Siletz Bay Music Festival will present its annual Dick Hyman Award to Lincoln City Cultural Center executive director Niki Price at the festival’s fundraising dinner, Friday, August 22 at the Chinook Winds Casino Resort.
The Dick Hyman Award is presented annually to a festival supporter who personifies Hyman's love, enthusiasm and exuberance for music and service. A National Endowment of the Arts Jazz Master fellow and an Emmy and ASCAP Award-winning pianist, composer and arranger, Dick Hyman, now age 98, was a mainstay of the Siletz Bay Music Festival from its beginnings until his retirement in 2018.
The August 22 event will feature an ample buffet of hot appetizers and delectable desserts and cool jazz by Portland’s Randy Porter Trio featuring Kenny Washington on vocals. A Grammy nominee, Randy Porter has collaborated with many jazz greats, including Freddy Hubbard, Art Farmer, Benny Golson and Charles McPherson.
For the first time, the Festival has engaged a local artist to create the award, commissioning glass artist Kelly Howard, co-owner of the Lincoln City Glass Center, to devise a commemorative statuette in Price’s honor.
Niki Price has led the Lincoln City Cultural Center since its early days and, over the oast 14 years, has been singularly instrumental in transforming the decommissioned schoolhouse into a vibrant year-round arts presenter and venue that is at the heart of most Lincoln City cultural activity. A longtime resident of Lincoln City, Price has also advocated for the arts across the state, as the chair of the Oregon Cultural Trust board of directors, and locally, as the chair of both the Lincoln City Public Arts Committee and the Lincoln County Cultural Coalition. She was involved with Siletz Bay Music Festival as a venue sponsor from its early years, serving on its board from 2015 until 2017 and as stage manager until 2016.
Artist Kelly Howard responded enthusiastically when asked to create the award. Niki Price, she said, “is a force that has changed the face of the arts in Lincoln County forever. Her unwavering dedication to bring the highest level of creativity to the Cultural center and to our community as a whole. I tried to embody that strength in a piece a is reminiscent of the force of the ocean contained within each drop of water. Each one of us leaving a mark. Some of us leaving a legacy bringing a community to a better place with art and in turn everything else.”
The August 22 event is billed as a “low-key fundraiser.” Although donations will be gratefully accepted, there’ll be no silent auction, no paddle raise, no pressure.
Tickets for this year’s benefit party are $90 and are available, along with all other festival events, at siletzbaymusic.org. $50 of the benefit dinner ticket fee will qualify for a tax deduction.
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