votes as possible to bring to concert series to town. Community support, as measured by the number of online votes received, will be a key factor when the Levitt Foundation selects up to 15 winners.
“We are so excited to take this next step in the process of securing the 2018 Levitt AMP concert series,” said Laura Walker, Cultural Arts and Sciences Division Head, City of Ocala. “With the development of the City’s Cultural Arts Plan, the 2018 Levitt AMP grant will propel our outreach efforts into the community. It will provide opportunities of community engagement through a variety of music genres reaching all of our residents.”
The proposed venue site for the 2018 series is the historic Webb Field in the Martin Luther King Jr. Recreational Complex located at 1510 NE Fourth St. The City of Ocala and MCA’s proposal will be available to view on the Levitt Foundation’s website, concerts.levittamp.org, Wednesday, Nov. 1 once public voting is open.
For more information, please visit www.levittamp.org or contact the City of Ocala Cultural Arts Office at artinfo@ocalafl.org or 352-629-8447.
